By Ueli Steck
On Saturday, June 20 - after a journey of nearly two weeks - we reached Gasherbrum base camp (5100m).
The formalities at the government in Islamabad were quickly settled. Should the political situation in Pakistan get critical, we also applied for a visa for China. So we will be able to fly out from China - just in case.
Because of bad weather we could not fly to Skardu. Bounced around and dead tired we finally reached Skardu on June 11 after a 14 hours bus ride over the really impressive Karakorum Highway. The bus ride the day after to Gilgit lasted just as long. Bus rides will definitively not become one of my favourite hobbies... To my relief on June 14 from Gilgit we continued our journey on foot. On June 16 we reached beautiful Paiju (3785m), where we rested for one day. Since Saturday we are at the BC at 5100 meters.
Thanks to the meteo data of Meteotest I can observe the weather accurately and plan the acclimatisation. Yesterday it stayed dry all day long. In the afternoon more cloudy and on the summit ridge strong winds. Today Monday I left just after midnight. In my backpack tent and food for four days. At 5900 meters I installed camp 1 (C1) and went back to BC. This first acclimatisation excursion lasted 9 hours. Tomorrow I will rest.
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