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THIS JOURNAL BELONGS TO:
Our special goat Lexi. We bought him in Askole. He went up to ABC camp at 5000m, got house trained, and walked better than our dog. We hope Lexi will join us for another expedition.
Our cook Alam made amazing food for us! All fresh. We thought we would mostly eat out of cans without any fresh food. But it ended up being haute cuisine.
Austin was always on fire. Besides being a beast on the wall and an amazing camera operator, he was always ready to try out new things. He was always the first one to interact with the locals, trying to get a glimpse of their cultures and lives.
Fida is a special one! Our cook assistant. He still can’t believe that we have a dog as a pet in our house and of course he always wanted to kill Lexi because he is a meat guy. He doesn’t like veggies too much!
Joni was always moving. The only moments he was sitting were while eating (a lot), taking pictures or flying drones. He managed to capture some insane footage of those beautiful mountains from the air, which got him a new nickname: Droni!
Never packed so much stuff for a trip before. We needed to be prepared for summer and winter climbing; warm and very cold conditions at high altitude.
The hardest choice was which climbing shoes we should bring. Big, small, soft or hard? Normally it’s not such a hard question. But on Eternal Flame where it is mostly crack climbing, we definitely would also need a big comfortable shoe where we can feel our toes in cold conditions. We ended up bringing three different kinds of climbing shoes.
We got a special flight from Islamabad to Skardu. That was the most impressive flight we have ever had. Luckily the weather was amazing, and we got the best view and could see K2, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum 2,4, Masherbrum, and Trango from pretty close. Karakorum from the sky looked insane
Different countries, different customs. It was a real experience to visit the food market in Skardu. Dead chickens waiting to get sold in the brooding heat. Flies all over. A real deal to taste the street food in Pakistan. We weren’t brave enough to taste. Or smart!!! Otherwise the expedition could have been over before it even started. Local people are used to mountain tourists in Skardu. All expeditions start from Skardu. There you wait for the permits to get ready for the expedition. From Skardu it is a one-day trip to the small village named Askole.
For every expedition there is at least one goat which is meant to be eaten. But our goat was too special to get killed. There was the day where Lexi was on the list to get killed. From afar we were watching how they killed the other goat. Lexi stayed with us at this day and followed us like a dog always by foot. So we decided to bribe the cook to keep Lexi alive. We kept the goat as a pet for the rest of our expedition. Lexi went up to ABC camp at 5000m. He got house-trained and walked by foot better than our dog Olli. At the end we took the goat back to Skardu and from there to Hunza where he is still living.
On bad weather days, where it didn’t stop raining, we just were hanging out in the tent and we were sleeping a ton. We were reading, gaming (mostly me), eating, hang-boarding and hoping for a good weather window and of course checking the weather forecast 100 times a day.
It was always sunny on every single day—>14 days before we got to base camp not a single cloud in the sky. But as soon we arrived at base camp it started to rain. The same happened to us the year before. And in 2021 it never really cleared up for longer than 3 days. So it definitely felt like deja-vu. It was hard to stay optimistic about the weather because we already experienced that it can keep on staying like that for weeks and weeks. There is not much to do at basecamp with cold/wet conditions.
We hoped that we will find the pitches below Snow Ledge in dry conditions. Of course on that day it was freeze-dried. It was so cold that it was very hard to start climbing. On that day every single pitch was a huge fight and we just did three pitches. We had to call it a day again around midday because the second crux pitch was soaking wet after the sun hit the wall. But anyway it was a real surprise for both of us to onsight the first 7c.
Finally we made it through the wet pitches and got to Snow Ledge. That was the biggest step forward. From there we knew it will be all dry if the weather stays solid. On that day we climbed a lot. We climbed up to the base of the last hard pitch. And everything went down first try. It was a bit warmer than the day before. The 7c+ crux pitch was a huge surprise. It was a hard fight but somehow I didn’t fall off. And Jacopo did the same. It saves so much power if you don’t have to try again. That was the main motivation to give it all on the first try.
Jacopo woke up in the middle of the night with a lot of pain in the face. He was asking for a skin cream. As I saw his face somehow I had to start laughing. At that moment I didn’t know that I didn’t look much better :-)
First days back at base camp after the mission on nameless tower. We got the worst sunburn ever. Even with 100spf sunscreen felt horrible. We both were waking up during night multiple times in emergency need of hydrating cream. I guess that was the deal with high altitude. Not proud of this pic but I guess some things you have to take how it is.
On the way back there was a huge road block. The road got completely flooded away. Instead of the road there was a river now. Local people put up this rustically built gondola to bring the people to the other side.
I never talked to any women before in Pakistan. I got invited in Askole for lunch and helped the women baking chapatis. It was a great experience for me to meet them and to get to know this family. Foreign men are not allowed to talk to women. But it was luckily more relaxed for women to women. There were people from three related families staying in the same house. At first the women seemed to be very shy to me but after a while we got to know each other and found a way to communicate. People in Pakistan are very nice and welcoming. We got invited many times for dinners and lunches on the way out. We experienced great hospitality.
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