K2 GGL trekking: Paiju Camp - Khorbotse

This is the first difficult day of hiking and the Baltoro Glacier has a lot to do with that. The walk to this glacier is still easy, but once on this glacier, hiking trails have permanently disappeared and the day consists of walking through rubble and glaciers for hours. Here you need to be careful as a slide is quickly made. Moreover, stones that hurtle down tens of meters tell me that you do not want to follow their example.

It is an hour's walk from Paiju to the mouth of the Baltoro Glacier and, as usual, this involves a gentle upward slope. The beach sand is back and as a result walking is at a slightly slower pace than usual. There are also some nice stopping points here, because the Braidu River has its (partial) origin in this area as this river is mainly fed by glacial water and melting snow.

Then it is time to step onto the Baltoro Glacier and there will be several hours of hard walking. You don't have to be a physicist to know that a glacier normally consists of ice, but so many stones and rocks have fallen from the surrounding mountains that this glacier is covered with rubble and later moraines. Moraines? Imagine a meter-high pile of rubble and you have an idea of what to expect. So it goes without saying that the passages along the moraines are the most challenging parts of the day. First, the slightly easier work awaits, although this also requires a bit of energy. Not a meter is flat or even and you are constantly walking over rocks: it takes concentration to follow the right path and of course everything goes up. And to make the party complete, all this happens in an environment consisting only of stones, rocks and a snow glacier in the distance. I think it's clear that this is not my favorite part of the trek.

Later it becomes a bit more difficult, because then I have to navigate along some small glacial streams in an environment of moraines. Here it is even more up and down and loose boulders make walking on a steep glacier slope even more difficult. This passage lasts about twenty minutes, but I breathe a sigh of relief when this part is over. Around noon I arrive at the campsite in Khorbotse and I am especially happy that I no longer have to walk along moraines.