We’re back down at basercamp again after our final acclimation rotation on the mountain. The team went up to sleep at Camp 1 and have look at the rock towere that need to be negotiated before reaching the snowy (icy) soaring SW ridge that lead to the final summit ridge line.
The tower itself is about 200m of vertical and 300m or horizontal climbing on variable rock and ice this year. Going at it sight unseen at 3 am may not be the best fun so a quick reccy was the order or the day after a we reached Camp 1 2 days ago.
Its a testemant to the acclimatization proces that from basecamp to camp 1 it only took the team between 4;15 to 4:45 from BC (4720m) rather than the 6 hours on our first visit starting from High Camp (5100m)
So now we are resting and waiting – the winds still seem to be forecast to be low with no precip .
Everybody selpt well at C1 and the Summit is calling.
All things going well we should be heading back up to C1 on the 1st for a summit push starting in the very early hours of the 2nd.
Game on!