Jake’s K2 Blog #15: Welcome to the leisuredome

K2 Expedition 2018

Location: Basecamp

We’ve been ‘resting’ in basecamp for 2 days now, mainly because there has been two days of pretty shoddy weather, which has more or less prevented us from doing much.

Fortunately, despite the snow and white out conditions, the UV from the sun just about gets through, and heats up the big dome tent nicely. I’ve therefore mostly been spending my time in there, reading, watching films on my iPad and listening to music. From around 10am till 4pm, it’s such a nice temperature in there, that I’m in shorts and tshirt, although down jacket goes on the moment you want to step outside.

My permit for Broad Peak has been confirmed (at a grand price of $1200 – which seems a bit steep, but so be it), and therefore I will continue my acclimatisation on that mountain rather than K2.

We had some mules arrive this afternoon with much needed kerosene (we burn around 12 litres a day, so need a good supply), and our oxygen. Whilst the kerosene is a more immediate requirement, the arrival of the oxygen is a huge sigh of relief, as it had been stuck in customs (at the Nepal end) for some time, but we now have 46 bottles of O2 ready for summit attempts which for BP would probably be in around 10 days, and 2-3 weeks for K2. These are complete finger in the air estimates, so don’t hold me to them – ultimately we’ll be at the mercy of the mountain(s), the weather and our own physical condition.

All things being good, we’ll head back up BP for our second rotation tomorrow morning, this time planning to stay 2-3 nights on the hill, and ideally sleep at Camp 2 (6200m), which will be good for our acclimatisation. My bag is packed, ready to go, and although the weather is still not great, hopefully the forecast of higher pressure tomorrow and for the weekend will prevail.

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