The five days of snow squalls and frigid winds have blown themselves out, with the wind now blowing down valley. This morning the sun returned to K2.

Don and Bruce are headed to ABC. If the route to C1 looks safe, I will join them this afternoon. If not, I will meet them there at 5 a.m. We want to get back on the route as soon as possible, but the threat of avalanches flowing over the bottom of our route gives us pause.

Bruce recounts his harrowing experience with an avalanche.

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After all the hype over how dangerous it is to climb K2, it may seem rather audacious and even smug to describe the experience as "fun"- but the truth is, after 6 days of working our new route, "fun" is exactly what we are having. I liken the whole experience to the first time I flirted with a girl and finally received a positive response; to my absolute surprise (and contrary to the outcome of 137 previous attempts) Jody Moore, the cutest girl in my 4th grade classroom, shocked me by reacting favorably to my gesture as she smiled and confidently grabbed my hand. I felt sick to my stomach and ran away...

Check out the video of the Team assessing their route options after they determine that their original goal is inaccessible. Video from Camp 1.

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Hey Gang,

We hope to do a live call in from Camp 1 this Monday, June 18th at 8:30 a.m. EST to the Elliot in the Morning Show on DC101 radio. I hope you can listen in. Talk to you then.

Chris Warner 

Even though we're now entering our third week of the expedition, it's still very early in the Karakoram climbing season.  In all, 15 expeditions have registered to climb K2 this year, but only three have arrived so far - our Shared Summits team currently forging our way past Camp 1 on an unclimbed rib to the east of the Abruzzi Ridge; a team of 10 Czechs who have advanced to Camp 2 on the Cesen route; and a team of 16 Russians who are just getting underway on the West face.  Over the next few weeks, the thin stretch of moraine at the base of K2, called the "strip", will be populated with the arrival of new teams - including Poles, Koreans, Germans, Americans, Italians, and Hungarians - all readying to take their shot at the Savage Mountain.

After the last dispatch, Chris and PV shuttled some loads from our icefall depot to the Abruzzi ABC, continuing to move our equipment up in the pious hope that we would be able to find a way around to our planned ABC on the upper Godwin-Austen Glacier. Because we had eliminated the other options in theory or practice, the only remaining one would be to follow around the base of the Abruzzi, trying to slip between crevasse fields and avalanche slopes, as had the American team in 1978.

We have been in base camp for six days. We've made two strong, yet failed attempts at reaching our planned site for advanced base camp. The first trip, by Don and Bruce, ended at the top of the ice fall, in the center of the Goodwin Austin Glacier, at approx. 18,500 feet. With snow falling, they couldn't see our goal, but felt that the route ahead would be simple.

As you know, the next day, Bruce and I re-traced their steps. One hundred feet short of the previous high point, following a line of marker flags, we were suddenly swallowed by two massive crevasses. It took us an hour to rescue ourselves, and another hour to rescue the gear.