Dispatch 13 – Trek from Shigring (4733m/15,527ft) to Gasherbrum Base Camp (5083m/16,676ft)

Porters carrying loads toward Gasherbrum Base Camp
Porters carrying loads toward Gasherbrum Base Camp

Today, we woke up at 4:30am, had a quick breakfast, and quickly began trekking to Gasherbrum Base Camp. The snow from last night made the way more difficult, as the small crevasses that riddled the route were covered with weak snow bridges. We punched through more than a few along the way. We arrived to Gasherbrum Base Camp at 10:00am and waited anxiously for our porter loads to arrive. The loads that had come with us to Shigring and those coming from Concordia arrived quite soon after we did. I double checked that everything had arrived then tipped the porters before they headed back down. The place we chose for our base camp was quite steep and required a great deal of effort to make level enough for the mess tent, kitchen tents, and our personal tents. We worked all afternoon on this, the effort made harder by the newly fallen snow and the fact that the stones were frozen in place. We were startled as mortar fire erupted from the army camp just across the glacier from us. It continued all afternoon and we were told it was for target practice and not to worry. It began snowing again in the afternoon so I spent that time setting up my solar charging equipment inside my tent. I had dinner in the kitchen tent with Akbar and went to sleep around 8:30pm. It began snowing quite hard around 1am and continued for most of the night.