Ueli Steck's blog

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