DISPATCHES

Ziel

Sanity says wait. I don't want to get close to another big avalanche; that's for sure. I crawled into my tent last night with some light snow falling only to find the tent covered with several inches of snow this morning. It's funny how you can sleep so soundly in a tent buried in snow. It warms up so wonderfully and not a sound from the wind or precipitation leaks to disturb sleep. (It also keeps my snoring from disturbing the neighbors.) By the way, our newest neighbors here (an international expedition) at ABC, told us 5km of the road we drove in on has washed away with the river and they had to walk. Wonderful! Maybe it will be therapeutic to muse over the situation.

This little bastard stepchild of the monsoon started on our last functional day of climbing and fixing ropes. All day, as Shawn, Jay, Heidi, Greg, and I extended our fixed ropes, the weather looked like we were in for a change. While we jumared to the high point, on the thin orange line, so expertly placed by Mike and his team, we watched clouds leak in over the Savoia Pass from Pakistan. This was not the typical hot, "gonna get a sunburn" day. While I led out more of our rope, the wind would whip up in occasional gusts and the sun would hide behind the clouds. My belayers watched the elevation on their altimeters go up without moving.

The weather change was almost enough to take my mind off the leading. The route, at this point, is about 4,000 feet off the glacier, the ice is tilted at 50 degrees and is hard as rock. Sections are covered with powdered snow and don't add much to security. The pitches are defined by 100-meter lengths of 8mm static line (not good rope for leader falls), so the ice screw rack gets a little lean on the lead, and the weight of the rope on your harness gets a little much by the end a "pitch." It's not your typical 50- or 60-meter pitch lead with a 10.5mm dynamic rope for a belay.

At the end of a sketchy traverse, I twisted in two screws halfway, till the ice said no more, and tied them off for a belay. Shawn took over the lead and twisted around the corner of rock I was traversing under and there it was: the start of easier ground to Camp 2. It would have been nice to keep going, but it was 5:30pm and the clouds and wind were everywhere, so at 21,000 feet and, with the alleged technical crux of this route now fixed, we called it a day and rappelled back to Camp 1.

Our Camp 1 tents are set in a bergschrund that punctuates the ice and actually lie under the surface of the slope. In the night the snow began while we slept, but like this morning there was no sound in the tent to warn us that snow was accumulating on the slopes outside. In the morning we discovered we were partially buried in our tents, so we forgot breakfast and rappelled quickly to the glacier to minimize the possibility of becoming an avalanche statistic. A couple days of sun will be required to make this a safe place to travel again.

It continues to snow here in ABC. What's one to do with a storm day instead of indulging in boredom? If I asked my assistant guru in life, i.e., my 9-year-old son, Tobin, advisor to the adolescent population of South Pasadena, what to do with a snow day, what would he say?

"Why don't you have a snowball fight?"

"Done that."

"Why don't you build a snowman?"

"You mean snowwoman? Done that."

"Why don't you do what you usually do when you can't go climbing on the weekend?"

"You mean work and see patients in the urgent care clinic? I've already read three books. I played an entire day of bridge. I've been on the air with my Ham radio (BT0QGL/WF6Z) and had QSOs on Morse code/CW with people in Russia, India, Slovenia, and Nepal. What else?"

"Why don't you brew some beer like you do at Christmastime?"

What a concept; thank God I brought the brew kit! What Himalayan expedition is complete without the ability to make alcoholic beverages? The answer to today's dilemma is buried deep in barrel 34 and is called Weisebeer! So today I'll spend time slaving over a hot kerosene stove in the mess tent with my malt, hops, and yeast making "liquid bread."

The sun is coming out today.

— Fred Ziel, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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