4th August: Back at BC
August 4th, 2009 by Jake
A very tired Jake rang us this afternoon (our time) to report in. He is back at Base camp, tired but happy.
It seems that the conditions on top of the mountain were horrendous: Jake was leading his group up from C3 to C4, trying to wade through waste-high sugary snow with a faulty O2 system and the going really was incredibly tough. After several hours of hell, two of his four turned round leaving Jake and one other (I am not sure which) to struggle on. Eventually, completely exhausted, they decided to call it a day – nice try but not this time!
Meanwhile, the other four had made it (somehow) to C4 and spent a terrible night with very high winds and extreme cold. At 4am, the other two (I am sorry I am not sure who) were so exhausted that they decided that they could not go on - leaving Fabrizio and Ron to try for the top. The going was truly awful: deep snow, sheet rock where there should have been ice (easier to fix lines) and when they arrived at the bottleneck the wind was so great that bullets of rock and ice were pouring through at the climbers making it impossible to continue. At this point Fabrizio wisely decided to stop, as did all the climbers from the other groups.
So no summit success at all on K2 this year.
So what of Jake? He is really tired, and after a hearty meal his first plan is to sleep. He is definitely not despondent, or disappointed. He and all the others tried their best but this year the mountain said NO.
I have to say that all of us – his family - are thrilled and relieved that he is safely back down again. Fi, Jake’s mum, and I are so proud of him, as are all of his immediate family and step-families (Max, Mike and Caroline) not to mention his two grandmothers and his various uncles, aunts, cousins…..oh hell this could go on forever!
Jake will write a blog tomorrow (hopefully) but he particularly wanted everybody to know that all of his extremities are intact.
HUGH
It seems that the conditions on top of the mountain were horrendous: Jake was leading his group up from C3 to C4, trying to wade through waste-high sugary snow with a faulty O2 system and the going really was incredibly tough. After several hours of hell, two of his four turned round leaving Jake and one other (I am not sure which) to struggle on. Eventually, completely exhausted, they decided to call it a day – nice try but not this time!
Meanwhile, the other four had made it (somehow) to C4 and spent a terrible night with very high winds and extreme cold. At 4am, the other two (I am sorry I am not sure who) were so exhausted that they decided that they could not go on - leaving Fabrizio and Ron to try for the top. The going was truly awful: deep snow, sheet rock where there should have been ice (easier to fix lines) and when they arrived at the bottleneck the wind was so great that bullets of rock and ice were pouring through at the climbers making it impossible to continue. At this point Fabrizio wisely decided to stop, as did all the climbers from the other groups.
So no summit success at all on K2 this year.
So what of Jake? He is really tired, and after a hearty meal his first plan is to sleep. He is definitely not despondent, or disappointed. He and all the others tried their best but this year the mountain said NO.
I have to say that all of us – his family - are thrilled and relieved that he is safely back down again. Fi, Jake’s mum, and I are so proud of him, as are all of his immediate family and step-families (Max, Mike and Caroline) not to mention his two grandmothers and his various uncles, aunts, cousins…..oh hell this could go on forever!
Jake will write a blog tomorrow (hopefully) but he particularly wanted everybody to know that all of his extremities are intact.
HUGH
