Monday 6th July
July 9th, 2009 by Jake
So, finally, up the hill we go. The weather seems to be holding for the next few days, so now is a good opportunity to strike out for Camp 2 (6450m). We've more or less spilt the team into two. Those who are fixing the rope, and those who are plodding along behind load carrying. The fixer's plan is to crack on up the ropes that have already been laid (to the base of the traverse) and then fix to C2. The rest of us (me included) are just going to trudge up to C1 (approx 5900), spend the night there, and then carry more supplies up to C2 and meet up with the others tomorrow (when, if the weather is right, they may even start fixing towards C3 (7200m ish). So we had an early start, all up at 4.30am, breakfast and leave by 5.30. Although I say 'early start', we tend to be in bed and asleep by around 8.30/9pm, so it's not as though we not getting enough beauty sleep! The reason for the early starts is due to the snow conditions. As the sun comes up and warms the snow, not only does it become a lot more slushy (very tiring for climbing up through), but the chances of avalanches increase. Due to the amount of snow we've had recently, this is a particularly serious danger, and it was only a couple of days ago that we watched an enormous avi sweep down the next door gully to the Cezen and dust two thirds of the glacier. As impressive as they are to watch, they are a constant reminder of how powerful the mountain is, and how fragile we would be if we were caught in one.
So, loaded up with tents and food and gas for higher up the hill, we did the now familiar commute out to the bottom of the route where we put on our harnesses and crampons and then started climbing up the unfixed section towards the ropes. There was a tremendous amount of fresh snow on the route, although as we were at the back of the team, those at the front had dug decent steps for us to use as we followed along behind. I reached the lower section of C1 by about 11ish, where I helped one of the others put their tent up on a particularly precarious snow ledge, that was barely wide enough for two people to lie side by side, let alone put a tent over them! We had to do some serious bodging to attach the tent safely to the rock and the snow, and even then, it still had a foot or so hanging over the edge! Once that tent was sorted, I continued up to the main C1 site (although to call it a site implies that there is comfortable space for tents - which there isn't!). To my slight surprise, I found the fixing team making themselves comfortable in the tents that the 'b' team were supposed to be using. Unfortunately, due to the wind picking up, and there still being a lot of sugary snow dusting steep rock and ice further up, they had decided to crash here for the night and continue up to C2 the following day. In principal this isn't a problem at all, but in practice this meant that not all of us would be able to sleep at C1. In the end, Fabrizio and I decided to go back down to BC for the night, and then travel up unladen the next day to meet with the others. It felt very frustrating to be heading back down (and to make tomorrow that much longer), but ultimately there wasn't much we could do about it, and the thought of what delicacies we could order at BC suddenly made us forget about any inconvenience caused (for now anyway!). It didn't take us too long to bash back down the slopes, and we were back in BC in about 1.5 hours. Once there we met up with the other two members of the team who had stayed down and set about ordering a feast of our favourite foods for supper - something that wouldn't have been possible had all the team been there! The BC staff had somehow managed to get their hands on some fresh Yak meat and so we had a delicious stew (much better than the normal goat stuff), with vegetable cutlets (imagine potato cakes with veggies in them), mixed rice and vegetables and the 'piece de la resistance' - an olive and vegetable pizza... Fresh (well tinned!) olives courtesy of Claudia, who joined us for supper, as her team were up the mountain (on the Abruzzi). What made the evening even more special is that we ate in the kitchen tent rather than the dinning tent, which was much warmer, and much more fun to be with all of the BC staff as well. In fact, our kitchen tent (where Fabrizio and I had been since we'd got down ) had turned out to be the social Mecca of the whole of BC that evening, as we had all sorts of people come and visit. Mr Kim, the Korean climber came down with his Nepali cook for tea (he's lost all his fingers and thumbs from frostbite, which make shaking hands with him rather interesting!). Lots of other camp staff came down, and after dinner, Didar (our cook) started telling us ghost stories of what has happened to him, or to others on their own up on the glacier. He's convinced that the ghosts of dead climbers come and pull his hair or his feet in the night whilst he is asleep. There are bits of (human) bodies regularly found on the glacier (members of our team found a foot a couple of weeks ago), and so you can imagine how quickly these ghost stories start up! Retiring to bed at about 9.30ish, we were very thankful for having come down the mountain for such a fun evening, and our thoughts were with our team mates shivering away up on their tiny ledges...
So, loaded up with tents and food and gas for higher up the hill, we did the now familiar commute out to the bottom of the route where we put on our harnesses and crampons and then started climbing up the unfixed section towards the ropes. There was a tremendous amount of fresh snow on the route, although as we were at the back of the team, those at the front had dug decent steps for us to use as we followed along behind. I reached the lower section of C1 by about 11ish, where I helped one of the others put their tent up on a particularly precarious snow ledge, that was barely wide enough for two people to lie side by side, let alone put a tent over them! We had to do some serious bodging to attach the tent safely to the rock and the snow, and even then, it still had a foot or so hanging over the edge! Once that tent was sorted, I continued up to the main C1 site (although to call it a site implies that there is comfortable space for tents - which there isn't!). To my slight surprise, I found the fixing team making themselves comfortable in the tents that the 'b' team were supposed to be using. Unfortunately, due to the wind picking up, and there still being a lot of sugary snow dusting steep rock and ice further up, they had decided to crash here for the night and continue up to C2 the following day. In principal this isn't a problem at all, but in practice this meant that not all of us would be able to sleep at C1. In the end, Fabrizio and I decided to go back down to BC for the night, and then travel up unladen the next day to meet with the others. It felt very frustrating to be heading back down (and to make tomorrow that much longer), but ultimately there wasn't much we could do about it, and the thought of what delicacies we could order at BC suddenly made us forget about any inconvenience caused (for now anyway!). It didn't take us too long to bash back down the slopes, and we were back in BC in about 1.5 hours. Once there we met up with the other two members of the team who had stayed down and set about ordering a feast of our favourite foods for supper - something that wouldn't have been possible had all the team been there! The BC staff had somehow managed to get their hands on some fresh Yak meat and so we had a delicious stew (much better than the normal goat stuff), with vegetable cutlets (imagine potato cakes with veggies in them), mixed rice and vegetables and the 'piece de la resistance' - an olive and vegetable pizza... Fresh (well tinned!) olives courtesy of Claudia, who joined us for supper, as her team were up the mountain (on the Abruzzi). What made the evening even more special is that we ate in the kitchen tent rather than the dinning tent, which was much warmer, and much more fun to be with all of the BC staff as well. In fact, our kitchen tent (where Fabrizio and I had been since we'd got down ) had turned out to be the social Mecca of the whole of BC that evening, as we had all sorts of people come and visit. Mr Kim, the Korean climber came down with his Nepali cook for tea (he's lost all his fingers and thumbs from frostbite, which make shaking hands with him rather interesting!). Lots of other camp staff came down, and after dinner, Didar (our cook) started telling us ghost stories of what has happened to him, or to others on their own up on the glacier. He's convinced that the ghosts of dead climbers come and pull his hair or his feet in the night whilst he is asleep. There are bits of (human) bodies regularly found on the glacier (members of our team found a foot a couple of weeks ago), and so you can imagine how quickly these ghost stories start up! Retiring to bed at about 9.30ish, we were very thankful for having come down the mountain for such a fun evening, and our thoughts were with our team mates shivering away up on their tiny ledges...
