Winter Climbs 2013: Nanga Parbat Teams Move Up, One Goes Home

As expected, Nanga Parbat saw a lot of movement this past weekend as teams move into position to take advantage of a projected weather window later this week. For most of the climbers, the past few days brought improved weather that allowed them to move up the mountain, but for one team it is now time to go home.

The team that elected to abandon their Nanga summit bid was the Polish squad of Tomek Mackiewicz and Marek Klonowski. They were one of the first teams on the ground this year and have been on the mountain for some time, but they've now run out of food and money and must return home. Tomek was able to get as high as 7400 meters (24,278 ft) before turning back, which is the highest anyone has gotten so far this season. Unfortunately the weather wasn't cooperative enough to allow him to complete the ascent however, with high winds forcing him back down. The team's flight home is scheduled for Friday, so they'll spend the next few days packing their gear and trekking back out to civilization.

Meanwhile, other teams continue to move up with a hopes of summiting possibly as early as tomorrow. The team of Daniel Nardi and Elisabeth Revol are in Camp 2 today and are watching the weather closely for a possible window to open in the next few days. They are running on limited battery life on their sat phone, so updates will be sparse over the next few days.

The Hungarian-American team were expected to reach Camp 2 yesterday and could be heading up to C3 today. Heavy snow has made breaking trail incredibly difficult, but the team has vowed to try to forge ahead none the less. Their support team reports other climbers are heading home, but Ian Overton and David Klein have vowed to stay until the end of February at the least.

Joel Wischnewski is still climbing somewhere above Camp 2, but at this point we're still waiting for an update. He set off up the Rupal face last Wednesday and there has been no word from him since. Hopefully his health has improved and all is well, but for now we'll just have to wait for a new update.

Jumping over to Broad Peak, the Polish team on that mountain has been busy over the past few days. They've managed to rebuild their Camp 2, which was swept off the face by a wind storm last week and they've continued fixing ropes to Camp 3 as well. They've now established that position at 7000 meters (22,965 ft) and had hoped to continue further up, but high winds and snow storms moved into the area, forcing them to retreat. Everyone is safely in BC now and resting up for the next rotation. The plan is to build Camp 4 at 7500-7600 meters (24,606-24,934 ft) as soon as the weather allows.

That's all for now. We'll keep a close eye on things over the next few days to see if anyone is able to summit Nanga. Good luck to all the teams. Climb safe!