Miro Caban

Yesterday evening we agreed that we would stick with the Germans. We also discussed the marking of the path up to the saddle at 7845 m (200 meters below the peak) but the Russian were really eager to reach the peak first and decided to go on their own. So we watched them as they competed among themselves for being the first on the Broad Peak. We saw that even wearing the snowshoes it was lot of struggle to bulldoze the way up. The German leader decided to set off at 3 am but as I like to have enough time I replied that I would leave at 2 am already. The rest of the day we spent watching the sky and checking on the weather. In the evening the German leader came to my tent and said that they changed their mind and will leave same as me at 2 am. Thus we could change in bulldozing the way up. The first Russian team came back without reaching the peak. They reached the saddle 200 m below the peak but then had to go down. The other team replaced them (occupied the tent at 7500 m) thus they had to go down to the C2. That team will be ahead of us. But all of us knew that the other day was the only one for reaching the peak as change in the weather would be coming.