Hundreds of miles up in the sky, like the Giant’s Castle from ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, Mingma Gayle Sherpa, a few moments ago, shared the rarest, never-seen-before pics of the shoulder on K2 Camp-4. This is the first time ever that a man has set foot on K2’s shoulder and the picture exposes the magical wonderland that exists from there onwards all the way to the top of this granite Giant.
Mingma G updated his Facebook status today;
Today 15 jan at 3:30pm we 3 mingma made it to camp4 on k2. Sona brother returned back 30 below from c4 coz his part of rope and gear were already used. We see the final route now.
The three Mingma’s he is referring to include Mingma Gayle Sherpa (himself), Mingma David Sherpa and Mingma Tenzi Sherpa.
Reportedly, the Sherpas from Nims Dai’s team, Mingma G’s team and also from SST’ team joined hands to recover from the loss they have suffered in the previous days when the high winds blew away most of their gear from high camps. This was a serious blow to Nims Dai’s team as they are dependent on the oxygen bottles without which they cannot climb.
This is incontestably the highest altitude ever reached by any winter attempt on K2. The Camp-4 on K2 sits at 7900m ASL. Normal approach to the summit requires a summit push of approximately 700+m of further climb and includes the decisive Bottleneck right below the intimidating Serac.
Current weather update shows the Sherpa team can launch first-ever summit push somewhere in the early hours of Saturday night primarily because acclimatization is not a concern for them.