2001 K7 Expedition - Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin & Brady Robinson

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] J [Music] over there we go the bags are on the way Pakistani International Airport that flight usually takes about 2 days um total travel uh you're pretty weary when you get there you get out in this lad and it's like 102% humidity [Music] you take a bus and I think some of their safety standards are probably uh a little less strict than they are in the states I haven't quite figured which side of the road they're supposed to drive on because they're always on both sides of the road a lot of head-on uh incoming trucks filled with big bags of wheat or whatever it's pretty exciting when you first get [Music] there [Music] [Music] can [Music] he [Music] [Music] that driving down the Korum highway it's kind of like Planes Trains and Automobiles you know you fly into Pakistan then you bus on a fairly nice road that deteriorates continually until you get this scar [Music] do and then from skyo you can no longer take buses you have to take uh Land Cruisers basically vintage 75 Toyota Land Cruisers something like that maybe even older um we usually like to sit in the back uh it's open air and you can uh jump off of it in case the truck rolls off into the river but these things are battle proven Vehicles they uh you can tell they've just been fixed over and over again so we figure it's safer up there than it is inside the thing our instance on the way drivetrain fell out of the bottom oh yeah right here how long will it take to fix this say half hour you're kidding me [Music] it's like a 28 hour drive on probably one of the more harrowing roads in the world the car highway or as we call it the KK we met a man named Greg mortson who founded a non profit organization called the central asiia Institute he suggested that a good way to really have a positive interaction in some of the villages was to maybe try to visit one of the schools in h and this past year on our Expedition K7 when we walk into the school uh the kids are chanting welcome welcome and Brady Conor and I thought it would be a great thing to be able to bring some pens and pencils tablets writing tablets uh we brought some nice pens for the teachers who aren't getting paid that much uh to do what they do but are committed to being a part of the school and teaching [Music] kids H is always really exciting and uh there's people lined up Porters who are waiting for [Music] work [Music] [Music] [Music] foree [Music] fore you want to no thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] very strong yeah [Music] [Music] these guys are burly I mean this is so you get out there and they're in these literally like plastic shoes with no sack and trumping they're a big they're really important on these exibition if we were trying to do this self supp take us months to get gear in there I'm zahid from very best friend for American K7 Expedition today Mr ibraim zahid 42 years beginning it's your birthday happy birthday zah yes can very humble very humble man good friend [Music] [Music] huh yeah yeah here we are going to go light one tent one portal Edge route looks good the weather stays the same we're in there we've had good weather so [Music] [Music] far [Music] [Music] second of June up here at ABC below the immense Southwest B of our very favorite K7 just up here on here we've got Masher rum in the background a wee bits of clouds but we do not know it could be good wait well it's the 3rd of June Saturday it's about 9:00 in the morning and Jimmy and I are waiting the day out here at the base of the rout Brady went down to Camp to get a few more acuts and other things we might need for our Ascent of K7 and we're going to watch The Hourglass and see how it sets up today hopefully gets lots of sun and then at 8:00 in the evening it miraculously clears all the clouds evaporate so we get a nice cold freeze we had about oh 2 in of light snow last night probably 4 to 6 Ines up there so you want to be aware of okay still [Music] [Applause] yeah it seems like that thing's we can probably move up that and it's not it's not looking bigger the route involved around 8,000 ft of vertical gain our Advanced base camp was probably just under 15,000 ft and the summit was just under 23,000 ft so lot of verticle it went through a variety of uh [Applause] [Music] terrain there was a really steep snow and ice Gully that we ascended from the glacier and that was about probably around 2,000 ft long uh we got to a small cold where we spent our first [Music] night this is my last carry today s [Applause] [Music] [Music] ladies and gentlemen we are now going to demonstrate the use of the oxygen [Music] feel P up [Music] [Applause] here woo [Music] ask [Music] from there you hit a, 1500t wall uh just splitter golden [Music] Granite beautiful we really really excited to be on that rock and we also a little worried you know was it going to be as good as it looked from down below or was it going to be a choss pile and it turned out to be just beautiful climbing we were stringing things out 200t pitches trying to uh eliminate blets as much as we could um or ballet stations so we could kind of uh be efficient and first couple days we had great weather and we probably uh climbed the First wall in 3 [Music] days once we get to the top of that we cruised up a that actually we Cruis up that hanging snowfield and uh set up another camp [Music] n [Applause] [Music] ask somebody [Music] a crazy spot ladies and gentlemen [Music] oygen [Applause] ask [Music] good morning sa how are you you're okay we are okay too we are okay three we are sitting in Portal Edge very small three members sitting in Port ledge waiting for good weather we've had good time climbing up to this point made good travel this is day five day five since we left ABC huh we're almost at 19,000 ft on K7 why is it 9:00 and why are we still in the portal ledge cuz Conrad won't get up man con's being lazy again a mandatory lazy day the weather's too good why don't you take a look outside oh M no climbing what's [Music] that sweet oh man wow that is so gorgeous the go oh my God not worthy it's going off [Music] he [Music] he [Music] oh yeah bomber bomber gear yeah good J ConEd 19,000 ft getting Western getting Western p on tool lock offs switching hands we've only got about 6 in of ice in here to play [Music] with there's the coal we [Music] hope [Music] tonight for an appetizer we have roasty which is a specialty from Italy with the rind we're still in the storm day two day too oh yes you like french fries only better the nice thing to do is you get this grease on your fingers it on your face cuz all our skin is falling off m day three of the storm Brady dividing the oatmeal granola Jimmy granola so far we're at four spoons a piece but we could get to six things are looking up rationing during our extreme camping trip it's 1:30 and so far today we've all had two cough drops one hard candy a piece of beef jerky and a 2-year-old power but we're dry and warm we're pyed few more days we get to climb again how are you doing Conrad what to do spirits have been higher for our team but we almost had that clearing it's good but pressure is in an alltime low and it's been snowing for 24 hours straight every day around 6 6 p.m. the storm would break the clouds would lift and we'd get a short view of all the mountains surrounding our portal Edge it was stunning it tended to get our hopes up but for 5 days in a row we woke up to storms again day four it's still snowing and the pressure is at an all-time [Music] low meteorologist Conrad anchor you mind uh giving us a look outside to see what it looks like out there today certainly according to the charts the weather will stay the same get better or get worse guaranteed to do one of those three things for local conditions it's always best to unzip your portal Edge or tent and take a look outside to see what we got going oh my this is very thick wet snow seems quite monsal and next for local news anything you happening in the portal lately Mr Robinson no food's still short still a lot of condensation Spirits are up and down who gets the uh what's the rotation for this evening um that would be I get the middle the warm Spot Great Conrad gets the outside and I think Jimmy gets the jimy gets to crib right on right on well that's all for local news thanks for staying with us good night it looks scary do we have to walk on that my face isn't so plastered no things melted off quite a bit there's ice but maybe if man if we just clear up the rock would be climbable another nice evening sucker Hall evening [Music] ritual [Music] all right we're at 192 Jimmy and I top of our fixed lines which we set 5 days ago before we got hit by this big snowstorm so we came back up the lines this morning and uh [Music] it my instinct tells me that there's still a lot of mountain left and that we're not quite fit enough as climbers that is we don't have enough food got a long ways to go and it's s sitting in a portalite for 5 days yeah we just atrophied I mean we were proud of the fact that we could eat get by on soup at night one candy bar during the day a little bit of cheese eight scoops of banola in the morning eight tablespoons but that doesn't you can't build your body back up to be climbing at altitude and I'm concerned that if we were to continue on from here we would be getting in over our head you know weather changes we're tired we're exasperated and that's not the place to be on this [Music] mountain wa now I feel like I'm on a big man everything po right up boy [Music] full on okay son haven't had much of that today [Music] [Music] good night a good night today's agenda is to descend seven or eight pitches with three vinyl haul bags in snow we've been sitting here procrastinating for over 4 hours sh let's take a look at what we've been drinking you want to see the gret and the drinking water we're going to sell this as Pakistani mineral water what's what's in this stuff Conrad you've got three types of things in your water when you're in the mountains floaties sinkies and pubbies toter control mineral water in the local weather major n say all cloudy some places raining other places today holy gosh it's all white we can't see z z viz it's dumping snow again this is day 12 on the rout it's it's time for us to put an end to the madness should we sit here for another day or should we go well the Saga continued [Music] night this is does not see [Applause] [Music] this is this is do not [Music] see this is this is does not see [Music] yeah we went down the secret Escape Route um a lot of Slough coming down a little bit well I was kind of freaked out and I'm glad that's over pretty psyched it's been a good Adventure 15 days yeah we tried we did tried we tried two years ago two years ago we're laying in tent staring at the orange ceiling going we got to come back and try Cas s backy k no dude we're not going to try that it's too early yes we have full value full value we learned a bunch had some fun no one got hurt well we wanted to climb a new route on the south face of K7 and as always uh goals on an expedition like that is to have a good time with your friends get to know each other uh and be safe come back [Music] healthy [Music]

Channel: Brady Robinson

Views: 221,165

Keywords: Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, Brady Robinson, Mountaineering, climbing, Karakoram (Mountain Range), K7, Meru, Meru Film

Id: jrKzMni7ONc

Length: 37min 41sec (2261 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 19 2014