Новости от Марти из Пакистана

Dispatch 5

Hello everyone following Tim and Marty and Giannina up here in Pakistan.

At G1 Base camp, we arrived a couple of days ago and established it, it’s a beautiful site and everything is up and running and feeling comfortable, good food and everything is clicking. Just had a Puja with some of the Sherpas today and several teams are going up to Camp 1 tomorrow. We’re going to be on the mountain for about 3 days and letting you know that we’re going through the glacier and the icefall and get up to Camp 1… and maybe even push up to Camp 2 just to see what it’s like up there, and then get down to Camp 1 and sleep at least a couple of nights at Camp 1 and then get down to Base Camp before it storms on the 1 July. So that’s our game plan…

Everyone is fine and feeling healthy and very happy up here and looking forward to getting up on the mountain. the weather has been quite nice in the mornings and then cladding up a little bit in the afternoon, but for the majority it’s really comfortable right now. just looking forward to getting up the mountain and see what the snow conditions are like and see what the storms in Pakistan have to offer.

OK, so will let you know in a few more days when we’re back from Camp 1 how things are going.
All the best from the Karakoram

***

Dispatch 4

Hi everyone,

Just letting you know we’re finishing our trek up to BC tomorrow the 26th of June and then we start the climb of G2 first and we’ll see what the route is and what the snow conditions are going to be like and what the weather is. There’s already a couple of teams up there… we’ll talk and find out what’s going on… what’s happening up there.

Tim’s doing well and so is Giannina and I and no problem with altitude sickness. We’re eating well, we have a great cook with Ali, the assistant and Viva(?) our main cook and really great food and great company with them. The porters are doing an exquisite job getting our gear up to BC. They don’t have much gear, we give them a bit of gear but they sell it and use it for other means and using their old sneakers with holes in them. You can’t really get around that one. The Balti porters and the Balti people in general just so kind and generous, really good people on this earth and the media definitely paints the wrong picture on what Pakistan has to offer. So hopefully people reading this will visit Pakistan one day and enjoy for themselves and see for themselves and not through the media’s eyes.

So letting everyone know in New Zealand that we’re doing well and have to be in contact with the rest of the world and with all people following us and we’ll let you know what happens in the next week or so when we’re climbing and be in touch with you all.
So thanks so much for following and talk to you in a couple of days. All the best from Concordia, the heartland of the Karakoram with a 360 degrees views right now of all the mountains with Chogolisa and Mitre Peak in front of me and Broad peak and K2 in the distance and Gasherbrum 4 and right behind me is G 1 and 2… it’s endless… it’s wonderful.

OK see you guys soon and bye bye from the Concordia, Pakistan.

***

Hello everyone following Tim and Giannina and I into one of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world.

Started in Skardu and jeep ride into Askole went really well; about an eight or nine hour jeep ride and the world has definitely improved since the last time I was here which was 18 years ago for K2 and Abruzzi. And everything is just upgraded, it’s really good… it’s still a spooky and scary jeep ride but at the same time it’s much better…

It looks like they’re doing military maneuvers with a C-130 right now… there’s one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… parachutes that are coming down… it looks like they’re cargo chutes.

So yeah, we’re at a place called Paiyu right now… at camp Paiyu. It’s our second day in with our trek and after Askole it’s a beautiful entrance into the Karakoram. We can see the Baltoro Glacier from our camp right here… it’s on the side of a hill with beautiful green trees I remember from many years ago and the trees have tripled in size of course. It’s just a really wonderful ‘Shangri-La’ camp site. So we’re resting a full day on our third day and we’ll take off again tomorrow.

So yeah, everything is clicking right along and Tim is feeling good. A few blisters but nothing major and Giannina is the same, so we’re acclimatising and really looking forward to the next seven days going into BC. We start with another section of the Karakoram and when we hit the Baltorro we’ll have the Trango group, Uli Biaho, the Nameless Tower and all these magical mountains to our left as we’re hiking upwards, and to our right is of course Masherbrum, a 7,800m mountain. As we get closer to the Concordia we’re gonna have Gasherbrum 4 right in front of us and then…

[inaudible — connection fails]

[Marty calls back]

It looks like there’s gonna be a lot of snow at the Concordia, and it looks like we’re gonna be really challenged up on the mountains… there’s gonna be a lot of trail breaking and making it happen. So it all feels good up until now. Yesterday was the 21st; the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the winter solstice of course down in the Southern Hemisphere. All the best to you guys skiing on all the great mountain ranges of New Zealand, good talking to you all.

We’re in summer time… the temperatures are roughly around… yesterday during the trek the max was around 38ºC so complete summer time in this mountain dessert as we inch our way up to the Baltoro. Of course at high altitude, much more snow and a lot colder temperatures when you get to 8,000m.

Just passing all these words on to everyone following and letting you know that we’re doing fine and looking forwards to each day and sending all our best to everyone so much love from the Karakoram mountain range and thanks Daan for doing this. I know it’s a bit of a hassle to translate this into words but that’s all I got right now. I just hooked up with an email person of the Korean Team [and I will be able to write email and] send it out to you when I’m in BC but when I’m on the hill I’ll just be doing the sat phones. Thanks Daan and to all the Macpac team I’m thinking of you all and look forward to being in touch.

OK all the best from the Karakoram mountain range and the gateway into one of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world.
Talk soon.
Bye