Broad Peak - viel länger als breit

Es war ein harter und langer Gipfeltag

Bericht von Lydia, Billi und der Rest des Teams, 17.07.2019

english version below.

Die Schweizer sind ja bekannt dafür, eher langsam zu sein und das ist wohl der Grund, warum wir erst heute unseren Gipfelbericht schicken. Jedoch ist es uns lieber, über einen 100%igen Gipfelerfolg zu berichten als euch weniger gute Nachrichten zu übermitteln. Ja, ihr habt richtig gelesen - das gesamte Team erreichte den Gipfel des Broad Peak am 13. und 14. Juli 2019, und es scheint, als ob alle Teammitglieder den Aufstieg genossen - trotz der riesigen Anstrengungen. “Das war definitiv kein einfacher Sonntagsspaziergang, auch wenn wir am Sonntag auf dem Gipfel standen,” sagt Dominika aus der Schweiz. “Drei Tage steil bergauf - ohne Erholungspassagen. Trotzdem traumhaft schön in einer fantastischen Gegend.” Es war ein harter und langer Gipfeltag und die meisten von uns brauchten zwischen 13 und 15 Stunden vom Lager 3, das auf 6.950 Meter liegt. “Wir entschieden uns bereits um 19 Uhr des Vorabends zu starten, da das Team, das am 13. Juli auf dem Gipfel stand, mehr als 24 Stunden benötigte,” erklärte unser Bergführer Andreas. Und er hatte Recht. Am 13. Juli 2019 standen unser russischer Bergführer Maksim, Karma Sherpa, Nazir aus Pakistan und unser mexikanisches Mitglied, Mauricio auf dem Gipfel des 12.höchsten Berges der Welt. Sie hatten auf dem Weg die Seile fixiert und somit unseren Gipfelerfolg ermöglicht. “Es war großartig,” war Maksims einfacher Kommentar während Mauricio eines seiner großen Ziele erreichte. “Ich habe meinen langgehegten Traum einmal auf einem 8.000er zu stehen erfüllt. Ich fühlte mich wie auf dem Dach der Welt.” Für Ket war nicht nur der Gipfeltag etwas Besonderes. Es war auch die sich immer wechselnde Route. “Mir hat jede Rotation am Berg gefallen,” sagt sie. “Mir hat die Herausforderung Spaß gemacht, die Befriedigung den Gipfel zu erreichen und die Route, die sich immer wieder änderte.”

Trotz der riesigen körperlichen Anstrengungen, die ein 1000 Meter Anstieg mit sehr steilen Sektionen mit sich bringt, hatte Euan immer noch das Gefühl in den Ferien zu sein: “Das war die Kulmination eines perfekten Urlaubs,” rief er aus während Stefan, unser ‘Oldie, nach diesem Erfolg die Welt der 8.000er verlassen will - schließlich stand er schon auf den vier höchsten Gipfeln. “Es war eine großartige Erfahrung, aber es war wohl doch mein Letzter.” Viele von uns sind sich einig, dass die Welt der 8.000er extrem herausfordernd ist und manchmal stellen wir uns selbst die Frage, warum wir unsere Körper diesen extremen Anstrengungen aussetzen. Um 7 Uhr des Vorabends loszustarten, die ganze Nacht durchzuklettern, um den Gipfel 13 oder 15 später zu erreichen, wenig zu trinken und 48 Stunden lang nichts oder fast nichts zu essen, ist für die meisten von uns schwer zu verstehen. “Ich bin immer wieder verwundert, was der Körper alles schaffen kann,” sagt Billi, die nun doch noch einen weiteren 8.000er besteigen will, um ihr Projekt “Die Hälfte der 14 8.000er” zu beenden - etwas, was Dean Staples auf dieser Expedition bereits erreicht hat. “Jetzt habe ich es geschafft sieben 8000er zu erreichen. Aber wird es vielleicht doch noch einen Achten geben?” fragt er sich.

Nach diesen paar Wochen, die wir gemeinsam auf dem Godwin-Austin Gletscher verbracht haben, haben wir einen hervorragenden Teamgeist entwickelt, was am Gipfeltag sehr offensichtlich wurde. “Es war wunderbar, Teil eines so wunderbaren Teams zu sein, das so gut zusammenarbeitet,” bemerkt Lydia. “Ich bin schon auf vielen Expeditionen gewesen, aber diese Ansammlung von so vielen verschiedenen, kompetenten und intelligenten Leuten war einzigartig.” Jürgen hat mit dem Broad Peak bereits die Gipfel von drei 8.000ern erreicht, was etwas ganz Besonderes für ihn ist. “Es war mein dritter 8.000er, den ich ohne Flaschensauerstoff erreicht habe,” sagt er demütig während er sein wohlverdientes Cola schlürft. “Und alle drei habe ich mit Andreas erreicht, was sehr speziell ist. Ich bin extrem dankbar, dass ich das erleben darf.” Das Erlebnis war zweifellos für die meisten von uns einzigartig und außer dem Gipfelerfolg hatten wir alle verschiedene Highlights während der 72 Stunden, die wir am Berg verbrachten. Einige waren extrem froh, nach dem Gipfel das Lager 3 zu erreichen; andere konnten von dem atemberaubendem Panorama nicht genug bekommen; und andere konnten es wiederum kaum erwarten, am Crampon Point anzukommen, wo unser fürsorgliches Küchenteam mit Keksen und Cola auf uns warteten - eine willkommene Abwechslung zum faden Schmelzwasser, das wir in den Hochlagern tranken. Und andere waren einfach froh, mit allen Extremitäten zurückzukommen. “Finger gut, Zehen gut, alles gut,” so Norbert.

Nachdem wir am Gipfeltag 24 Stunden, und am folgenden Tag zwischen sechs und 10 Tagen unterwegs waren, würde man meinen, dass wir alle in unseren Schlafsäcken kollabieren würden sobald wir das Basislager, das unser Küchenteam liebevoll mit Gebetsfahnen und Blumen dekoriert hatten, erreichen. Manche von uns konnten jedoch den langersehnten Schlaf nicht finden. “In der Nacht nach dem Gipfel lag ich trotz Müdigkeit lange wach, da es faszinierend ist, mitten drin in dieser wundersamen Welt zu sein. Man fühlt sich so lebendig und vollkommen,” sagt Caro. Für Lukasz bedeutete der Gipfel viele verschiedene Dinge. “Der Gipfeltag schrieb seine eigene Geschichte,” sagt er. “Mondäne Prosa, Thriller, Fantasie und ein Happy End. Das ist wahres Bergsteigen!”

Das wahre Bergsteigen ist jedoch noch nicht ganz vorbei. Unser Plan für die nächsten paar Tage ist das Basislager zusammenzuräumen, unser Material zusammenzupacken und unser vorübergehendes Zuhause Richtung Gondoro La am Freitag, den 19. Juli zu verlassen. Wegen der Varietät haben wir uns entschieden, über diesen 5.600 Meter hohen Pass nach Skardu zurückzuwandern. Wir hoffen, am 22. Juli nach Islamabad zu fliegen und noch ein oder zwei Nächte in der pakistanischen Hauptstadt zu verbringen, bevor wir in verschiedenen Flugzeugen zurück zu unseren Familien, Freunden und Menschen, die uns nahe stehen, zu fliegen.

Vielen Dank an alle, die unsere Expedition =während der letzten paar Wochen verfolgt haben, denn ohne Eure positiven Gedanken und guten Wünsche hätten wir wohl nicht genug Kraft und Energie gefunden, den Gipfel zu erreichen, der am Tag zwar nicht besonders BREIT aber sicherlich LANG erschien!

Herzliche und glückliche Grüße von einem zufriedenen Basislager.

Lydia, Billi und der Rest des Teams

Long Peak rather than Broad Peak

The Swiss are known for being slow, hence the latish update on our summit success. However, we’d much rather send the news of a 100 per cent summit success a little late than having less good news for you. Yes, you’ve read correctly - the entire team summited on 13 and 14 July 2019 and all team members seemed to have had a great time, despite the huge effort. “It was certainly no Sunday walk even though we reached the summit on a Sunday,” says Dominika from Switzerland. “We steeply ascended for three days, without recovery sections, but the experience was beautiful in an amazing setting.” It was a hard and long summit day with most people taking between 13 and 15 hours from Camp 3, which lies at an altitude of 6,950m. “We decided to leave at 7pm on 13 July as the team, who went the previous day, took more than 24 hours return” our guide, Andreas, explained. And he was right. On 13 July 2019, Maksim from Russia, Karma Sherpa, Nazir, our Pakistani high altitude porter, and one of our team members, Mauricio from Mexico, already reached the summit of the 12th highest peak in the world on 13 July - doing a great job at fixing the ropes and making our summit success possible. “It was great,” Maksim simply said while Mauricio realised one of his long-lasting desires: “It was fulfilling my dream standing on the summit of an 8,000m peak. I felt like being on the top of the world.” For Ket, it was not only the summit day that was special, it was the variety of the route every time we went up. “I loved every single rotation,” she said. “I enjoyed the challenge, the satisfaction to reach the summit and the ever-changing route.”

Despite the huge physical efforts on summit day with more than 1,000 meters ascent, partially very steep sections, Euan still felt that he was on vacation: “The culmination of an awesome holiday!” he blurted out, while Stefan, our ‘Oldy”, decided to quit the world of the 8,000m peaks after having reached the summits of four of them. “It was a great experience, but after all, it was my last 8000er,” he says. Many of us would agree that the world of the 8,000m peaks is extremely challenging and we sometimes wonder why we are putting our bodies through it. Starting out at 7pm of the previous day and climbing all through the night to reach the summit 12 or 15 hours later, drinking very little and not eating at all for 48 hours is hard to imagine for many of us. “I am always amazed what the body can do,” says Billi, who is now keen to get one more 8,000m peak under her belt to finish her project of reaching the summits of seven of the fourteen - something Dean Staples has achieved by reaching the summit of Broad Peak. “I have now climbed half of the 14 8,000m peaks in the world. But will there be a number eight??” he wonders.

Having spent the past few weeks on the Godwin-Austin Glacier, the whole team has bonded and that certainly became obvious on summit day. “It was great to see such an experienced team working so greatly together,” Lydia observed. “I have been on many expeditions but this collection of very different and very able and intelligent people was unique.” Jürgen alone is now the proud summiteer of three 8,000m peaks, something that is very special to him. “It was my third 8,000m peak without using supplemental oxygen in three different countries,” he says humbly, sipping his well-deserved Coke. “And I summited all of them with Andreas. This is very special to me and I am very grateful that I have been able to experience this.” The experience was no doubt very unique for most of us, and apart from having reached the summit, we all had different highlights during the 72 hours we spent on the mountain. Some were more than happy to reach Camp 3 after topping out, others could not get enough of the amazing views and some could not wait to get to crampon point were our amazing kitchen team was lingering with biscuits and Coke and Sprite - a welcome change to the stale melted water we had been drinking at the high camp. And others were grateful for having come back with all 20 digits. “Fingers good, toes good, all good,” Norbert exclaimed.

After having been on the go for more than 24 hours and an additional six to 10 hours on the following day, one would expect that we all would simply collapse into our sleeping bags once we reached our luxurious base camp, which our kitchen team nicely decorated with flags and flowers flapping in the strong wind, which we did not have on our summit day. However, for some of us sleep did not arrive: “I was lying awake fro a long time in the night after our summit success,” says Caro. “The reason for this was the fascination of being in this wonderful world. You feel so alive and complete.” For Lukasz, summit day meant a lot of different things: “Summit day wrote it’s own story. Mundane prose, thriller, fantasy, and happy end. True mountaineering!”

The true mountaineering is not quite over yet. Our plans for the next few days is to clean up base camp, pack up and leave for the Gondoro La on Friday, 19 July. We decided to take a different route back to Skardu via this 5,600m pass. We are hoping to fly back to Islamabad on 22 July and spend a few nights in the Pakistani capital before we will all take various planes back to our family, friends and loved ones.

Thank you so much for following our expedition as without your positive thoughts and good wishes, we would not have had the strength and power to reach this peak, which on the day did not seem so BROAD, but certainly LONG!

Warm and happy greetings from a jolly base camp.

Lydia, Billi and the rest of the team.

The Swiss are known for being slow, hence the latish update on our summit success. However, we’d much rather send the news of a 100 per cent summit success a little late than having less good news for you. Yes, you’ve read correctly - the entire team summited on 13 and 14 July 2019 and all team members seemed to have had a great time, despite the huge effort. “It was certainly no Sunday walk even though we reached the summit on a Sunday,” says Dominika from Switzerland. “We steeply ascended for three days, without recovery sections, but the experience was beautiful in an amazing setting.” It was a hard and long summit day with most people taking between 13 and 15 hours from Camp 3, which lies at an altitude of 6,950m. “We decided to leave at 7pm on 13 July as the team, who went the previous day, took more than 24 hours return” our guide, Andreas, explained. And he was right. On 13 July 2019, Maksim from Russia, Karma Sherpa, Nazir, our Pakistani high altitude porter, and one of our team members, Mauricio from Mexico, already reached the summit of the 12th highest peak in the world on 13 July - doing a great job at fixing the ropes and making our summit success possible. “It was great,” Maksim simply said while Mauricio realised one of his long-lasting desires: “It was fulfilling my dream standing on the summit of an 8,000m peak. I felt like being on the top of the world.” For Ket, it was not only the summit day that was special, it was the variety of the route every time we went up. “I loved every single rotation,” she said. “I enjoyed the challenge, the satisfaction to reach the summit and the ever-changing route.”

Despite the huge physical efforts on summit day with more than 1,000 meters ascent, partially very steep sections, Euan still felt that he was on vacation: “The culmination of an awesome holiday!” he blurted out, while Stefan, our ‘Oldy”, decided to quit the world of the 8,000m peaks after having reached the summits of four of them. “It was a great experience, but after all, it was my last 8000er,” he says. Many of us would agree that the world of the 8,000m peaks is extremely challenging and we sometimes wonder why we are putting our bodies through it. Starting out at 7pm of the previous day and climbing all through the night to reach the summit 12 or 15 hours later, drinking very little and not eating at all for 48 hours is hard to imagine for many of us. “I am always amazed what the body can do,” says Billi, who is now keen to get one more 8,000m peak under her belt to finish her project of reaching the summits of seven of the fourteen - something Dean Staples has achieved by reaching the summit of Broad Peak. “I have now climbed half of the 14 8,000m peaks in the world. But will there be a number eight??” he wonders.

Having spent the past few weeks on the Godwin-Austin Glacier, the whole team has bonded and that certainly became obvious on summit day. “It was great to see such an experienced team working so greatly together,” Lydia observed. “I have been on many expeditions but this collection of very different and very able and intelligent people was unique.” Jürgen alone is now the proud summiteer of three 8,000m peaks, something that is very special to him. “It was my third 8,000m peak without using supplemental oxygen in three different countries,” he says humbly, sipping his well-deserved Coke. “And I summited all of them with Andreas. This is very special to me and I am very grateful that I have been able to experience this.” The experience was no doubt very unique for most of us, and apart from having reached the summit, we all had different highlights during the 72 hours we spent on the mountain. Some were more than happy to reach Camp 3 after topping out, others could not get enough of the amazing views and some could not wait to get to crampon point were our amazing kitchen team was lingering with biscuits and Coke and Sprite - a welcome change to the stale melted water we had been drinking at the high camp. And others were grateful for having come back with all 20 digits. “Fingers good, toes good, all good,” Norbert exclaimed.

After having been on the go for more than 24 hours and an additional six to 10 hours on the following day, one would expect that we all would simply collapse into our sleeping bags once we reached our luxurious base camp, which our kitchen team nicely decorated with flags and flowers flapping in the strong wind, which we did not have on our summit day. However, for some of us sleep did not arrive: “I was lying awake fro a long time in the night after our summit success,” says Caro. “The reason for this was the fascination of being in this wonderful world. You feel so alive and complete.” For Lukasz, summit day meant a lot of different things: “Summit day wrote it’s own story. Mundane prose, thriller, fantasy, and happy end. True mountaineering!”

The true mountaineering is not quite over yet. Our plans for the next few days is to clean up base camp, pack up and leave for the Gondoro La on Friday, 19 July. We decided to take a different route back to Skardu via this 5,600m pass. We are hoping to fly back to Islamabad on 22 July and spend a few nights in the Pakistani capital before we will all take various planes back to our family, friends and loved ones.

Thank you so much for following our expedition as without your positive thoughts and good wishes, we would not have had the strength and power to reach this peak, which on the day did not seem so BROAD, but certainly LONG!

Warm and happy greetings from a jolly base camp.

Lydia, Billi and the rest of the team.