Karakoram
K2 Base Camp and Concordia
Three weeks up the Baltoro Glacier to the foot of the second-highest mountain on earth. The trek every other trek gets measured against.
Author: Arsalan Majid, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Duration
- 21 days
- Difficulty
- Expedition
- Highest point
- 5,150 m
- Distance
- 140 km
- Best season
- Jun – Sep
- Budget on the ground
- 90–160 € per day
- Group size
- 4–10
Overview
Why this trek
I spent ten years walking in the Alps, and I say this without any posturing: the Baltoro is in a different league. Technically it is barely harder. It is the scale. In the Alps a peak stands in front of you. At Concordia you stand inside a ring of four eight-thousanders and realise your brain has stopped judging distance correctly. What looks like two hours away is eight.
This is not a first trip to high altitude. Three weeks, ten of them on glacial moraine, in a tent, with no phone signal and no hut serving hot soup. But it is not mountaineering either: if you have done multi-day hut tours in the Alps with a heavy pack and you handle altitude, you can walk this.
What it costs
A guided trip with a cook, porters, permits and transport runs about 90 to 160 euros a day. The spread is almost entirely about group size. That sounds like a lot until you price a guided trip of the same length in Nepal or Patagonia. Food and lodging in Skardu and Islamabad, by contrast, cost close to nothing.
How busy it gets
In high season there might be a few hundred people on the Baltoro at any one time, spread across 62 kilometres of glacier. For comparison, the Everest Base Camp trek sees tens of thousands in the same window. You will see other groups in the evening. You will never queue.
Day by day
Day 1
Arrive in Islamabad
Arrival, paperwork, kit check. The first day always goes on logistics.
2–3
To Skardu
Fly to Skardu if the weather allows, otherwise two days on the Karakoram Highway. The overland route is no loss. It shows you the scale of the country.
Day 4
Skardu to Askole
Seven hours by jeep on a track blasted into the rock in places. Askole is the last village. After that there is nothing.
5–7
Askole to Paiju
Two long days along the Braldu, then the first sight of the Trango Towers. A rest day at Paiju before the glacier begins.
8–10
Onto the Baltoro
The glacier is not a walk: moraine, crevasses, constant up and down. Urdukas, Goro II. In the evening Masherbrum stands in the last of the light.
11–12
Concordia
The reason people come. K2, Broad Peak, the Gasherbrums, all at once and all above 8,000 metres. A rest day here is necessity, not luxury.
Day 13
K2 Base Camp
Day walk to base camp at 5,150 m and the Gilkey Memorial. A quiet place. It makes you humble very quickly.
14–18
The way back
The same route back to Askole. Downhill is faster, but your knees will remember the glacier.
19–21
Skardu and home
Back to Skardu, on to Islamabad. The last evening always comes too early.
Practical details
- Permits
- Trekking to Concordia and K2 Base Camp needs no summit permit, but does need registration for the Central Karakoram National Park. A local operator handles this.
- Visa
- Pakistan offers an e-visa to German citizens. Trekking trips usually require an invitation or booking confirmation from a local operator.
- Acclimatisation
- Concordia sits at 4,600 m and base camp at 5,150 m. Gaining that over eight days is slow enough, provided you actually take the rest days. Take them.
- Getting there
- Fly to Islamabad, then a domestic flight to Skardu (frequently cancelled for weather) or two days by road on the Karakoram Highway.
Photos
