The Mountain Company's K2 & Gondogoro La trek in
This will be my seventh trek to K2 Base Camp and as usual I am looking forward to returning to
Please get in contact with us soon if you would like to join this group
I arrived back to
The group arrived to
When the group arrived to
On arrival to Skardu we heard that bad weather from 7th caused a number of landslides in the region and near to Skardu sadly killed 45 people and in Talis village 13 people perished in further landslides.
The group stayed at K2 Motel in Skardu, this is located in a safe area however we could clearly see that the
The next day we left early in jeeps for the drive to Askole however shortly after Shigar village we encountered a new block on the road where overnight a mudslide had destroyed the road. Everyone in our team as well as several other trekking groups helped by collecting rocks to build the road through the mud slide area. After several hours the jeeps were able to clear the block (with some impressive driving!) and then the group crossed over the river. Further along the road there was one further landslide where we had to swap jeeps then continued our drive to Thongol where we camped for the night.
The next morning we started the trek and after an hour we arrived to Askole, this is the last village on the trek until Hushe on the other side of Gondogoro La. The weather was sunny and very hot so everyone was hopeful the monsoon rains were retreating back south again. We experienced mixed cloud and sun for the next few days and in fact this made the walking very pleasant as otherwise can be very hot at this altitude.
The trek progressed as planned and after our rest day at Urdukas the weather starting to improve further and we enjoyed a memorable lunch at Goro 1 as the clouds dissipated over
After arrival to Concordia on 19th we discussed the options for the next day, five people decided to make the long walk to K2 Base Camp and Gilkey memorial while the others opted for the shorter walk to Broad Base Camp. As ever it was an emotional visit to Gilkey especially seeing the new memorial and a broken ski from Fredrik Ericsson who died earlier this summer.
On 21st the group enjoyed a rest day at Concordia and were blessed with perfect weather and incredibly views of
Shortly after Monin and I got back to Ali Camp the group arrived after their walk up from Concordia, everyone enjoyed this trek as is one of the best days with superb views back to
We decided to leave Ali Camp at
At The Mountain Company we believe strongly in looking after our porters, we are the only trekking company operating on the Baltoro that provides waterproof jackets and trousers plus walking shoes to our porters. We follow International Porter Protection Group five guidelines in
Our wonderful cooks and kitchen crew crossed Gondogoro La arrived to our campsite at Khuspang early and then kindly sent up a cooked lunch for us at High Camp, this food was very welcome and gave everyone renewed energy in order to carry on down to Khuspang. The next day we opted to continue our trek down to Shaisho rather than take a rest day. We heard that the bridge below Shaisho had been washed out by the recent rains and instead an enterprising ex High Altitude Porter had rigged a “jhola” or bucket bridge, after carefully inspecting the anchors and the set up we felt confident the group could cross safely and everyone in the group seemed to enjoy this experience of crossing the raging river below!
The next day we walked to Hushe village and then after handing out tips to our fantastic crew we drove to Skardu. The next morning on 26th we tried to fly to Skardu although this flight was cancelled luckily on next day we fly back to
Overall we had a great trip with perfect weather at Concordia and for crossing Gondogoro La, as ever
The Mountain Company plans to run our K2 & Gondogoro La trek again in August 2011 so please get in touch soon if you would like to join this group. We also plan to operate our Snow Lake Biafo Hispar trek in July 2011.
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