Chogori is one of the most dangerous mountain peaks to climb. It is known to mountaneers as peak K2. In August, 2011 mountain climbers Maksut Zhumaev and Vasily Pivtsov from Kazakhstan, after five unsuccessful attempts, managed to conquer the summit. The expedition lasted for over two months and included representatives form Germany, Poland, Austria and Argentine who had to face a lot of obstacles on their way to K2.

Below is what Maksut Zhumaev says about it.

8 people were to take part in the expedition but one of the mountaneers from the USA didn’t make it to Bishkek, Kirgizia because he had some problems with his visa.

It’s June, 17th. They woke up in nomad’s tents at 6 in the morning. They were excited and full of energy. Thier next purpose was to hide their sausages from Chinese customs officers.

The city of Kashgar, China. They came here because it was possible to scale the summit either from China or from Pakistan.

June, 19th. They had to buy a lot of food for the expedition. By the way, they managed to go through the Chinese customs bringing 40 cans of horse meat.

Ilik Village. Here they rent out camels and it is a very pricy service because in China they do not allow mountaneers to use helicopters and carriers are extremely rare in the region.

They had to rent 40 camels and hire 10 cameleers. Each camel is able to carry up to 100 kg of load. That day, the villagers made a lot of money.

June, 24th. It’s cloudy and windy.

June, 25th. It’s +35C. They had to cross the Chogori River which was very dangerous. It’s rather deep, with a swift current. Luckily, everything was Ok and they made it to their camp safe and sound.

Onagers.

July, 1st. To get to K2, they had to travel 20 km of moraines and glaciers which was really dangerous. They divided the distance into four parts and after covering each part they had to send information about their location to their relatives or friends.

Their Advanced Base Camp. In these tents, the members of the expedition spent most of their time. They could see green grass growing and just 100 meters away, it was glaciers.

Reporting to the civilization.

They broke three teapots during the first week of the expedition. But it did not matter. K2 was what really mattered.

This man is one of the most experienced mountain videotape operators in the world. In fact, it is very difficult to focus on the beautiful when it’s this cold, windy and you don’t feel your hands.

July, 5th. Weather is getting better.

July, 6th and they were about to begin their climb uphill.

This mountaneer is from Germany. Besides, he is a successful businessman and owner of a large travel agency.

Once, these rope rails saved their lives when an avalanche fell from the mountain top.

In the mountains, people have to drink a lot of water because their body loses a lot of water too (up to 3 liters). They need water not to let their blood thicken because in this case chances to get parts of their body frostbitten increase.

July, 7th. Weather forecast promises winds and snowfall for the next day so they decided to go back to their Depo Camp to take more ropes to bring them to their Camp 1 to keep on climbing. After that, they will be able to go back to their Advanced Base Came to have some rest.

July, 12th. They promised good weather for another several days.

They had some French fries that day because potato contains vitamin C and gives a lot of energy.

July, 13th. They woke up at 3 a.m., had coffee and half a chocolate bar each and continued their climb.

July, 15th. They had to choose what to do next since it began to snow. They could go to their Camp 2 or go back to their ABC. They decided to go to their ABC because they were too tired and needed to rest.

July, 20th.

July, 21st.

Approaching Camp 2.

In this pan, there is green tea with honey.

On July, 23rd they found themselves to be just meters away from another avalanche that fell. They were lucky to stay alive.

July, 25th. They learnt about another upcoming storm which was to last for about a week so they decided to return to their ABC.

August, 4th. At 7 a.m. they headed to Camp 3. On their way, they celebrated one of the mountaneers’ birthday with some meat and several drops of alcohol.

August, 5th. Maksut’s son turned 3 and his father was so far away. As usual.

They did a lot that day so they had chances to run rope rails to Camp 4 from where they would be able to reach the summit.

August, 6th. They reached Camp 4. Elevation: 7,900 m.

August, 7th. It started to rain and they were running out of food.

August, 8th. It was sunny and clear. However, during the night over 50 cm of snow fell so they were in danger of being buried in an avalanche.

August, 20th. They returned to Camp 3 and stuggling with the wind took them a lot of energy. They were tired.

Special shoes for climbing mountains covered with ice.

One of the ropes of their rope rails between Camp 1 and Camp 2 iced.

August, 21st. Weather is great and they headed to Camp 4.

August, 22nd. In the evening, they decided to spend the next day not going anywhere because they were too tired.

August, 23rd. It was their last chance to conquer the summit because weather was to get worse very soon. Realizing all that, they felt a burst of energy and by 7 p.m. they did it!

Elevation: 8,300 m.

The expedition managed to climb K2 using no oxygen equipment and they are very proud of themselves.

There are 28 people on the planet who climbed all 14 eight-thousand-meter tall mountains and three of them are from Kazakhstan.

via voxpopuli.kz