My initial reply was a quick comment banged out this morning before I headed out the door. Now, late at night, I'll give it another go, this time with more balance.
The trek to Concordia and K2 Base Camp is rightly renowned as one of the greatest and hardest mountain treks. The approach route takes you into the heart of the Karakoram Range of northern Pakistan, and is much tougher and isolated than, say, the very popular southern approach to Mt Everest in Nepal. On the Everest trek, you walk up and down steep terraced hillsides and through a succession of villages, and Everest base camp is just a day's walk from the last village. On the K2 trek, you ride in Jeeps to the last village and then spend three weeks on glacial scree in remote wilderness, surrounded by bare rock, glacier ice and peaks.
The route follows the Braldu River gorge and then the 60km-long Baltoro Glacier eastwards to Concordia, then north along the Godwin-Austen Glacier to K2 itself. The mountain scenery you experience is staggering.
I did this trek in 1994, when I was 38, having trekked to Everest base camp in 1978 and having done many hikes in Australia, plus my field work as a geologist. I was fit, lean and athletic, and with a large pack with film and sound gear (for a documentary) on my back, still found it tough. There were 10 trekkers, two Australian guides, two local guides and, at the start, 84 porters. Only six of us made it to K2 base camp and above it, after a scramble up to a ledge, the memorial cairn to Art Gilkey. That long day, involving 24km of glacier travel surrounded by the finest mountain scenery, was very memorable.
Our intended route out was via the Gondogoro La to the south, however, having reached Ali camp near the base of the pass the afternoon before, we were hit by a snowstorm that buried our tents. We even had a porter strike, just as Galen Rowell experienced in 1975. The snow forced a retreat to Concordia and then a return via the Baltoro.
Days start early and there's a rush to get going and cross the many fast-flowing meltwater streams that cut across the route before the sun makes them higher. To stay upright in fast-flowing ice water up to your thighs, you walk barefooted with your arms linked to another person and ignore the pebbles hitting your feet. If you stop to make images, you fall behind. Consequently, most careful still photography happens after arrival at each night's campsite. That is when you will want a tripod and your real camera.
My photos from this trek are 35mm Ektachrome slides, some of the last I ever shot before switching to 6x7 film later that year. I've recently retrieved the slides from storage to have them scanned.
The K2 trek is one of life's great adventures.
As for the giardia: We were washing hands and boiling water. However, that doesn't avoid contamination of cooked meals. Although I was being careful, I may have picked it up during my unplanned solo journey beforehand through Karachi and Islamabad and along the Karakoram Highway. I had a course of Flagyl with me, but received bad advice and delayed taking it until the distinctive signs (look it up) made it unambiguous. A doctor I met told me to ignore the normal 500mg dose and instead take 2g three times a day. Bombs away. An hour or so after the first dose I felt much better, but it took several days to clear up.
Here are titles I recommend you buy or borrow:
In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods, by Galen Rowell. Pub. Sierra Club Books, 1977.
K2: The Story of the Savage Mountain, by Jim Curran. Pub. Hodder & Stoughton, 1995.
Summit: Vittorio Sella, Mountaineer and Photographer, the years 1879 - 1909. With essays by Ansel Adams, David Brower, Greg Child, Paul Kallmes & Wendy M. Watson. Pub. Aperture, 1999.
The Karakoram: Ice Mountains of Pakistan, by Colin Prior. Pub. Merrell, 2021.
Regarding the last: I've just bought one of the final copies available after Colin Prior issued a notice on his Facebook page that only a few remained. It's fabulous.
Any questions, just ask.
