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Winter
Makalu 2000/2001
1-11-2001 Dispatch
The
Last Attempt
Supplies
of food, fuel and resources of people are running low.
We have been here over a month. Two teams (two people
each) still want to fight and climb the mountain. Gia
Tortladze and Krzysztof Liszewski are in the extended
base. Krzysztof Wielicki and Dariusz Zaluski are
leaving from the main base in two days. If only the
wind stopped blowing, just for a minute.
"Above
6300 meters the wind is so strong that you can't even
stand - says Krzysztof Wielicki - even a short stay in
the upper camps makes the tents disappear. We lost
camp 1, destroyed by the wind. You can't do much in
such conditions, although we will try one more
time".
If
the wind does not let the Alpinists go higher, a
helicopter will come on 15 or 17 January to pick us
up. This will be the end of the expedition. So far
everyone still has to go up - to climb, or to gather
the remains of the camps, equipment and trash.
We
witnessed an unusual event. It was almost three in the
morning. I left my tent. Despite cloudless sky there
was strange darkness and silence.
Suddenly my
shadow
appeared on the ground, clear and visible. I looked
up. Something like a gigantic lamp, a growing
super-star, shone above the ridge. It was the moon,
just after the phase of the full eclipse. In clear
air, at the height of 4800 meters in the Himalayas,
surrounded by snowy mountain chains, we could see the
full eclipse of the moon. Along with the presence of
moonlight a familiar sound came from Makalu - it was
rumble of windstorm on the ridges.
Snow
in the Kingdom : My Storm Years on Everest by
Ed Webster, Peter Williams (Editor),
(Illustrator) This item will be published in
November 2000. You may order it now and we will
ship it to you when it arrives.
