Interview with Gerfried Goschl: Team Leader of the Gasherbrum 1 winter expedition Part-2

Interview with Gerfried Goschl: Team Leader of the Gasherbrum 1 winter expedition Part-2

Goschl:  Carlos is well known in Spain for doing "crazy" things such as bold climb+BASE jumps. He is a strong technical climber and also has experience from a 8000er-summit (Cho Oyu). 

Since we first knew each other in 2003 Nisar has been a close friend of mine. He has been personal HAP (high altitude porter) for my team members on Nanga Parbat, G2 and K2. Nisar climbed all 8000ers in Pakistan several times, always without artificial oxygen,
and he set a new record last summer as the first to summit Pakistan 8000ers ten times (1xK2, 1xNP, 1xBP, 4xG2, 3xG1). No doubt he is the strongest climber in Pakistan. Of course he climbs for money (as do all HAPs) most of the time but it’s also his passion.
This winter for the first time Nissar will join a team not because of salary but because he wants to be part of the project. He knows G1 very, very well! Down the road we’ll try to bring him as member in our Nepal expeditions since it’s his biggest dream.

Cedric is an ambitious young mountain guide from Switzerland who already climbed K2, Kanch, BP foresummit and Gasherbrum II East (7772m, new route from Chinese side). What else would he need to be on the team?

Question: Which lessons from last winter will you apply this year?

Goschl:  We now know that we need the best possible gear to fix the route. For instance, dealing with ice hard as rock last year made us bring high quality ice screws this time. An earlier start will allow more time before the end of the
winter. Finally, we’re now six instead of three, which hopefully will result in faster work on the lower part of the route. 

Again we trust our friend and agent Muhammad Ali and his agency Adventure Pakistan for the logistics. I must say he did a great job for us the entire year.
Our BC is already set up, fully supplied and waiting!

Question: You mentioned a documentary on the climb. Does that mean more cool video files such as the ones you uploaded last year?

Goschl:  The funds from an Austrian TV network producing a documentary about the project actually allowed us to include Darek in the expedition. But of course you’ll still get interesting video clips!

To be continued….

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=6650

Posted by Naveed A Bari on Dec 20 2011. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry