There is no other trek quite like the walk up the Baltoro Glacier to Concordia and K2 Base Camp. In about two weeks of walking from the last village, the trail passes beneath four of the fourteen peaks above 8,000 m and a dozen of the most dramatic granite towers on earth, and it does so without a single lodge, teahouse or permanent settlement after the first day. The name that has stuck to Concordia, the throne room of the mountain gods, was coined by the American photographer Galen Rowell in the 1970s, and standing there at 4,600 m with K2, Broad Peak and the Gasherbrums arranged around the ice, it does not seem like an exaggeration.
Getting to the start
The trek begins at Askole, a Balti village at about 3,000 m at the end of a rough jeep road from Skardu, the regional town of Baltistan in northern Pakistan. Skardu itself, at around 2,230 m, is reached by a flight from Islamabad when the weather allows, or by a long two-day drive up the Karakoram Highway and the Indus gorge. The drive from Skardu to Askole takes six to eight hours on a track cut into cliffs above the Braldu River, and it is part of the experience: landslides and washouts are common, and we walked the last section one year after a bridge had gone. Everything for the trek, food, fuel, tents and the kitchen, is carried from Askole by porters, and the size of the caravan that assembles in the village on the morning of departure is a good measure of how far from anywhere you are about to go.
Along the Braldu and onto the ice
The first three days follow the Braldu valley east through a landscape of grey sand, boulders and scrub. Camps at Jhola and then Paiju, at about 3,400 m, are hot and dusty in July, and the walk is long rather than steep. Paiju is the last place with trees and the traditional spot for a rest day before the glacier; it is also where the Baltoro’s snout comes into view, a wall of grey ice and rubble more than 60 km long. From Paiju the trail climbs onto the glacier itself and the character of the trek changes completely. The walking is on moraine, loose rock over ice, with streams to cross and the path re-made every season as the surface shifts. The reward begins almost at once: the Trango Towers rise on the north side, sheer granite to over 6,200 m, followed by the Cathedral spires and, further on, the pyramid of Masherbrum (7,821 m) across the ice to the south.
Urdukas, Goro and the approach to Concordia
Urdukas, at about 4,050 m, is a terrace of grass and boulders on the south bank with the finest view of the Trango group, and it is the last camp on solid ground. After it the tents go up on the glacier: at Goro II around 4,250 m, where the night temperature drops well below freezing even in August, and then at Concordia. The day from Goro to Concordia is the one everyone waits for. Gasherbrum IV (7,925 m) fills the head of the valley with its pale west face, and then, in the last hour, the glacier bends left and K2 appears, a clean pyramid of rock and ice rising to 8,611 m, the second-highest point on earth and by most accounts the more beautiful one. Concordia is the junction of the Baltoro with the Godwin-Austen Glacier coming down from K2. Broad Peak (8,051 m) stands directly across from camp; Gasherbrum I (8,080 m) and Gasherbrum II (8,035 m) lie up the valley to the east. Most parties spend two or three nights here.
K2 Base Camp and the memorial
From Concordia it is a long day up the Godwin-Austen Glacier to K2 Base Camp at roughly 5,000 to 5,150 m, passing Broad Peak Base Camp on the way. The walk is a slow ascent over moraine with K2 growing larger at every step until it fills the sky. Base camp in season is a scatter of expedition tents on the ice; outside season it is empty. A short climb above it stands the Gilkey memorial, a cairn hung with plates and plaques to those who have died on K2 since the 1950s. It is a sobering place, and it belongs to the trek as much as the views do. We turned around there and walked back down to Concordia in the afternoon, which makes a round trip of eight to ten hours.
Return options and the Gondogoro La
Most groups return the way they came, which takes four to five days down the Baltoro to Askole. The alternative is the Gondogoro La, a pass of about 5,585 m that crosses south from the upper Vigne Glacier into the Hushe valley. It is a mountaineering objective rather than a trek: the northern side is steep snow and ice climbed on fixed ropes in the dark before dawn, and conditions vary from year to year. When open, it saves two days and gives an unforgettable sunrise over the four 8,000 m peaks, but it needs a team with the equipment and experience to handle it, and it is closed in some seasons. Whichever way you go down, the loss of altitude is a relief, and the first trees at Paiju or Hushe look like a different world.
Season, permits and what it demands
The window is short: late June to early September. Before it the glacier camps are under snow; after it the weather deteriorates and the porters go home. July has the warmest and most settled weather but the busiest camps. The trek lies within the Central Karakoram National Park and in a restricted zone close to the border, and foreigners need a trekking permit, a park fee and a registered guide; these are arranged in advance through a licensed operator, and we suggest allowing several weeks for the paperwork. The physical demand is real. Twelve to fourteen days of walking on rock and ice, nights at 4,000 to 4,700 m for a week or more, and no easy exit if things go wrong: the only way out from Concordia is on foot or by helicopter evacuation, which requires insurance that covers it. Acclimatisation is built into the profile, but anyone with a history of altitude illness should think carefully. It is, in the end, the most rewarding walk we know, and one to prepare for as seriously as the mountains deserve.