Base Camp!

The seventh and last day on the trek greeted us with a snowfall; the queen of mountains cast her white veil over us… under which we finally reached the K2 base camp.

Wednesday – 22/6/2016 – TAKING IT EASY IN BASE CAMP

When it’s not snowing as it is now, we mostly stare at the peaks of Broad Peak and K2, between which we’ve set up – for the next few weeks – our base camp. Now that we’re surrounded by massive mountains, the dusty and sweaty trek overture at temperatures close to 40 degrees is but a vanished memory. We’re sitting together in the expedition tent, wrapped in several layers of down, our fingers freezing to the iPad keyboard. Nonetheless, we’re hugely gratified. We’ve seen K2 with our own eyes and the Earth stopped in its orbit.

We’ve unpacked our stuff, and each of us in their separate tents start writing a new story of K2. Tomorrow we don’t need to – and will not – get up at 4 a.m. as we did on the trek in order to keep to the schedule; we will no longer be trudging over stones and boulders covered in dust and splashed with our sweat. Time to take it easy for a while! All’s fine except Peter’s drone made in China – it probably sensed the proximity of Chinese border where the thin air brought it down. A good friend, alas, no more with us, but the show must go on. Should it be the only misfortune on our way, it would be great!