Moro Poised For Broad Peak Attempt

You might quite reasonably argue that climbing in the Himalayas in winter is completely mad, but that hasn't stopped veteran Italian, The North Face-sponsored mountaineer Simone Moro, who is poised for a first winter summit attempt on Broad Peak.

Moro, together with his climbing partners Shaheen Baig and Qudrat Ali have already been high on the 8047-metre mountain - just short of Camp 3 - and have fixed ropes along the steepest and most technical part of the route to help them on their planned summit bid.

The team returned to basecamp a week ago to wait out a forecasted storm which struck the next day bringing winds of more than 120 km per hour at 7,000 metres.

It's conditions like these which mean that only eight of the world's 14 8,000-metre peaks have been climbed during the winter months, Broad Peak being one of the unclimbed six remaining. To put things in perspective, when the team overnighted at Camp 2 before the retreat to basecamp, temperatures fell to minus 35 C.

If the storm breaks as forecast, the summit attempt may already be underway. More details as and when we have them.

More about the expedition and Moro at www.thenorthface.com.