Kangchenjunga 2003
Spanish/Italian News

Ready for the first assault: Kangchenjunga: Carlos Pauner

We are anchored in this beautiful corner of the Himalayas.  The wind owns everything and blows without break, shaking the snow in the summits and testing the stability of our tents at base camp.  For now we can only hope for the situation to improve.  We have a little hope in the weather forecasts than announce the end of the wind for the 9th.  Looking at the situation and with our will to progress at its maximum, we have made a plan.  It is not the best plan, but we will fiercely stick to it.  We are going to attempt to leave for the high camps tomorrow, the 8th.  It won't be easy, because the wind will be still blowing with speeds of up to 150 Km/h.  We will try to go directly to camp 2, located 1,500m above our current situation.  We will sleep in it, having a night to remember, without doubt, and we will continue the next day, through unknown terrain up to the 7,900m mark, where we will settle a little tent to spend a few hours. It won't be easy, because it will be intensely cold up there.  That night we will leave towards the 8,586m of the summit, with the hope that during the ascent the wind weakens and lets us reach the white summit of Kangchenjunga in the early hours of the 10th.  That's the strategy.  We have a small window of time, which we have to target and be able to bear the extreme conditions that we will face in the days of the ascent to those heights.  We don't have another chance to do it and we are aware that the possibilities in this first attempt are low. There will be a lot of cold and also we have another doubt which worries us here at base.  Has camp 2, which we installed some days ago at 7,000m, resisted the hurricane winds of these days?  What happens if we get to it and we realize that all our equipment is lost, swept by the wind?  As you see, in these previous days we have a lot of questions and few answers.  These, we will find as we get close by the freezing slopes of the mountain.  We are going to try now, with energy and enthusiasm, knowing we will have to suffer and to give the best we have.  Maybe we achieve the glory of the summit, but we have to be prepared for a disappointment.  However, we have time, we have enough days to do more attempts, so we have to focus on this one, with calm and knowing, as we have so far, how to measure the situations.  We hope destiny gives us enough luck for this brave attempt... Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

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