K2's unclimbed North Ridge Expedition report from the K2 base camp -- Wednesday, August 6 Buhler defects; weather still blocks progress We've had bad weather. We've had all of our team come back down to base camp. We've been waiting here for the weather change. We have fixed ropes up to 7,800 meters. We feel we could climb the mountain in three days if we get a miracle and the weather is good for three days. But it's not looking very probable at this point .We're running out of time because the camels arrive on the fifteenth. to caravan back to the trailhead. At this point all we know for sure is we're going to be back in Islamabad on the 26th and I'm supposed to fly back to San Francisco on the 28th. All I know from this end in terms of news is that K2 was climbed by some Italians.from the other side--but that's really all I know. The Russians who are here next to our Base Camp have until about September 8. And maybe there's a chance for them. They have an excellent chance because the ropes are all in. I'm kind of resigned to join a long list of distinguished mountaineers who have failed to climb K2. I'm surprised that its worked out that way, but you know we only had one good five day weather period at the end of July. The rest of the time it's just been soup here. We received word Carlos Buhler has joined the neighboring group of Russian climbers. Can you comment on that? Well Carlos has previous experience climbing with Krysztof Wieliecki and he's sort of distanced himself from our core group, which is the core group. He's independent and when the Russians came he established a relationship with their leader and requested that he climb with them. It's worked out well. I would say that it's made the best of kind of an awkward situation. But on my end I feel that K2 the mountain is the real challenge and we have a very solid group of Polish climbers and a couple of Italians and, like I said, in my previous message, I and Carlos kind of independantly were trying to fit in. And I guess maybe I can reflect on it in my leisure when I get back to civilization. But dealing with the here and now. We've taken advantage of every opportunity we've had. But we just haven't been successful. The snow has been rather intense. Can you discuss the weather problems? On the mountain itself, the weather. Well it's very steep on the North Side. It's not easy to characterize a mountain like K2 with any kind of generalized statement. It's not like we're sitting under three feet of snow or anything like that. Though it might've been two feet. When that happens we just hole up and wait for conditions to consolidate. But like I said, the real problem is it's very diffficult even for our best climbers to make progress when you start off at the base of the mountain and the conditions seem okay and then you get up higher and you just can't get anywhere. We've overcome a lot of the difficulty just because we've got fixed ropes up there. Now we've got fixed ropes up to 7,800 meters, but we obviously can't climb the mountain if it's snowy, if it's windy. It's very dangerous. We are where we are. Can you characterize the technical aspects of climbing K2's North Ridge? Technically speaking it's a very viable route, but it sure is hard work and it's treacherously steep. I mean Camp I, Camp II, I mean the VE-25 that we have that we're using there--only three fourths of the floorspace is available for sleeping. The rest is hanging out in space. It's very very steep, and that just wears on you after a while. The exposure is great. We've got a top flight team. We've been able to overcome all the technical difficulties. We do have a 200 meter section, traversing over into the upper icefall area. The technical difficulties have not stopped our group at all. It's just simply been the weather.