Due to our lack of sleep, and the seemingly endless night, dawn coming was more of a relief than an embuggerance. We shared a packet of dehydrated scrambled eggs and bacon (the first pork 'product' that I've eaten for 7 something weeks - Muslim country!), and each had a chocolate bar, or something else to supplement it.  

At first, we were all considering just baling out and heading back down, but after a radio call with Fabrizio (who was on his way down from C4), and needed a section fixed for him to descend, we realised that we'd have to go back up again. We had a leisurely start, and probably weren't out on the ropes till past 10am, and jugged on up to where we'd finished fixing the afternoon before. There was a certain amount of re-fixing of ropes and anchors that had to be done here, and once that was sorted we continued up to the cliff-face to where Fabrizio had camped a couple of nights earlier. We found his tent platform, and a small supply of food which unfortunately the birds had got into, so the camp was littered with the pecked remains of energy gel packets and powerbars.  

At the site were also a couple of old spools of ropes but they were well and truly tangled and had frozen into the snow. It took about an hour of (careful) hacking just to get them out, at which point I clipped into one end, and started leading on upwards whilst Dave and Chris furiously untangled the rope as I dragged it out of their hands. Fabrizio had said that there was a section above where he had camped which was alright to climb up, but would be very difficult and dangerous to climb down, and could we fix it for him. As I went up it I agreed with his prognosis - not too difficult on the way up, but it'd be a bitch on the way down: sugary powder on steep rock slab with no other fixed line (old or new) as a safety. 

Upon reaching the first anchor I saw that the whole knife-blade piton had worked it's way out of a rock crack, and was only held in place by a small section or rope frozen into the now (and no telling how much weight or force that would take to pop out). After clearing away a block of snow the size of a large television with the adze of one of my ice axes to get to the rock underneath, I hammered in another much more solid piton and then tied the fixed line through that, and then through the other tat for a little extra security. I then continued up another 15m to the next anchor, which was made up of two pitons tied together with some cordalette (short piece of 6/7mm rope). After banging both of these with my hammer to check how securely placed they were (they seemed solid enough), I tied in the fixed line and then coiled the remainder to keep it tidy and out of the way. 

I then abseiled back down what I'd just fixed (talk about the 'proof being in the pudding!') to the others and seeing the next team a few hundred metres below on their way up, decided that we'd completed our mission, and that it was time to head back down to BC. We passed the other members, who were going slowly but steadily on up to C3 and made it back to our little improvised camp. Once we'd packed up our gear and started to head down it was 1.30pm, and we had approximately 2000m of vertical descent ahead of (or below) us.

We were all already pretty exhausted from the morning's activity and the lack of sleep the previous night and so we abseiled much of the fixed lines (rather than arm rappelling), which was slightly slower, but a much safer method of descending. I reached C2 in about 45 mins and saw the 2 members who'd just arrived there to stay the night. After getting a little water from them, dumping some of my personal gear, and picking up someone else’s personal gear that needed to go down, I waited for Chris and Dave to get into the camp before I started heading down.   

It'd had been a seriously hot weekend, and the snow melt got more and more obvious the further down I went. Anchors that had been a knee height were now at shoulder height as the snow at the base had melted away to the bare rock underneath. Parts of the route down were almost unrecognisable, and the route looked completely different. From C1 downwards, on the main slope, there had been significant avalanches all weekend, and from the bottom of the fixed line down (so with no safety rope) the last 300m were a serious struggle through huge blocks of fresh avalanche debris. Fearful that the slides might not have completely ceased, I hugged the rock wall on the side of the slope all the way down in the hope that it may afford me some protection should the slope decide to go again.  

Much of the route had been scoured clean by the massive movement of snow down the slope and in turn the slides had brought up things that may have been buried for years. Just above the bottom of the route my eye caught a glimpse of something which seemed out of place a few feet out in the snow. As I went over to investigate, I recognised exactly what it was: a human hand. Or at least the remnants of a human hand. The radius and the ulna had snapped mid way down the wrist and it was missing all four fingers. Just the thumb was still intact, and the deep reddy-brown of the palm looked akin to beef jerky - glistening in the sun. It was impossible to tell whether it was a couple of years old, or 50 years old. I realised that it was probably related to a foot that had been found nearby about a month ago, so I moved it to the side and buried it under a pile of rocks in the scree. 

This rather bizarre and gory spectacle over, I continued down to the gear cache, dumped my kit and then started the long and tedious walk back to BC across the glacier. With the heat of the sun, the glacier was now a mass of rivers, small lakes and slushy snow, making progress rather treacherous. With a heavy pack on my back, the hot sun beating down on my head and the concentration required to find safe passage, the hike back seemed interminable, but the thought of getting back into the (relative) comfort of BC kept me going. Along the way I met up with a member of the Spanish team, who had had to abandon his summit attempt on the Abruzzi, due to there being too much snow above C3. I later found out that another team, who were very good friends of ours had to abandon their attempt as well, due to the snow conditions. 

As I reached our BC, over came Kamil with a cup of nice cold orange squash, which was a lifesaver! Collapsing into a chair in the dining tent, several more cups of juice and half a packet of biscuits later, I began to feel a little more human. The time was 5.30 - it'd taken me 4 hours to get down from our camp. Dave and Chris arrived in about one and a half hours later, and after an early supper we retired to our tents and our beds exhausted from our long day. Fabrizio arrived back into BC at about 8.15pm, having come all the way down from nearly 8000m! As you can imagine, he was pretty shattered, but Didar cooked him a special supper of chicken breasts to sort him out! 

Unfortunately today we had to say goodbye (via radio) to another member of the team who was evacuated by helicopter from BC whilst we were all up on the hill. Sadly they had suffered a non-critical, but trip ending, injury in BC a few days ago, and realising that it was futile staying at BC, it was better just to get out, and get back home asap to fix themselves. As always, it's been very sad to say goodbye to another member of the team, but enjoy your shower and nice cold beer! Safe journey and get well soon.

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