K2, What a mountain. It is 8612 meters high, but when I stand here in base camp, at 5100 meters, and look at it, it doesn't fell like it is more than 1000 meters to the summit. It is a weird feeling when I know it is more than 3500 meters to the top.

A few days ago when Michele and I was on our first acclimatization trip we got to experience how big the mountain really is. We left base camp at seven in the morning and walked along the Godwin Austen Glacier for 30 minutes up to the foot of K2 and the start of the Cesen Route. With ski boots and crampons on our feet, poles in our hands and a heavy backpack filled with a tent, sleeping bag, primus stove, gas, food etc. and a pair of skis strapped onto it, we started the climbing. At the beginning it was a nice ski slope of 30 degrees with perfect hard packed snow. Nice to climb on. We climbed on the right hand side of a big snow slope close to a rock ridge to stay out of the danger zone of a large Serac hanging above the left side of the slope. The ski slope got steeper, between 40-50 degrees and the snow got deeper. I had a hard time to stop dreaming about the upcoming ski descent on this perfect slope in soft powder snow. But first we had to find a tent spot where we could spend the night. I would have liked to ski down straight away but for our acclimatization it is best to spend time on higher altitude. To find a spot for the tent proved to be very difficult. We started the search at 5700 meters but it wasn't until we reached 6000 meters, after a total of seven hours of climbing, that we found a spot that we could imaging being flat. After some digging and building we had a semi-bad tent spot with two of the corners hanging in the air. Guess who got to sleep on that side of the tent? Not surprisingly, I slept pretty good anyway.

The next morning both Michele and I woke up with a headache and it was blowing and snowing outside. Great! After breakfast and a bit of fresh air my headache was gone but Michele must have caught some altitude illness since he didn't get well until we were back in base camp. After chilling in our tent for a few hours it stopped snowing and cleared up so we put our skis on and started sliding down the mountain. We took it easy in the beginning since I am always a bit unsecure on a new mountain especially when it is steep and rocks around. The snow was better than we had expected, cold and just a little windpacked and it was sloughing a bit. When the slope opened up I could do bigger turns and carry more speed, just cruising down the mountain. I had a big smile on my face, cause even if only a third of the mountain, we were skiing on K2. I got 900 vertical meters of nice skiing before I, totally euphoric, took my skis off 30 meters from my tent in BC. I had just skied the coolest ski slope in the world.

We will now have a few days of rest in base camp, charging batteries, before the next ski adventure on K2.   

Book that I'm reading: Richard Branson - Business Stripped bare - Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur

Music on my MP3 player: No power

K2 Ski Expedition 2009 - Update 2

Altitude - 5135 meters

After seven days of trekking up the Baltoro Valley we have finally reached the base camp of K2 which will be our home for the next six weeks. This is where the climbing on K2 starts.

From Skardu we drove Landrovers on very small and bumpy roads to a village called Askole. The drive was six hours long and one of the scariest I have ever had. At one point we had to go through a small waterfall. The road was only as wide as the car. On one side was a rock wall and on the other was a hundred meters drop down to the river. The road was muddy from all the water and on our first try we got stuck in the mud and had to back up. The second try we had to touch the rock wall not to slide off the road. Fortunately we had a good driver and made it through. I was happy to arrive in Askole in one peace. That car ride was probably be more scary than anything we will face on K2.

To get all our equipment and food for six weeks up to K2 we had to hire porters. The farmers from Askole were happy to help us out. So happy that they almost started fighting about the loads. It was a bit chaotic before we had distributed the 40 loads to the porters. Unfortunately there where some guys that showed hoping to get work that didn't get any. Hopefully they will get some when the next expedition shows up.

The trek up the Baltoro Valley is a long walk. We hiked for six days and about 5-6 hours every day on small or non existing trails. It was rocks, sand and ice in an uneven mix. For a weak guy like me that is painful. My feet were not exactly happy after six hours of walking on rocks and glaciers.
About halfway on the trek the porters wanted a break so we had one rest day in a camp called Paiju. Our Guide had brought a live Goat for food. With my stomach problems I wasn't so hungry for goat meat , neither was Michele so we gave it to the porters. They got very happy and had a little meatfest on our rest day in Paiju. 

The higher up we got the better the views got. We passed some great mountains like the Trango Towers, Mustagh Tower and Masherbrum and at that point I even stopped whining about the pain in my feet. The experience culminated at Concordia. From that great junction of glaciers you can view some of the finest mountains in the world: Mitre Peak, Gasherbrum 4, Broad Peak and K2. If you go there in beginning of June when there's not much people, like we did, it's a truly amazing place.
From Concordia we had a five hours walk up the Godwin Austen Glacier to K2 base camp, including a tea break with two Austrian climbers at Broad Peak base camp. Just to make a our day a bit more interesting, with a teacup in my hand I got to watch a French guy fly down from high up on Broad Peak with a Paraglider. Not a bad tea break.

Anyway, we have now arrived at K2 base camp which will be our home for the next six weeks. Everything is good. The stomach problems that has been bothering me since I left my Pizza diet and ventured into the Pakistani food in Islamabad is now gone. My Italian mate Michele is my mentor on the food, he says that you can never eat too much Pizza. ;)
We are now getting ready to start climbing on K2, the mountain of my dreams. 

K2

Gasherbrum 4

If you have the possibility, check out the Baltoro Glacier and K2 on Goggle Earth. It's pretty cool.

Facts:

GPS Position:
Lat N 35°50,34'
Lon E 076°30,85'

Book that I'm reading: Anthony Kiedis - Scar Tissue

Music on my MP3 player: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication

This update is a week old. I tried to send it on the 4th but for some reason the email wasn’t sent. And after that I haven’t had internet access until now.

Anyway, from now on the updates will come regularly. /Fredrik

K2 Ski Expedition - Update 1

2009-06-04 - Skardu

Altitude: 2220 meters

A lot has happened the last few days. Some good and some bad.

I arrived in Islamabad last Sunday without any problems. I didn’t miss any flights, all my bags arrived, even the gear that I sent by cargo a couple of weeks ago was in Islamabad waiting for me. Chocking!

But as always on my trips, some things doesn't go as planned. This time it wasn't me but my climbing partner Michele who got into trouble. When I was about to board the plane in Frankfurt I got an sms from Michele saying: “Do you have Pakistan Visa? I stop in airport because I don’t have Visa“. Apparently Michele had forgot to get the Visa that one needs to enter Pakistan. That turned out to be a small problem. Michele went to the Embassy of Pakistan in Milano last Monday and got the Visa in one day and could get on a plane for Pakistan two days later. So today when he joined me here in Skardu we could just laugh about that incident.

A much less entertaining thing was the news we got from the Ministry of Tourism. The other day I went there on what I thought was the regular "sign some papers and smile" exercise and I would walk away with the climbing permit for K2 and trekking permit for Laila Peak. But that was not the case. We got the climbing permit for K2 alright but they didn't give us the trekking permit to go to Laila Peak. I tried to ask them why and the funny thing was that they didn't have an answer. They just said NO. We put in a second application for the trekking permit but it didn't help. The answer was the same. I'm very disappointed that we can't go to Laila Peak since that, along with K2, was the big goal of this trip. It's hard to see anything positive in that now but I guess in a few days I might find something.

Other than that I have started to feel some movements in my stomach and lost my appetite. I must have caught some sort of bug which is not uncommon when you travel to Pakistan. So far it's not so bad and I've started to eat antibiotics. Hopefully it will be all gone in a few days.

The good things then.. Well, we are on the way towards K2. It has been my dream for many years now and finally it is happening. So things could be worse.

Tomorrow we will drive up to Askole and from there we will start the six days long trek towards K2 base camp. More news when we arrive in base camp around June 11.

K2 and Laila Peak Ski Expedition 2009

In the end of May Im going to Pakistan with my Italian friend Michele Fait to try to climb and ski the worlds second highest mountain K2 (8612m). As acclimatization for K2 we will make an attempt to ski Laila Peak (6069m).

The expedition starts on May 30 when we will fly to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. We will spend a few days in the city for meetings with the Pakistan Alpine club to organize climbing permit and Karakurum Magic Mountain (KMM), our Trekking Agency. KMM helps us with all the logistics in Pakistan and will set us up with a base camp team that will cook food for Michele and I when we are in base camp.

From Islamabad we have a one hour flight up north to Skardu, the last town before we hit the mountains. Skardu is our last opportunity to pick up gear and food that we need for our two months stay in the mountains. Epi gas for our Primus stoves, chips and chocolate bars are some of the things we will buy in Skardu.

From Skardu a five hours drive takes us to the small village of Hushe at the end of the road. From there on we will continue on foot. Around May 6 we start the two days trek towards Laila Peak.

K2 is known as the Savage Mountain due to the difficulty of ascent and the high fatality rate among those who climb it. For every four people who have reached the summit, one has died trying. Among the eight-thousanders K2 has the second highest climbing mortality rate.

After Laila Peak we will arrive at K2 base camp around June 20. Then we have about three weeks of acclimatization before we try for the summit. The route we will try to climb and ski is called The Cesen Route and is the south-southeast ridge.

You can follow our progress here on the website where I regularly will post updates and photos.

Our trekking agency in Pakistan: Karakurum Magic Mountain

Interesting books:

The Flame of Adventure by Simon Yates

My Vertical World by Jerzy Kukuczka

End of ski season

After a week of bad weather it finally cleared up yesterday. Together with my friends Michael, Wolfgang, Eva and Kaj I went to Aiguille du Midi to finish of the ski season with one of the classic ski runs in Chamonix: The Cosmique Couloir. After all the precipitation the last week we were hoping that the couloir would be filled up with powder snow. It started good. The top section was better than it has been all winter and we could ski in without using any rope. The steep and normally very hardpacked upper part was now covered with soft snow. Making our expectations get even higher. But then it gradually changed. Lower down in the couloir the powder snow had blown away and the warm temperatures had changed the surface into some sort of ice and it was getting more and more uneven. The end of the couloir was the worst I have ever seen it, with big ice runnels that were almost impossible to ski on.
Not the best skiing of the season but it was a nice day with good company. We finished off the evening with a BBQ at Kajs place. It will be nice with a bit of summer before I head to Pakistan.

Michael Devor at the top of the Cosmique Couloir. Hes expecting some good skiing.

Kaj Zackrisson checking out the soft snow at the top of the Cosmique Couloir

Michael Devor enjoying the powder, unknowing what will come

Nice day, horrible skiing and good meat.

Preparations for Pakistan expedition

The preparations for this summers Pakistan expedition are full on. Im doing my best to get into shape with running, mountainbiking, skiing and alpine climbing. The weather has been very unstable lately so conditions for climbing high peaks hasnt been great. I have made two unsuccesful attempts of Aigulle Verte and Mont Blanc. Intead Ive had some good powder skiing on Grands Montets and some nice ski touring on Col de Passon and Col des Courtes.

I will soon post more information, about the Pakistan expedition and the mountains I will try to ski, here on the site. Stay tuned..

Col des Courtes on the Argentiere Glacier in Chamonix

Some weeks ago I climbed and skied the Col des Courtes togther with Nicolas. We were lucky with the conditions and had around 20 cm of soft powder snow on the steep face. Nice day!

Pure Freeride Camp

Im just back in Chamonix again after a trip to Abisko in the north of Sweden for the Pure Freeride Camp. More than 80 people spent the weekend together in Abisko. The three days was packed with activities like guided skitouring, ice climbing, freeride competition, lectures and live music with the Balboas. It was a great weekend that hopefully will be an reoccuring event.  More info and images on: www.purefreeridecamp.se

Gaute and Mats enjoying the mountains near Abisko

The Balboas with guest star Jerk Looman was rocking as usual

More new images

The gallery has been updated with new images from Iceland and Svalbard.

Enjoy!

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