Just a quick update. I will post a full summit night report plus a full trip report when I can. We are all back in K2 Base Camp safe as of 8:00pm July 28, 2014. The bottom line for me is at K2 is in a league of it’s own, deserving of my mantra of climbing the world’s hardest mountain to fight the world hardest disease. I will say this many times, my heart gores out to all who supported me and especially to this who made a donation - it is not too late :) We summited K2 on July 27, 2014 at 8:30am local time. It was a long day as we left camp 4 at 10:00pm climbing through the night. I knew I would have to dig deep into a pIace I have never touched and it proved true in many ways. I wanted to stop three distinct times but I kept going. Why? My cause was the only real reason I can give you. A close second was the support I felt from around the world. Thank you, thank you. The traditional Bottleneck was deemed too dangerous to climb after an avalanche left rocks and high ice blocks in the ravine. So we took a slight variation which actually put us in more objective danger from the serac than normal. I must tell you that the entire climb was unbelievably steep - 60-70 degrees - but the traverse was the crux at 80-90 degrees with footing barely large enough to accommodate my crampons front points. The entire time I was climbing higher, all I could think about was how was I going to down climb this section. The final climb to the summit was long with teammates taking turn breaking trail after a meter of fresh snow on the evening of July 26. The decent was difficult, never ending, and left me in amazement I had climbed it at all. I had a few health problems from fatigue to mild HAPE to dehydration. My thanks to Garrett Madison for aggressively treating my symptoms and to Matt and the Sherpa crew, especially Kami, for keeping an watchful eye over me. Our next step is to begin the 70 mile trek back to Askole on July 31 Ok, that’s all for now. I have never been more relieved to be back in a Base Camp, never prouder of my teammates and never more grateful for everyone’s support. My mom would always tell me after a big climb, “I’m glad you got that out of your system.” Well maybe she is right this time, but I will never get the fight against Alzheimer’s out of my system until we find a cure. Climb On! Alan Memories are Everything PS Pictures as soon as I can get a reliable internet connection
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 19:26:58 +0000
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