Summer 2015 | Gasherbrum II Summits and More summit-pushes, Gasherbrum I teams in C3 - Updated

The news has just arrived about first success in Karakoram this season. Defying difficult snow conditions, first group of climbers summited Gasherbrum II yesterday. Seven members of Kobler-Partner team made it to the top and were descending to C3 at the time of final communication from the mountain. Meanwhile, second group of GII climbers, who arrived at C3 yesterday, will be departing for the summit, this morning.

Gasherbrum I climbers have also worked their way to C3 and are expected to have left for the summit by now.
Chilean climbers at the foot of GII; Source

GII Summits Day-1
Expedition leader Peter Schatzl confirmed over sat-phone that five members and two Sherpa of Kobler-Partner team summited GII today. The climbers were descending to C3 at the time of communication.

Following climbers summited on 16-July-15.

1. Laura González del Castillo
2. Yuri Contreras Cedi
3. Ernst Felix
4. Christof Bartmann
5. Sophie Lavaud
6. Ngima Chhiring Lama
7. Muhammad (edit: Previous version reported Dorji Sherpa as summiteer.)

Among the seven climbers, Sophie Lavaud climbed without bottled oxygen. As per communication from Sophie, it took them sixteen hours fighting against snow to reach the top. It must be noted that expedition leader Peter Schatzl, Sherpa Ngima and Dorchi and HAP Muhammad have been fundamental in route fixing on the mountain. They led the progress all the way from BC to the summit, this season.
Laura, Yuri and Sophie during acclimatization phase; Source

More Summits Expected
Several more GII summits are expected on Friday, as weather conditions hold and climbers (Chilean team, Richard Hidalgo, Kinga Baranowska, Karim Hayat and many others) are about to launch the summit push from C3.

Update: Kinga Baranowska summited GII on July 17th.

Towards GI Summit
They have opened the route from C2 to C3 in two days and are on the way to the top now. Due to excessive snow, the team opted to climb on the right side of normal Japanese Couloir. On July 15th, they were able to reach 6700m. Yesterday, they fixed the route till C3 at 7100m. It’s apparently a team of four climbers (including Ferran Latorre and Yannick Graziani) who will be on summit push, now.

Update: The team retreated to BC, due to bad weather on July 17th.
C3 tent of four Gasherbrum I climbers at 7100m. source
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