Over the past 2 weeks Apex’s Dr. Jon Kedrowski has been positioning for a summit attempt on the infamous Gasherbrum 1 and 2 in the Baltoro Glacier Region of the Karakoram Range in the Himalaya.
Jon and his team arrived July 7th at the moraine base camp after an 80 mile trek in, and spent a few days there to acclimatize to the 16,400ft elevation. After 3 days of acclimatization Jon headed to base camp 1 on Gasherbrum 2, located at 19,700 ft. He spent a couple more days there acclimatizing to the elevation then moved up to base camp 2 located at 22,000ft, then up the Banana ridge to base camp 3 at 22,600ft.
On July 15th after reaching base camp 3, Jon and his party headed back down to base camp 1 to rest, refuel and wait for the 3-5 day weather window to cooperate with their summit attempt. After a bout with an intestinal bug, he prepared for an attempt on the summit of Gasherbrum 2.
Jon is now headed for the summit. The team left basecamp in excellent weather this morning, and are now at camp 1. Today or tomorrow they will depart for camp 2, look to climb to camp 3 tomorrow or Thursday, and go for the summit of Gasherbrum 2 at 26,362 feet on Friday or Saturday.
After summiting Gasherbrum 2, the team will descend and rest for a few days before attempting Gasherbrum 1 at 26,509 feet. We will be watching closely and provide more information during the expedition.