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Portlanders ready
for mountain trek
■ The group will attempt
to tackle K2, the world’s
second-tallest peak
By Terry Richard
The Associated Press
PORTLAND — Every morning
for more than a month, Jeff Alzner
poked his head outside his tent
and marveled at one of the most
imposing mountain views on the
planet.
A Portland landscaper, Alzner
was in Pakistan’s Karakoram
Range to climb Broad Peak, the
world’s 12th-highest mountain.
A few miles north, an even big
ger giant soars more than two
miles in pyramidal splendor
above the tent city that sprawls on
the Godwin-Austen Glacier dur
ing Himalayan climbing season.
That mountain is K2, which at
28,267 feet, is the second-highest
peak on Earth. During that sum
mer of 1995, Alzner spent five
weeks climbing 26,400-foot Broad
Peak, but it was K2 that haunted
his dreams when he returned to
Portland.
He decided that, one day, he
would return to Asia to attempt
the summit that mountaineers
prize even more highly than
Mount Everest.
That day is approaching. Alzn
er will leave in two months on an
expedition he calls K2000: The
American North Ridge Expedi
tion.
“I always thought K2 was too
hard or too high,” said Alzner,
who has put together the most am
bitious mountaineering expedi
tion ever organized in Oregon.
“When you’re there and you’re
looking at K2, you can’t help but
want to climb it.”
To plan the K2 expedition,
Alzner, 41, teamed with Wayne
Wallace, 36, a Portland construc
tion worker and one of the most
accomplished technical climbers
ever to come from Oregon.
Alzner brings high-altitude ex
perience, while Wallace offers su
perb technical skills for climbing
high-angle rock and ice.
Together they enticed 11
friends to join the expedition
(each ponied up $5,000) and be
gan courting sponsors to help cov
er the estimated $235,000 cost.
The team includes one other
Portlander, Drew Hansen, 30, who
will lead the expedition’s environ
mental cleanup and will be mak
ing his first trip to Asia.
Other members come from Cali
fornia, Colorado, Alaska and Con
necticut. Together they bring im
pressive credentials on Asia’s
high mountains, arctic climbing
in Alaska and big-wall ice and
rock climbing in California, Cana
da and Chile. Two of the climbers
are physicians.
Heidi Howkins, 32, a former
Oregonian who lives in Ridge
field, Conn., is the only one of the
group who manages a living as a
professional mountaineer.
The petite 120-pounder will at
tempt to become the first Ameri
can woman (and the sixth overall)
to climb K2.
Alzner’s expedition will not be
a return voyage for him up Pak
istan’s Baltoro and Godwin
Austen glaciers to the Abruzzi
Ridge, the standard route on K2’s
south side and the least difficult
approach to the mountain.
Instead, he selected the rarely
visited North Ridge route on the
Chinese side of the mountain,
where the approach includes a 70
mile march alongside camels that
carry the expedition’s gear, plus
another week spent ferrying loads
up the K2 Glacier to base camp.
The expedition will be in the
field so long that it will bring in
live sheep for fresh meat and plant
a vegetable garden where the
camels’ trek ends.
Although long and difficult, the
North Ridge route is considered
the safest on K2 because it doesn’t
have the extreme danger of rock
fall and avalanches that plagues
the mountain’s other routes.
The climb will be in lightweight
expedition style, without the aid
of supplemental oxygen or high
altitude porters.
“The only way I could assemble
a team of really good climbers was
to go to the North Ridge,” Alzner
said. “Everybody else goes to the
south side, and I knew the
climbers I wanted wouldn’t be in
terested in going there.”
Why did Alzner choose K2 in
stead of Mount Everest, which, af
ter all, is nearly 800 feet higher?
“It’s like an old saying,” Alzner
said. “When you see some of the
people who are going to heaven, it
makes you want to go somewhere
else. Everest doesn’t do anything
for me.”
To reach the north side of K2,
team members will leave May 18
for Islamabad, Pakistan, where
they will hire trucks for the three
day drive on the Karakoram High
way to the Chinese border.
After clearing border formali
ties, they’ll drive four more days
into China, traveling through the
ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar.
When the trucks reach road’s
end, about 75 camels, all famously
ill-tempered according to mem
bers of past expeditions, will take
a week to transport supplies 70
miles closer to K2. Team members
will ride the camels only during
river crossings.
“From where the camels dump
the supplies, you still have to car
ry everything 17 miles up the gla
cier to base camp,” Burgess said.
If everything goes according to
plan, the camels will drop sup
plies June 7 and the expedition
will be cut off from the world until
the camels return in late August.
A Chinese team will be climb
ing the same route this summer in
an attempt to plant its country’s
flag atop K2 for the first time. Two
teams working together is expect
ed to improve both of their
chances of reaching the summit.
Coming down alive, which can
be even more difficult than reach
ing the top, is the ultimate
achievement on K2.
Barely two months before de
parture, the team is scrambling to
put together a documentary film
deal, to attract more sponsors and
to raise funds locally by selling T
shirts—all typical last-minute de
tails for major expeditions.
Alzner says he’s prepared to
mortgage his Southwest Portland
house, if it’s the only way to com
plete the financing.
“I’m to the point in my climb
ing career,” he said, “where I ei
ther have to make it pay off or I
need to quit. What I’m doing now
takes such a commitment that I
don’t have time to run my busi
ness.”
Bob McGown, Oregon corre
spondent for the American
Alpine Club, says he thinks he
knows why K2 has a way of mak
ing climbers do seemingly irra
tional things.
“If you climb K2, it’s pretty
much the paramount of a
climber’s career,” he said. “When
you’ve climbed K2, you’ve done
it.”