Broad Peak – summit attempt

13th of July – Mike sends news from Broad Peak

We had a very interesting 2nd attempt to the summit of Broad Peak. Although we did not make it all the way up because of very strong winds and a lot of fresh deep snow that tapped our energy, we were happy with our performance on one side but very disappointed on the other.

To turn around 200m from the summit is a very difficult but a very important decision to make. The rubicon or 'point of no return' we all so often reach in our life were from then on you have to live with the consequences of your decision. You grow with experience and knowledge and make the right decision the next time around.

We have been waiting in base camp for 4 days since our last attempt and the more we look at the film and photos we took up there, we realise we are happy that we are down at basecamp and that we can attempt a 3rd summit push. We have been the first this year to try for the summit and with the amount of snow on the mountain we have to change our game plan.

Before we climbed from basecamp to camp 2 non-stop at 6300m had something to eat and drink in our tent, and from there tried a return trip to the summit at 8000m and back to base camp. Now we have decided to climb from bace camp to camp 3 non-stop at 7100m, rerst for 4 to 5 hours and leave at 1am to the last summit push and return to base camp.

We will look at the weather today and if all goes well, we'll make the next attempt on the 15th or 16th of July.

Best regards

Mike and Kobi.