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 DUSHARIN:
At 11a.m. by Peking time the caravan started forward and in two hours or
two hours and a half we reached the glacier of K2. We set our lower base
camp there. We unloaded the camels, cleared an area for our tents and made
up a farewell party for the liaison officer, interpreter and other cameleers.
We had a drink sitting at the table that we made out of barrels. We had
heard about the international expedition working in the mountains, and
in the so-called "Chinese camp" we met the liaison officer of that expedition.
Having set the camp, we decided to make at least one move towards the mountain
and set a temporary base for our luggage.
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 Such a move gave its result. We walked up to the camp where the Pakistani porters of the international expedition had been living. We asked them the way to the mountain. There was something extraordinary in that. We were carrying the heavy load, jumping from stone to stone, and in front there was a shining K2, the magic crystal. When evening falls the mountain gets bright yellow in beams of the sunset. It is fantastic. |
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| In the evening Volodya Shuvalov suggested a new
way of transporting the luggage. I thought it was wonderful. The point
was not to live in temporary camps as we usually did, but to carry the
luggage only from the lower base camp. Then everything (people, kitchen,
all the personal things) would be carried to the upper, advanced base camp
in one move. The rest of the luggage would have to be carried there afterwards.
Next morning a group of 4 (Dusharin, Volkov, Sabelnikov, Kolesnichenko)
started exploring the area aiming to reach the international camp and to
find a place to set the advanced base camp (ABC). The rest of the fellows,
working according to the Shuvalov's suggestion, had done one move and set
the temporary storage between the camps (the Pakistani and the upper base
camp).
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DUSHARIN:
It was already evening when we reached the camp of the international expedition.
It was 5 or 6 by the local time. The meeting was wonderful. The Polish
doctor was especially nice to us. He treated us to some tea with candies
and told us about the current events. It seemed to me that not everything
was perfect there. Then an Italian and a Polish guy came. The guy from
Poland had a splendid mustache. He turned out to be the leader of the expedition
and the famous climber, Krzysztof Wielicki. He already summited 12 of 14
eightthousanders, and he was the member of 20 Himalayans expeditions. He
was really glad to meet us. He knew about Togliatti
and AvtoVAZ. We had a "Honda" generator,
and he had a satellite phone. So it was a nice meeting. |
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