Gasherbrum I Expedition

Dispatch 30 – Rest Day in Base Camp; Kinga Summits

Rainbows painted the sky as I descended from Camp II to Base Camp. Since a picture of snowy base camp is boring, I decided to post this one instead. Perhaps this was Mother Nature’s way of celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality in the United States.
Rainbows painted the sky as I descended from Camp II to Base Camp. Since a picture of snowy base camp is boring, I decided to post this one instead. Perhaps this was Mother Nature’s way of celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality in the United States.

Today, after a very restless sleep in Base Camp (in part thanks to the machine gun fire from the army camp during the night which I later found out was to celebrate Eid), I woke up at 7:30am and had breakfast in the mess tent with Akbar. Afterwards, I got the news that Kinga Baranowska (Poland) was successful in her summit bid and had reached the summit of Gasherbrum II yesterday, despite new snow that had partially filled in the boot track from the day before. I spent the rest of the morning tending to my horrible blisters hoping that I can get them to heal sufficiently for another summit bid in the coming days. In the afternoon I got a visit from the Taiwanese who discussed weather and possible plans on the mountain. The weather report I have is not very encouraging, however, I remain hopeful that the usual end of July summit window will somehow materialize and that the forecast heavy snow will not. I have until July 31st before I must begin trekking down. In the evening, I ate dinner with Manzoor and Akbar in the warm kitchen tent as light snow began falling outside.