We were to leave at 7am but it was still howling at 6am. Mike comes up to our tent and says “the weather report showed that the winds were supposed to die down in the morning but looking at the actual situation, we may have to wait for the weather to die down before we take off to Camp 4. In case, it doesn’t die down by afternoon, we were to spend another day at Camp 3″. That’s when I knew that we were going to be stuck for another day staring at the roof of my tent for another day.
Day 52 – View of Western Cwm, Cho Oyu and Pumori from Camp 3
Logistics had to be arranged for the additional day. Firstly, the rest of the team had to move out of the Alpine Ascents tent as the Alpine Ascents team were ascending to Camp 3. (We were more exposed to the winds going to Camp 4 and hence why we didn’t go up while others came up to Camp 3). New tents were put up and some of us had to share with three people per tent. We were running out of food, so we pooled all of our noodles and ready to eat meals together and redistribute it. Finally, we had limited Oxygen, so we started using the Oxygen that we were supposed to use to go to Camp 4. We didn’t use Oxygen for most of the day and for sleeping we decided to use it at the lowest flow rate of 0.5.
Day 52 – View from within our tents
The wind had pushed so much snow the previous day and the night that our tent was buried in about a feet of snow and the sides of the tent were pushed towards the inside taking up the already limited space we had. Unfortunately, I chose the side of the tent facing the wind which made things worse. By the middle of the day, it got really uncomfortable and the snow pushing on the sides of the tent was starting to melt into the tent. As the weather got better, I decided to go out and move some of the snow away from the tent, and make space. A pain in the ass but unavoidable.
Day 52 – View of the windy summit
I dress up, get out, take my ice axe and start shoveling the snow out extremely slowly and carefully. Unfortunately, only I believed I was careful. I managed to create a nice little hole on the side of the tent with my Ice Axe. Just earlier in the day, I had made a similar mistake. I managed to make a hole in Mike’s and Eben’s tent, as I shoved the Ice Axe right through thier tent on the outside. The fabric was buried deep in snow and I thought I was far enough from the tent, but apparently I was not. Hey! I again blame the low oxygen and high altitude. As a temporary fix, I had to build a little snow wall to block the wind and put my bag in the inside of the tent. I promised myself, I would do nothing more but lie down to avoid any further disasters.
