Adventures of the 2018 Canadian Pumari Chhish East Expedition
This past summer, Alik Berg and I went to Pakistan to have a mountain adventure. Below is a brief report from our expedition. For a more impressionistic account, check out this Bird Blog . For a photo essay, check out this Flickr album . *** In the summer of 2018 Alik Berg and I traveled to Pakistan to climb in the Karakoram. As often happens, neither the final team nor the final objective ended up being what they had been originally. To begin with, there were four of us intent on exploring the largely untouched peaks of the Kondus valley. Over the winter, however, Chris Brazeau and Ian Welsted pulled out. Then, just a couple of months before our departure, military authorities refused the permit application for our primary objective, the unclimbed K13 (6666 m). We scrambled to find another goal, and settled on the unclimbed Pumari Chhish East (ca. 6900 m). I was familiar with the peak, having attempted it unsuccessfully in 2009 , and knew to be a difficult and inspiring mou