Miro Caban

In the evening I felt very good and I thought to myself that it would be nonsense to stay in C2. With the German leader we had an agreement that I could use their C3 tent if they were not there and they could use mine in C2. As the Germans were only climbing to C2 I packed my stuff, packed things that the carrier would pick the other day and take them to C3, and left. The first hour of walking was good though I was burying deeper even in the Russians’ footprints.

They were young sturdy guys and formed an ‘assault’ team of the expedition. Very few could match their pace. Besides lot of physical power and persistence they had one more advantage. The expedition leader decided that with all their power they could take and use when suitable snowshoes. It was kind of a pioneer approach that paid off. The Russians went up like machines.

As the Germans were only coming to the C2 I was again alone to bulldoze the way through since I was burying deeper without any snowshoes. Though going in the Russian team’s footprints I was getting buried (through most of the track) between 50 – 70 cm deep while them only some 10-20 cm. Though it was really physically demanding I felt like immune to it. Those 800 vertical meters took me ten hours of walking. When I reached the Russian tents I asked them where would I find Germans’ tents. They told me no tents were there at all. That was a shock for me since it was my carrier who will bring the C3 tent, the next day only. “No problem” the Russians said and let me to sleep in their free tent some 100m lower. The Germans slept there also and the Russians slept in their tents in the C1 until they built their own. Thus I found out about this extraordinary set up of sleeping in others tents between our three cooperating expeditions. So the German leader meant this Russian tent when offering me to sleep in their C3 tent. Hopefully, he was in touch with them and knew that this one was unoccupied. So I cooked me a dinner and lot of tea and went to my sleeping bag at about 9 pm.