First Chilean Ascent

Check out the Spanish article about this ascent.

Among the fourteen mountains over 8000 metres, K2, the second in altitude is usually referred as being the most difficult one.

Until this summer (northern hemisphere, 1996) only 122 people had reached its 8.611 meter summit, compared to more than 650 that have reached Everest.

Many consider it as the most dangerous mountain on earth. 45 climbers have died on K2.

A team of seven Chilean climbers reached its summit on August 13 1996, climbing one the hard routes of K2 : The South-Southeast Arête. Only twice this arête had been climbed before, five Basks in 1994 and two Catalan climbers in 1995. The latter never never made their way back.
On May 24 the team left Santiago de Chile, after 18 months of hard training and strong climbs, to reach Askole in Pakistan. After 18000 km flight, three days of driving and numerous bureaucratic adventures they started their ten day walk along the Baltoro glacier to reach Base Camp at 5000 m.

The climb

After 70 days of climbing the difficult south-southeast arête they finally made their way to the summit, on a calm Tuesday, August 13, 1996.

The team

Waldo Farías, Alfonso Díaz (expdition doctor), Marcelo Grifferos, Tomás Grifferos, Ralf Oberti, Aldo Boitano, Cristián García-Huidobro, Michael Purcell, Christian Buracchio, Alberto Gana, Misael Alveal, Rodrigo Jordán Four of these climbers had been on the sucessful ascent of Everest Kangshung face in 1992. They were joined by a outstanding group of young Chilean climbers. All of them have a vast experience in many expeditions and mountains in places like Antartica, Himalaya, Patagonia, Andes, Africa and Alaska.