We were swimming in the snow flood

23.03.2003

Hello everybody!
Sunday, 23rd. The day of rest. We reached 5 800 meters altitude and it is a point of my bivi in the autumn expedition. The weather is very unstable: afternoon it is snowing as a rule. Yesterday the snow river covered us - at the 5 800 meters height. I climbed in the rock shoes difficult 40-meters rock pitch and in 20 minutes we were inside of snow. All the Face of Nuptse and South ridge every day have became more and more white. Even at the height of BC is cold enough. Who knows - early spring or it is a late winter.

Tomorrow we would like to go for three days if the weather is good enough, we are going to have bivi just on the route. And the way to the point we reached became harder and harder.

The route changed comparing with the autumn variant. More rock, less ice. Especially it concern the difficult pitch at 6000 meters. So it is Ok now.

Valery and Vladimir
Base Camp