After so many days at basecamp (5500m.) I decided to give my body one more kick in the butt to acclimatize and tolerate altitude before the summit-push. Kind of just telling that it is not over yet!

So on morning of 11th I climbed to my camp 2 at 7000 meters. Having reached it so quickly I then decided to go ”touch” the altitude of 7500 meters. At 7400 meters I got hit by a very strong wind so I retreated to my camp 2 to spend a night.

I should have seen it coming but I didn’t. Or in fact, I didn’t think it was going to be that big. The snowfall I mean. Having started in late afternoon it soon snowed a good meter. After all that snow the wind got so terrible that it was impossible to get a night of sleep having my tent getting a terrible beating.

In the morning I was expecting to do what would be a normal, leisurely 2 hour descend to basecamp. What not! All the tracks were gone and all the fixed ropes were buried under two to four foot of snow from last night’s storm. It became a freaking terrible descent digging out all the ropes and anchors. Did not want to descend without as I know there’s a good amount of crevasses on the route.

In some parts of the route I was wading in chest-deep snow most parts being knee-to-waist-deep. However, got eventually to basecamp and are now thus thoroughly acclimatized for the next and hopefully last rotation.

It’s been very windy on the peak last couple days and I am now getting hints of a window (thanks to my amazing weather-guy in Seattle!). It seems that all the other teams are finding the same change as it seems all the climbers in basecamp and aiming for 17th summit. That meaning everyone’s leaving basecamp on 14th. So please, wish us luck and follow the summit-push on Twitter!