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5/17/02
- EVEREST
SO
CLOSE: On May 14th the five of us headed towards the
North col. The weather was quite mixed: some
snowfall during the night and lots of wind. But on
the next morning the weather had gotten better and
we were able to reach our material depot and get to
7850m. In the early afternoon we were able to set up
camp there. Even though all of us were pretty tired
we started melting snow and drank, drank, drank. The
sun set slowly and we began our preparations for our
try for the peak.
Around
8 pm Andrea, Micha and Matthias began heading
towards the peak. Around 10:30 pm Christian and
Markus follow. In perfect weather conditions we
followed the path to camp 3 for a few meters. Micha
felt all right but then he had to throw up during a
short break. Still below camp 3 (8100m) Andrea and
he turned around. They met Markus and Christian on
their way down. Markus also felts that this day was
not such a good day for him and turned around as
well, not having reached camp 3. Matthias and
Christian moved fast - too fast. Above camp 3 they
reached the so-called "yellow band". They
followed the ropes. Right
in the middle they realized that they have reached
the end of the ropes.
It is 2 am now. They saw some lights in
the distance and assumed that sherpas are coming
to fix the stage. After they had waited for one and
a half hours the cold got worst than their will to
stay and their feet turned numb. At this point they
could feel the effects of climbing without bottled
02. They
turned around as well. Pretty tired out they reached
our camp (7850m) in the early hours. All together we
descended to the ABC.
NEW
PLANS: Our "attempt" has motivated us more
than it has de-motivated us. In a few days we will
make another attempt. To be continued .
Michael
Borrmann
ABC, 6400m
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