Extra USD 50 Will Do the Job

I felt absolutely fine in the morning. Shortly after waking up I had dismantled and packed up the tent and helped with packing of the other things, which will be soon moved to ABC. Jan was more active in the previous evening than today with unloading and unfortunately his face had gotten swollen in the morning so he had to decide whether he would continue to the ABC or if he would stay at 5200 meters for one more day. But as he kept his appetite and there were no other signs of acclimatization problems, apart from the swelling, he decided to continue with us.

I felt very good and kept such a good pace with the walking that I got afraid of overreaching the speed of vertical climbing. So I decided that I better stop for few times and enjoy of watching the sceneries around me. Based on my experiences I was convinced that the yakmen would try to trick us and unload our stuff much lower than what would be the highest point of the ABC. So I decided to wait for them on the edge, from where the ABC virtually started. When they came closer, they asked right away where they should put our luggage and started to point left and right. Instead I pointed to a small hill in front of us and said: “over there”, which meant walking 45 minutes longer. During a short quarrel I had to remind them what their responsibilities were. Of course, they didn’t speak any English, not that they would in this situation anyway, if they knew some, so I had to show them which way to go since they were afraid of that their yaks might sink in the snow. But that wasn’t enough. The only sufficient motivation was extra USD 50 and after 45 mins we, the yakmen as well as the yaks with our stuff were in the real ABC. Finally! My Suunto X6 was showing altitude of 5400 meters above the sea and we were there, all alone!