Just the Facts
I ended up in the ER last night after being wracked with incapacitating and severe stomach pain. The doctors initially thought I had a gall stone but after many tests, decided I had just picked up an extremely noisome virus from Central Asia. After numbing my stomach, and giving me several Percocets, I was discharged and promptly went out to downtown Seattle and spend the rest of the evening in a small club getting bludgeoned by the local Black Metal act, Wolves in the Throne Room. It was a good head check and rather abrupt “welcome home, Vince.”
Anyway, after cruising the various websites for spray I found trumped up and partially accurate stuff about our expedition. First off, don’t believe the hype. Second off, I know I am coming off as a hypocrite as I said that we would not be doing any updates from basecamp when, in fact, Steve was phoning in and leaving online voice reports on thecleanestline.com. Well, I did not know about this beforehand and since Steve’s doing the reports basically helped us recoup the cost of our sat phone bill (it gets expensive calling up girlfriends and weather forecasters), it now does not seem like such a bad thing. Even though the information was coming straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, others still managed to not get the story (exactly) right.
So, without going into gory detail, which, I promise I will do as I have time and my health improves, here are the simple facts of the expedition in outline form.
Sulu Peak (ca. 6,000 m) via a possible new route on the WNW face, 1,000 m, TD.
Naisa/Nasir Brak (5,100 m) via a new route up the SW ridge, 800m, 5.11.
Farol West (ca. 6,300 m) attempt (we made it to the schrund so, I guess that qualifies as an attempt, barely).
K7 West (ca. 6,800 m) first ascent of peak via South face couloir, 2,000 m, ED, 5.10/11, WI 5.
POS Ridge (5,000 m) possible first ascent of South ridge, 800 m, 5.10, grass 2.
K6 West (7,100 m) attempt via NNW face (we did not even get to the schrund on this one but had one bivy near the base after negotiating the lower icefall on approach).
We also did some very good bouldering while there, but this, as was pointed out to me by Marko, was akin to going to a whorehouse to masturbate.
That is about the size of it. Like I said, there will be more to come as for details and stories. I got a lot to say, especially about those pesky Russians on K2. Check back in a few days.
