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| English: Broad Peak from Godwin-Austen Glacier: Broad Peak North on the links (Behind clouds), Broad Peak Central (centre left) and Broad Peak Main (centre right) Deutsch: Der Broad Peak vom Godwin-Austen-Gletscher aus: links der Nordgipfel, links der Bildmitte der Mittelgipfel, rechts der Bildmitte der Hauptgipfel (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Geography
Broad Peak is part of the
Gasherbrum massif on the border of
Pakistan and
China.
[3] It is located in the
Karakoram mountain range about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) from
K2. It has a summit over 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) long, thus “Broad Peak”.
[4][edit]
Climbing history
The
first ascent of Broad Peak was made on June 9, 1957 by
Fritz Wintersteller,
Marcus Schmuck,
Kurt Diemberger, and
Hermann Buhl of an
Austrian expedition led by Marcus Schmuck. A first attempt by the team was made on May 29 where Fritz Wintersteller and Kurt Diemberger reached the forepeak (8,030 m). This was also accomplished without the aid of supplemental oxygen or high altitude porters and without base camp support.
[2]Hermann Buhl fell to his death when he and Diemberger attempted to climb nearby
Chogolisa peak (7,654 m) on June 27, 1957.
[2]In July 2007 an Austrian mountaineering team climbed Broad Peak with the aim of retrieving the corpse of
Markus Kronthaler, who had died on the mountain one year before, from over 8,000 metres.
[5]In the winter and summer of 2009 there were no summits. There was one winter expedition by a Polish-Canadian team. In the summer there was one fatality,
Cristina Castagna.
In summer 2012, 5 members of “Koroška 8000” – Slovenian team (led by Gregor Lačen) summited the mountain (without supplementary oxygen and without high altitude porters). They tracked the way in deep snow from camp 4 to the summit and opened the summit to 7 more individuals from other expeditions. They all summited on July 31st 2012. The mountain was also summited by a Lithuanian climber in a solo ascent.
On March 5, 2013
Maciej Berbeka,
Adam Bielecki,
Tomasz Kowalski and
Artur Małek made the first winter ascent. Broad Peak was 12th Eight-thousander summited in winter time and 10th Eight-thousander firstly summited in winter by Polish climbers.
[6] During the descent, Maciej Berbeka and Tomasz Kowalski did not reach Camp 4 (at 7400 m) and were pronounced missing. On March 7, the head of the expedition
Krzysztof Wielicki said there are “no chances at all” of finding alive 58-year-old Maciej Berbeka and 27-year-old Tomasz Kowalski.
[7] On March 8 both climbers were declared dead and the expedition was ended.
[8][edit]
Time line
- 1954 First attempt by Dr. Karl Herligkoffer of Germany on the SW side that failed due to a storm and extreme cold.[2]
- 1957 First ascent [9]
- 1994 On July 9, Carlos Carsolio got the summit establishing a new solo route, now known as Route Carsolio. The summit of Broad Peak would be the ninth of his career-high of eight-thousanders.[10]
- 2013 On March 5, first winter ascent by Polish expedition[11].
Inspiring Pakistan 