Annapurna, Sunday, April 18, 2010

ON THE EDGE OF THE SWORD

Suddenly, a terrific sound surrounds us. I look up and see an
avalanche of blocks of ice that falls down as a meteorite shower.  I
dodge the first one, which sweeps away the hat from my head and I dive to the ground, as my teammates do.  A first set of hits and someone screams: Are you all ok?  No answer, or at least not what we hoped.
Another set of blocks the size of a TV hits us without mercy.
Afterwards, silence.  Absolute silence and a group of shadows with
human shape that begin to rise little by little, still with a
frightening look in their eyes.  Miraculously we are all alive and
still in the same place.  Xavi got the worst part and was hit hard in
his back.  All the others are slightly hurt.  We have just arrived to
the location of camp 3 and this was our welcome.  A hard day without a doubt.  At 8 in the morning we were leaving camp 2 and were ready to cross the most dangerous zone of this cruel mountain.  Under the big funnel that comes down from the altitudes, we cross with our beating hearts under tons of dangling ice.  After 30 minutes of tension, we cross this Thermopiles pass and we get onto a lateral corridor, safe from avalanches, or at least that is what it looks like.  Then a very vertical terrain that has leaded us to the hanging glacier of camp 3.
It is a dangerous place, exposed, and while we decide where to install the tents, we were surprised by this avalanche of ice, that comes from a crack of a frozen wall hundreds of meters above us.  Frightened, disoriented, we went down a few meters and installed the camp sheltered by a gigantic block of ice.  This is indeed a safe place and we could rest from a day filled with risk and fatigue.  We are resting today at base camp, meditating about what happened, knowing that we were supremely lucky on a mountain that doesn’t give chances to a climber.  Xavi is recovering from the hit and we are all resting calmly knowing that we did our job and with the panic tingles still inside our bones.  With this episode we finish our acclimatization period and now we wait for the summit attack.  Next time we go up will be to go to camp 2, then to camp 3 and then to the summit, installing an intermediate camp 4 before caressing the white summit.  Let’s hope everything goes ok, as it has been so far.  Let’s hope we continue having this point of luck that has come with us until this date.  We will proceed cautiously, with no fear.  We will proceed with hope and caution in a difficult and beautiful mountain of the Himalayas.

Carlos Pauner

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera


Zaragoza, Saturday, April 17, 2010

RESTING AT BASE

We finally have news.  Carlos and the rest of the group rest at base
camp.  They climbed from camp 2 to camp 3, where they slept.  They had a lot of problems, because when they were installing camp 3 at 6,600 meters of altitude, a close by serac broke and an avalanche of blocks of ice came down hitting some of them.  Luckily they have some bruises but they are alright, but with the fright in their bodies.  This morning they descended from camp 3 directly to base camp, where they are now.  Tomorrow Carlos will tell us about what happened on this journey to camp 3.  They have all completed their acclimatization now, and after resting some days, they will attempt the attack to the summit, if the weather is fine.

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera


Annapurna, Thursday, April 15, 2010

SLEEPING IN CAMP 2   

Carlos, Javier and the rest of the group left this morning from base
camp to camp 2.  They got there after a long journey.  They are
resting there tonight, and tomorrow they will go up with the intention to mount camp 3 and sleep there.

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera
 

Annapurna, Saturday, April 10, 2010

BACK TO BASE

We are a few steps away from base camp, walking back from our high altitude trip.  We are stepping on the grass at the border of the
glacier and in some 20 minutes we will be in the tents of our mountain home.  I breath deeply, calm, comforted by the morning sun, happy to be back after a job well done.  We have been inside the mountain for two days.  The first took us to camp 1, 5,000 m of altitude.  We decided to stay there, because the perspective of crossing the cracked glacier ahead was not the more prudent thing to do at those hours of a warm noon.  On the morning of the next day, tethered and with extreme care, we crossed the entire glacier and we climbed on the snowy ridge that leads to the location of camp 2, at 5,600 m.  From that place, another image of this terrible mountain can be seen.  Already inside of it you can see the large walls of ice that lead to camp 3.  The vision is disturbing and you can see the large dangling glaciers and walls of ice in unstable and feeble balance.  A large avalanche surprises us just before going to sleep, but luckily it passes at some distance.  Now we can calm down.  We don’t have to be so alert to
every noise, every crackling of ice, every dangling rope.  We slept at
enough altitude for our acclimatization, at least at 50%.  Now 3 or 4
days to rest and we have to try to install camp 3 and sleep there.
This will be the final point and the next leave will be a summit
attempt.  We still have much to go, but by then we will have to cross a really dangerous zone.  This is the key to the ascent and we have to count with swiftness and luck in equal parts.  I don’t want to think much about it now.  We will have time for that later.  For the moment, calm, chat with other expeditions and to wait for the evolution of the mountain, which by now is in good conditions.  We could say that we have a nice progress on our way to Annapurna.

Carlos Pauner


Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera
Annapurna, Thursday, April 8, 2010

CAMP 2

Carlos and Javier are already at Camp 2, at 5,600 meters.  The route
from 1 to 2 was in better conditions than yesterday, and they arrived without problems.  They are going to spend the night there, and early tomorrow they will go down to base camp.  They will meet their first acclimatization phase, as they had planned.  The weather forecast says that they have three or four days of bad weather coming.  They will use them to recover and to rest at base camp, before doing another incursion on the mountain again.

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Annapurna, Wednesday, April 7, 2010

SLEEPING IN CAMP 1

Carlos and Javier left early this morning from base camp, with the
intention of going up to install camp 2.  They reached camp 1, at
5,050 meters, and they started to climb to camp 2.  It was late, it
was very hot, and they found zones with a lot of crevasses in bad
shape and very dangerous.  They decided to go back to camp 1 where
they are now.  They will spend the night there, and early tomorrow,
also colder, they will climb to camp 2.

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Zaragoza, Saturday, April 3, 2010

CAMP 1

Carlos and the rest of the group left yesterday very early from base
camp.  They climbed up to 5,000 meters where they installed camp 1.
They left there the necessary equipment and went back down to base camp.  It took them a lot of hours, and the route is very complicated. Now they will rest two or three days until they leave base again with the intention of installing camp 2.

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera


Annapurna, April 1, 2010

UNDER THE SLEEPING BEAST

We have installed our base camp at 4,200 m of altitude, under the
spectacular Annapurna.  After numerous helicopter flights we could
bring up here everything we need for this expedition.  We had our Puja today, this ceremony that pretends to put away the bad spirits of the mountain and cover us with luck and bonanza at the same time.  The day has been sunny and a little windy, but it did not snow as the last two days.  We took a furtive glance at the almost 4,000 meters of wall that separate us from the summit of this gigantic mountain.  It is impressive.  This face of Annapurna looks like an agitated and convulse wall, with hanging and broken glaciers, impossible aristas  and chaos everywhere.  It is hard to imagine a safe route for the ascent in this world of vertical ice.  Not in vain, our route sorts the hanging glaciers, trying to find, in the high part, the Hoz glacier, where the path to the summit is clearer.  First we will have to cross a glacier and avoid a large slope of blocks of ice to reach camp 1, at some 5,000 m of altitude.  From there a cracked glacier will take us to the bottom of the large intermediate plain, where we will install camp 2.  Crossing this plain and get on top of a spur of ice will be the most dangerous part, because we will be threatened by all the seracs in the higher part.  From camp 3 to 4 we still have to pass a large wall of ice, previous to the superior glacier.  The entire route is complex and demanding, just like this mythical mountain of the Himalayas.  For the moment, we will concentrate in the immediate things, as always.  Tomorrow, we will take the path to camp1, carrying tents and some gas to install.  We will spend the day outside and during the afternoon we will be back to the comfort and safety of our base camp.  It is going to be like that always.  Advance little by little, thinking in the next thing, attacking problems one at a time altitude in this wild world which will be our home for some time. Edurne’s group is ahead of us, they have already told us about the route.  We will collaborate with the other expeditions and we will all try to leave a route that is reasonable safe, hoping that we all can be lucky in this great mountain challenge.  A lot of work ahead, but for the moment everything goes as planned and we will be already working tomorrow, trying to decipher the traps we will surely find these weeks.  The long journey to Annapurna starts now.

Carlos Pauner

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera
 

Zaragoza, Tuesday, March 30, 2010

AT BASE CAMP

Carlos, Javier and Tolo are already at base camp.  They flew yesterday from Katmandu to Pokhara, where they caught another flight to Tatopani, a little Nepalese town located at 1,190 meters of altitude. From Tatopani they were transported to Annapurna base camp at 4,200 meters of altitude.

They needed seven helicopter flights to move the equipment and loads.
They met two expeditions there, with whom they will share this
expedition’s base camp, with the expedition of Al Filo [de lo
Impossible] and with the Korean expedition.  Carlos mentioned that
everybody is ok, and that it is a comfortable and a little cold base
camp, because of the altitude is not as elevated as in other
eight-thousands.  Now they are going to organize what will be their
hope for the next weeks.

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera
 

Zaragoza, Monday, March 29, 2010

TOWARD POKHARA

Carlos, Javier and the rest of the group arrived at Katmandu by Thursday afternoon.  On Friday and Saturday they organized all the necessary paperwork to leave to Annapurna.  They have checked the material, distributed the loads, requested the permissions and other papers and they are ready.  They also had time to visit an orphanage in Katmandy where the Kumara association in Zaragoza sponsors some children.  

Yesterday, Sunday, they were going to fly to Pokhara, but they delayed the flight until today.  This change of plans is because it is not clear if they can reach base camp by foot.  They may have to catch a helicopter.  They will have more information when they land in Pokhara today, and we will tell you then.

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera