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 It was hard to start moving in the morning, but we did it. The weather was stormy. There was a snow-wind and visibility was so low (only 10-20m). We had taken all the necessary things to set one tent. We had reached the foot of the mountain rather quickly (thanks, Carlos!) and found the beginning of the fixed ropes. The approach to the mountain foot was quite dangerous. There was a lot of snow piled up on the slope. Still the visibility level was very low, and the area was unknown and hard to go through. We had a constant feeling that avalanche could fall down at any moment. In 8 or 9 hours, we climbed 1,000m and starting searching for the place to bivouac. There wasn't a suitable space for that.  |
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DUSHARIN:
It took us a long time to find a place. We explored the area of the slope
200m lower the "crow's nest" (it was the how the members of the international
expedition called their 1st camp). Victor Kolesnichenko came very close
to the edge of the ridge, and almost under his feet a gigantic piece of
cornice fell down. It was as long as 100m and 10m wide. The distance between
his feet and the precipice was less than half a meter. At last we came
to understand that there wouldn't be a suitable place. So we decided to
set a camp right on the slope. We started digging and eventually found
old equipment left by some previous expedition, possibly Japanese. We had
found 20 snow anchors, about 30 gas cylinders, several carabiners and an
excellent show shovel. We started digging out the cylinders, some of them
started bursting, and gas was coming out whistling, so we had to lay down
each time. Actually, the tent had been set, but only for sitting during
the night. Almost 1/3 of it was hanging above the slope. We were having
a hard time during the night, and couldn't get a good rest.
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On the morning of the 18th the group of Penzov started ascending. Sergei had great plans to take the ropes to the first camp and then to move up to 6,500m. The weather was good and he was feeling OK. He had taken the ropes to the 1st camp but then, having not acclimatized, climbed only 300m in 3 hours. His gang (Renat Temirbaev, Igor Benkin and Mikhail Ishutin) were not acclimatized enough too. Next day they would go down. Tomorrow we would start our second ascent to set the camp II. The group of Dosaev will ascent with us, starting their acclimatization. |
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