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At a glance

• 60 days, Islamabad to IslamabadNine days in on the Baltoro, forty-three at base camp for two peaks, and a week out.
• 8,051 m and 8,611 mBroad Peak first, then K2 by the Abruzzi Spur — neighbouring camps on the Godwin-Austen.
• The hardest pairing in the KarakoramBroad Peak is long and moderate; K2 is technical throughout. Coming home with one is a real result.
• Small teams, self-led above base campFull logistics and a licensed guide to base camp. Climbing Sherpas, rope-fixing and oxygen quoted separately.
• Baltoro, Concordia and the Godwin-AustenJhola, Paiyu, Urdukas, Goro II and Concordia, then base camp beneath both mountains.
• Hotels either end, tents betweenIslamabad, Chilas and Skardu in hotels; dome tents on the trek and a serviced base camp for six weeks.
• Mid-June to mid-AugustOne long summer season. Permits have a statutory lead time, so book many months ahead.

Day by day

1. 1Day 1Arrival in Islamabad

   

   Your guide meets you at Islamabad International Airport and transfers you to the hotel at 540 metres. If the flight lands early there is the capital to see — the Faisal Mosque beneath the Margalla Hills, the terraces of Shakarparian, the Pakistan Monument and the museums — though most people sleep. In the evening we run the briefing, check insurance and documentation, and work through the cargo manifest: two permits and six weeks at base camp make for a very long one.

2. 2Day 2Islamabad to Chilas over the Babusar Pass

   

   Six or seven hours and 239 kilometres north through the Kaghan Valley to Naran, then three or four more over the Babusar Pass at 4,173 metres and down 113 kilometres to Chilas at 1,265 metres. We stop at the top of the pass and stay a while — driving in rather than flying is deliberate, and 4,173 metres on day two is acclimatisation you get for nothing.

3. 3Day 3Chilas to Skardu along the Indus

   

   Eight or nine hours and 290 kilometres east with the Indus below and bare rock thousands of metres above it. We stop where the Karakoram, the Himalaya and the Hindu Kush meet within sight of one another, and again at Thalichi for the view of Nanga Parbat, 8,126 metres, standing entirely clear of its neighbours. Skardu at 2,228 metres is the staging town for the range and the last place to buy anything.

4. 4Day 4Jeep up the Braldu to Jhola

   Eight or nine hours by jeep through the Shigar Valley and into the Braldu gorge, the track cut into the wall above the river and fording the Braldu three times. Past Askoli, the last village on this side of the range, the road ends and the porter train assembles — for two peaks and six weeks it is a very large one. Camp at Jhola, 3,100 metres, in twin-sharing dome tents, and the last mobile signal dies somewhere behind you.

5. 5Day 5Jhola to Paiyu

   

   Six or seven hours and 16.6 kilometres up the gorge — an undulating walk, hard in places, with the glacier-fed side streams best crossed early. The Baltoro's snout appears, and with it Cathedral Peak, the Trango Towers and the first distant sight of K2 if the air is clear. Paiyu at 3,450 metres is the last stand of trees before the ice; the porters bake bread here for the glacier days ahead.

6. 6Day 6Paiyu to Urdukas

   Seven or eight hours and 15.9 kilometres onto the glacier proper, where the trail becomes the endless rise and fall of moraine. Paiyu Peak at 6,610 metres, Uli Biaho at 6,417 and the Great Trango Tower at 6,286 stand over most of the day, with the Cathedral Towers behind them. Urdukas at 4,050 metres is a grassy shelf a hundred metres above the ice — the last vegetation until you come back down.

7. 7Day 7Urdukas — acclimatisation day

   

   A rest day at 4,050 metres. There is a short walk up the slope behind camp for a few hundred metres of height, taken slowly and given back before evening; otherwise it is a day for drinking more than you think you need and watching the light move across the Trango group. The porters cook their own food and the evening is a sociable one. Compressing this day is the most common mistake on the Baltoro.

8. 8Day 8Urdukas to Goro II

   

   Five or six hours and 12.1 kilometres out along the medial moraine into the middle of the glacier — the day the giants arrive in full. Masherbrum at 7,821 metres holds the southern skyline, Muztagh Tower at 7,284 comes into view ahead, and Gasherbrum IV at 7,925 begins to close the head of the valley. Camp at Goro II, 4,380 metres, on the ice, where the cold arrives the moment the sun leaves.

9. 9Day 9Goro II to Concordia and Broad Peak Base Camp

   Five or six hours and 9.2 kilometres to Concordia at 4,650 metres, where the Baltoro, Godwin-Austen and Abruzzi glaciers meet and the entire amphitheatre opens at once: K2 straight up the northern branch, Broad Peak beside it, Gasherbrum IV closing the valley, Mitre Peak and Sia Kangri around the rim. Three hundred and sixty degrees of it, and nothing anyone has photographed does it justice. We continue up the Godwin-Austen to base camp beneath both mountains and put the camp up in full — sleeping tents, dining tent, toilet and shower tents, store, kitchen and generator. Home for six weeks.

10. 10Days 10–52Forty-three days for two peaks

    

    The climbing period, and the reason this runs to sixty days.

    Broad Peak first. The route is worked in rotations — the line prepared and fixed camps established, loads carried, nights slept progressively higher — then a summit push in the first workable window. It is a long snow and ice climb on moderate angles, and the crux is not the climbing but the top: a rocky false summit reached first, and a corniced ridge beyond it that takes another hour or two each way at the end of an enormous day. Set your turnaround time at base camp and hold to it.

    Then recovery at base camp, which is the part that decides whether there is a second summit at all. Eat, sleep, and resist a good forecast for as long as your body needs.

    Then K2, twenty minutes up the glacier and a different order of undertaking. The Abruzzi Spur alternates ice fields, rock ribs and snow slopes; House's Chimney and the Black Pyramid are climbed on fixed rope with a load, and above them exposed, poorly defined ground leads to the Shoulder. The last obstacle is the Bottleneck, a narrow couloir directly beneath a wall of hanging seracs — the most dangerous ground on the mountain, and the reason summit days begin in the middle of the night and turn round on the clock.

    Forty-three days is a season rather than a promise. Many teams take Broad Peak and go home, which is a real result. Base camp service runs throughout: cooked meals, hot water, the generator and the satellite phone for emergencies.

11. 53Days 53–56Down the Baltoro to Jhola

    

    Four days retracing the approach at about twice the pace — base camp to Concordia, then Goro II, Urdukas or Paiyu, and Jhola. Camp comes down behind us and the porters carry everything out, waste included. Easier on the lungs and much harder on the knees, and each day the air thickens and the temperature climbs until somewhere below Paiyu there is grass again, and the smell of vegetation is genuinely disorienting after six weeks on ice.

12. 57Day 57Jhola to Skardu by jeep

    

    Eight or nine hours back down the Braldu gorge and through Shigar to Skardu at 2,228 metres — the same three river crossings and the same exposed track, in a very different mood. A hotel, a hot shower and a proper meal. Cargo left in the Skardu store is collected and sorted, and the official debriefing is arranged around it.

13. 58Day 58Fly to Islamabad

    

    The morning flight from Skardu back over the mountains, forty minutes with Nanga Parbat off the wing, down to 540 metres and a hotel with a laundry service. The afternoon is free. The flight is entirely weather-dependent: if it is cancelled we drive by way of Chilas instead, which is what tomorrow is held in reserve for.

14. 59Day 59Free day in Islamabad

    

    Held for the flight, and free if the flight went. Paperwork and the debrief in the morning, then the afternoon is yours — the Faisal Mosque, the Pakistan Monument, the lanes of Saidpur village, shopping for things to carry home — and a long farewell dinner in the evening.

15. 60Day 60Departure from Islamabad

    

    Breakfast, checkout and a transfer to the airport for your international flight. After two months in the Karakoram a good many people want a few days somewhere green and low before they fly; Lahore is two hours south, and extra nights, a day room or an extension are easy to arrange.

Good to know

This is the most serious thing we sell. K2 alone is the hardest of the fourteen 8,000 metre peaks; pairing it with Broad Peak in one season asks for six weeks of living at 5,000 metres, two acclimatisation cycles and two summit pushes from a body that will be lighter and slower by the end than it was at Concordia. We will ask for your climbing record before we take a booking, and a prior 8,000 metre summit is the usual standard.

Broad Peak first, always. It is a real summit, it is the acclimatisation that makes an Abruzzi attempt realistic, and it means that if the season closes early you closed it with an 8,000er. Anyone planning to skip it and go straight at K2 should book the K2 expedition on its own instead — we run that as a fifty-two-day programme with a Gondogoro La return.

Decide the support question early. This price covers everything to base camp and nothing above it. On Broad Peak a self-sufficient team is a normal arrangement; on K2 the presence or absence of a rope-fixing team, climbing Sherpas and oxygen is not a detail, it is the shape of the expedition. Tell us what you want at the enquiry stage so it is quoted once, in full.

The Bottleneck governs everything on K2's summit day. It is a narrow couloir directly beneath hanging seracs, and the only defence is timing — leaving in the middle of the night and turning round on the clock rather than on how good you feel. Teams have sat at base camp through a whole season without a single safe day above the Shoulder, and going home is a decision we back without argument.

Pakistani climbing permits have a statutory lead time and two permits take longer than one. Porters, cargo, oxygen and food are reserved months ahead, and the Islamabad–Skardu flights sell out in the peak weeks. Open the conversation a season early rather than a month.

Six weeks at base camp is a long time. Bring more to read and more spare batteries than you think you need. Concordia and the Godwin-Austen in July hold K2, Broad Peak and Gasherbrum teams at once, and the community that forms there is a real part of the experience — the forecasts traded, and the help given when something goes wrong.

Questions about this trip

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