HI-TEC & High Point Expedition Dhaulagiri

Dhaulaghiri  BC: We were sitting in the BC and our feet were freezing. We were at least in the height of 6000 m up to our knees deep in the snow. We tried to decide if we should go back into the wall or go back home. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I wouldn’t even try once again to go for it. Suddenly we heard very laud cracks of snow plates. This place gained a lot of snow over last couple of days. The whole mountain looked like it was ready for an avalanche. The wall was just around us getting really steep and dangerous. Once my friend was here while an avalanche felt down and two people were lost in it.  I took that crack as a warning and decided to stop trying. Unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be for us to clime this mountain. Expedition is over. We just took last couple of pictures and last look at the camp CII where we left all of our equipment. On the way we packed CI and I actually realized, how would we carry two tents with all of our equipment only ourselves. Oh well if we would have to I am sure we would manage somehow. The weather became really bad and I had to switch my glasses. The fag was really thick and we couldn’t see the way. Even though it wasn’t snowing, the snow felt down from the top and covered the trail anyway.

Once again we had to go through the glacier that constantly moved and reshaped itself, unfortunately only to the worse. We felt like our courage is at its maximum level. In the beginning I tried to describe this cross over moving glacier like running into the street while is a red light and now I would compare this climb to a Russian roulette. Do you know the rules for this game? You put only one bullet into a gun, spin it, put it next to your head, take a last breath and shoot. The results are up to your luck. Well now you know how we felt while we tried to cross the most dangerous part – moving glacier. There were many seracs, breaches in the ice. We walked on the crest of an ice, where seracs felt down into hundreds of meters deep breaches with no chance save yourself!

We made it! Incredible! We end up in the BC camp and we shook our hands together. We were done, this place was madness. Our feelings were mixed, did we win or loose? This year Dhaulaghiri didn’t allow anybody at all to reach the top. Not even in the spring. My friends end up in the height of 7 600m and me in 7 900m maybe even higher? Oh well, the top is the top and we didn’t manage to reach that. At least we are still healthy and nothing bad happened to us. By the way we just found out on Pumori died two people in the avalanche!

We sat in the common tent and drunk Marpha Apple Brandy. We heard a very big storm coming when we went to sleep. The noises were very loud and scary. I felt asleep with a very good feeling that we didn’t stay up there. Our BC was covered by snow almost completely and if we would have stayed in the CII we wouldn’t be able to come back from the height of 7000 m. That would be very hard or nearly impossible.

Other problem came up and it was about how should we get out from the BC. We ordered donkeys, however they were not coming as we found out over the phone. In Kathmandu was a very nice weather so they were not going to send even any carriers. I don’t know what we should do. It is clear for us, we have to leave tomorrow if we want to or not unless the weather would be really bad and dangerous. We have to cross two saddles and reach to Marphy. If we don’t get lost between the saddles, we might be able to reach the height of 2 600m. There is waiting for us the shower, the beer and the heat too. It is time to get ready. I am going to pack. Bye Radek

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