Ueli Steck's blog

Arrived in Nepal I feel like being in an other world. Chaotic on one side, enriching for us Europeans on the other side. Time data here are relative.

I sit here at the airport of Kathmandu since 7 am. Maybe we can fly to Lukla at 10 am. The flight was scheduled for 8 am. Nobody knows exactly when we will leave to Lukla. In the past I was annoyed by these things. Today it doesn't bother me anymore. I can prepare myself to this situation. I must say that somehow I enjoy this feeling. I will get to Namche Bazar again today. There are my friends, who will accompany me in the next weeks. Sometime I will get there. I am happy to be here. The past three months my calendar was packed with appointments. Hour after hour was scheduled. Here I cannot plan. Yes: you can plan. You can plan to schedule your time. The current time is important. I am at the airport and I wait.

When we finally leave the air is misty. High over Kathmandu on the lefthand side the first mountain appear. They look veiled. Somehow unnatural. The shape of the mountains are usually very well defined when the weather is clear. This is exactly what I love so much in the mountains. Clear lines, clear limits. Simple and uncomplicated. So different from our everyday's life. Every day we have to take many decisions, which consequences we often do not see through, but which we have to carry. In the mountains it is the nature which sets the limits to your decisions. Within these limits I can move absolutely free as an alpinist. There are many natural factors, which I can not influence. I can only accept them. But only by the fact that these limits exist, there will be total freedom.

The bumpy flight end on the runway in Lukla. Finally. Now I can move on on foot. In my pace and so far I will. I will go until Namche Bazar. I am motivated. Now climbing will start. First to Lobuche Peak to breath some thin air. After, if the weather fits, to Cholatse. I look forward to the following day. An exiting time will expect me.

See you soon!

Ueli

Since one week I am back in Switzerland. My frostbitten feet are getting slowly better and I have started again with my climbing work out. Every day life is getting back, slowly. Nevertheless: I need this rest badly. The Makalu has challenged me to the very end.
 
The expedition was a great success, although I did not reach the summit over the primarily planned route over the west pillar. The conditions on the normal route were already very difficult, so that an ascent over the west pillar was simply impossible.
 
From camp 2 at approx. 6500 meters Robert Boesch and I fighted towards summit. We kept tracking alternatively. Always we had to think where the fewest snow was lying. We looked where the sun has already shone for a long time, where the wind has blown away the snow, or - even better - where avalanches have already gone down. Like this we tracked us up to 7100 meters and descended back to camp 2, walking next the track we set while going up, in order not to destroy them. In this way the other day we would have good and solid ground under our feet.
 
 
 
 
The following day Andy Waelchli decides not to go further up. His bodily ailments did not allow him to go further up. Robert and I ascend to camp 3. It’s the last camp we build. It’s at 7350 meters above sea level. From this point it is exactly 1113 meters to the summit. Again and again Robert and I fight through the snow masses, which are knee deep. It is pitch-dark. We left camp 3 at 3 o’clock in the morning. During a rest I must massage my feet. Robert looks after my right foot, which already feels very much like wood. Together we move on up to 7900 meters. There, Robert decides to descend. He says it’s too late for him. I give me time until 4 pm. If I am not on
the summit until then I would descend too. I think, that I can descend also at night, since there is already my track I can follow. So I move on. Alone. Meter after meter. The sun blinds but does not really give warmth. I fight. I try to eat and drink. The air is thin. The ridge, which end straight on the summit - seems to be endless. I don’t even look up anymore. Then, finally I am there, on the summit. The summit is razor-sharp. This summit success doesn’t feel like being anything special. Quickly I make a selfportrait, I put on my thick gloves and I descend.
 
This mountain has challenged me to the very last. Again yet I feel the consequence of this enormous effort. Never in my life I have fought this way. At the end it was a simply matter of head. My reason had told me long before to set an end to this torture. But my will drove me to the summit.
 
 
Now we are all back sane at home. My feet do recover slowly. Thanks to Robert, which has done a great tracking job and who massaged my foot in such height, I summitted Makalu at the end. I really regret that he did not made it to the summit. It would have been a great collective success. Thanks also to Andy, who did also a great job so that I was able to summit Makalu.
 
 
Finally I don’t want to miss the opportunity to thank YOU deeply for your support and the confidence you set in me during all the past months. It was a very intense time, I do not want to miss at all. Until the end of the year I am fully booked with conferences in Switzerland and abroad. I am looking forward to it.
 

See you soon and thanks again
Ueli
 

Monday, September 14, - Makalu base camp
I left Base Camp to Makalu west pillar on Saturday morning at 00.30 am. I ascended directly to my small tent at 6700 meters. Basically it is more an overstepping than an ascent. The way to the actual west pillar passes over the two Jumeaux.

A little bit earlier than scheduled my wife and I returned back to Switzerland. So I have enough time to pack the rest for the upcoming Makalu expedition and to get some rest, before I will definitively leave for Nepal on August 20, 2009.

Friday,  July 3 2009 - Gasherbrum base camp:
It is running quite good here. From Tuesday until Wednesday I was already for the second time at camp 2 at 6500 meters. Overnight. The weather was pretty bad. Nicole, my wife, descended from camp 1 back to Base Camp with two Pakistani.

Burgdorf, June 2009
On Sunday we flew to Islamabad. After long and careful considerations we have decided - despite the quite uncomfortable situation in the Swat Valley - to go to the Karakorum and start our expedition to Gasherbrum II.

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