Climbing K2 - Days 6 and 7

What a sight to wake up to this morning. That's the Savage Mountain right there in all of its glory. Anyways, good morning. It is day six of climbing K2. Feeling way better today. I got some rest last night, of course. Yesterday was absolutely brutal. I felt awful. But anyways, because we've just been going at it for the last five days pretty consistently, and so, you know, I'm still not fully, fully rested, so I'm glad about this, but we're gonna have mainly a rest day today, but I did want to show off our base camp because climbing with Madison Mountaineering, and they do an excellent job of making sure that your stay in base camp is pretty, pretty solid. So that way when you go up on the actual mountain, you're feeling refreshed and ready to climb. That is especially true considering you never have any idea how long you will actually be in base camp for. As I've stated earlier in the series, one of the main causes of death on any high-altitude climbing expedition is the altitude. Anyone climbing K2 this year will need to stay at base camp until their body is properly adjusted to the thinner air there, and once it has, they'll begin climbing K2, but not to the top. By reaching lower high points on the mountain and turning back, their body will create more red blood cells, which will help them continue adapting to the altitude for a future summit push. After getting on the mountain for the first time, they'll come back to base camp to recover, wait for who knows how long until an optimal weather window appears, and then they'll finally make a push all the way to the summit. Alrighty, tour time. This place is absolutely sick. I mean, first of all, I'm just gonna show off where we're sleeping right now. We got these really nice box tents right here, which is much nicer than the lay down tents that we've been in the last couple of nights. As you can see, whole team is in these, and we just got a beautiful view of the climb right here. Now, fortunately, yeah, K2's gotten a bit more commercialized, and we've got a lot more supplies up here than it used to be, which is very nice, but this is my little crib right here. Show you guys the tour. I might have freshened it up a little bit before I filmed. It was a mess, because I came in like a zombie last night, but have this little first room here, just to throw some stuff. We have some climbing gear, got the down suit, the North Face down suits, and then, of course, the sleeping bag there. Then it opens up into this amazing standing, standing room. What the hell is this fly doing in here? But, uh, yeah, we got a nice standing room here, got the bed, got a pillow, this nice little cot, which is super nice to sleep on versus a sleeping pad, which usually is not very comfortable. Then I just got some stuff lining the whole interior of the tent here, just to make it feel like a home. Then, of course, you know, I just come outside and I got this view here. It's unbelievable. So, yeah, super nice that you just have this whole tent to yourself and to stand in while you're at base camp. Definitely helps the mental headspace a ton, and I'm sure physical as well, because, you know, you want to be in a good spot before you go on the actual climb. And then that tent right there is the comms tent, where like Trey and them get like radio communication. It's also where the solar panels are connected, so that's the main power source out here is solar. I even got my own little guy right here that's usually cooking. And then I actually haven't went in here yet, but we also have a lounge tent, which is pretty cool. We have one of these on Everest too, but if there's a foam roller in here, I'm gonna be hyped. Oh, no foam roller, but still a great place to stretch out. I can't believe this, dude. This is insane. So this right here is the dining tent, where we be eating all of our meals. Fellas, I know you're gonna think this is a Luxpedition, but yeah, super nice in here. Got the tables where the squad is eating at, and we even have a movie projector screen. Absolutely crazy. We're gonna be watching some films. Then these two tents right here are where the staff is cooking up our meals and stuff, I believe. Let's go see what's popping. These guys are Gordon Ramsay's of Pakistan. Hey, you guys are amazing chefs. Thank you so much. Thank you. And this guy right here is the shower tents, which I don't think there's anyone inside. Nope, nobody in here. But also very grateful to have access to a shower. They essentially fill up that bag on top with hot water, and you can just spray yourself down. Once again, of course, not super necessary for a climb, but very nice to have, especially for the mental, to actually be clean and get some of that dust and dirt that you built up all over your skin on the trek in. So, very nice. And then, of course, we have the beautiful bathroom here. Dude, I find it so wild. This has to be the best combo of a bathroom in a landscape view known to man. You got these little stairs going up into it, right behind our camp. Very nice. And yeah, you just hop in here. Even got a little toilet seats here. Oh, it looks like the thing got knocked over a little bit. He's got to put it back up right. And then, you go inside, put up the lid, go inside, and essentially whatever you're doing goes into this barrel underneath. And then some absolutely tough porters have to carry it out. So, yeah, there it all is together. Our wonderful camp and home for the next 30 days or so. As always, massive respect to the porters and the Sherpas who pretty much set all of this up. The Sherpa team that we're gonna be climbing K2 with has already been up here for the last, like, week, just grinding to get everything set up. So, literally would not be possible without them. So, we're not getting any reception here, and there's no Wi-Fi. Starlink is banned. It makes no sense. But, essentially, there's like a cell tower all the way down there, and we're not getting good enough service from it right here. But, rumor is, if you go to this boulder all the way on the other side of camp, you apparently can get some service there. So, I'm gonna try to reconnect with the world, head over there, make a little trek. Might as well get moving anyways. Might as well take the opportunity to check out some of the other camps, and also just admire K2's aura. Like, come on, brother. Okay, never mind. I have to take a small detour back to our camp and use the bathroom. So, this year, there isn't as many climbers attempting K2 compared to previous years, but if I were to guess, there's less than a hundred people going for it, which means the base camp is much smaller than usual. We're gonna try and give it a shot at this rock right here. So, essentially, if you want to, there's like the tower I was talking about, and you have to use like a burner phone so I can hotspot it, and then use my actual phone. But, it seems like there's no service anyway, which is weird. Looks like no TikTok doomscrolling for us. No skibbity toilet, no llama and sticks, Minecraft space civilization. Alrighty, well, that's unfortunate. We couldn't get any Wi-Fi, but it's alright. A bit less eventful of a day than normal, but we have to take this time off usually to let our bodies acclimatize and recover before we make any big moves up the savage mountain itself. Day seven ended up being an absolute bluebird day out, which definitely lightened my mood since I was still feeling a bit off from my current GI issue journey. We started off the morning with a puja ceremony, which is a ceremony done by the Sherpas before every single big climb to ask the mountain for safe passage. They set up this really cool tower with prayer flags, and it just adds a lot of life to the camp, and you can even ask them to bless some of your gear. I personally gave them my helmet because K2 is very dry this year, meaning there's a lot of rockfall, and let's say I get grand slammed by a gigantic boulder, I'd prefer not to have more brain damage than I already have. Dang, that's big. Anybody got the Wi-Fi rock? Well, I heard it, but sometimes they're gonna be way louder than this, way smaller than that. Who are we here with right now? Here in base camp with Ferba. About to do some training, eh? Yeah, from today we have to do some activities. Some activities. Gotta stay moving, you know? It's good for acclimatization. Yes. This man right here had me hustling on Everest all the way to the summit, and he's fast. I'm ready for K2. Gonna go up together? We gonna summit? Sure. Everyone loves you, Ferba, you're the best. Look at him, right in front of K2. Oh, look at this guy. Ferba's the best. And this is, what number of K2 is this for you? This is my 8th time. 8th time on the mountain, but you've summited. 50% summit? Yes. You know a lot of people call you, call you crazy. 8 times on K2, eh? And they continue coming, you know. That's the big question. People, why you waiting so much, that much? Why do I have to come? I love this mountain. You feel confident on it? Yeah. Nice, that's the way to go, you know. I love the team, and you know, K2 is the one of the, yeah, people call like serious mountain, but you know, if you love, we love the mountain, mountain love us. Yes. Let's go. Throwing the Olympus mods on. Big boots here. So you may be asking, why am I putting on my big boots? And why am I completely kitted out with my North Face climbing gear? Well, essentially today is a rest day as we just got to base camp, but we are going to still get moving and head out onto the glacier to train on some ice pinnacles, which I've been pretty excited about. As you can see, all of these ice pinnacles are much tinier than usual because of how dry and warm it's been, which once again makes the climbing routes very dangerous with rock fall. Alrighty, currently making our way to the ice pinnacle zone. Going to get some cool little training in. Two little obstacle courses. Dang, these look pretty fun making the most of this dry, dry weather, eh? Helmets on for mom. The plan for this session is really just to refresh ourselves on ascending and descending fixed lines. Because most climbing outside of the Himalayas is done in Alpine style, it's really easy to forget how to climb fixed lines like you do on Everest or K2. Essentially, this is the gist of it and how you climb K2. You use these ropes, which have been fixed in place by Sherpas all the way from advanced base camp to the summit. The first thing you do is take your ascender, the object I'm holding right now, simply slide it up the rope as you climb and because of the teeth in the device, it will bite down and prevent you from falling backwards. This makes climbing big mountains way safer and easier and has even dropped the death rate on several 8,000 peaks significantly, just like K2. Of course, people still die from fall. As you can see, we're on an anchor right now where you do have to take your ascender off and put it onto the next section of rope. If you messed up here or fell here and you didn't have a safety on, you theoretically could fall still. Let's go. Looking heroic right here. K2 in the back. The other and more likely instance where you could die is on the descent. Using this golden little device here called a figure eight, or you can use an ATC, you can thread the rope through to create friction. And by leaning on it and slowly lowering yourself, you can actually descend vertical slopes safely and efficiently as long as you do everything right. And there you have it. Rinse and repeat. That's how you climb K2. If a tourist like myself can do it, so can you. Like I said, if you do everything right, you should not take a fall on the fixed lines. And all of this just goes to show how heroic the Sherpas are who set up the ropes in the first place and how 99% of people who have climbed an 8,000 meter peak wouldn't have been able to do it without them. Killer content. Alrighty, y'all. That is day seven of climbing K2. Tomorrow is probably going to be pretty similar. Just training. We might even do some trash pickup, which would be a pretty good time. So yeah, throw up on screen what I had for dinner. Don't ask how the meat got here. There's some sort of cow. Not really sure where it came from, but it was good. So yeah. Anyways, thank you guys for watching. Good night and I'll see you tomorrow.