Back in Skardu and on the way home

It's been all quiet on the communication front lately, mainly because we've had a manic few days getting out of the Baltoro.

 

With the weather looking only so so for any summit attempts in the near future and the already succesful summits in the team we took the deicision to leave BC early.  There is only a small Taiwanese team and some Iranians attempting a new route left and breaking a new trail would be very difficult with only a few people, following the heavy snows we had towards the end of the month.  We managed to get a flight change to the 4th of August however this left us 5 days to get from BC to Islamabad.

 

Under normal conditions we would have been able to get out of the gondogoro la pass in 2-3 days however the weather prevented us going over the pass so we had to make to decision to "run" down the Baltoro in 3 days.  So what took 7 days on the way up has taken 3 on the way down.  Some sore feet, broken shoes, mardy mules and heavy packs, but we made it down.  It felt a bit like doing 3 marathons in 3 days, which in effect it probably roughly was in distance terms.

 

We're now in Skardu, having showered for the first time in a month and shaved the ridiculous beards off.  Now time to leave on the bus back down the KKH as there were no available seats on the flight back.  Fingers crossed for a better journey back than the 40 hours up.

 

Then off to the Marriot for a beer then home…  See you all in 4 days!