Nicholas Rice: Manaslu Dispatch

2009 Solo Manaslu Expedition

Dispatch Forty-five: May 7th, 2009

Day Forty-five: Mario, Carlos, and I climb from Base Camp to Camp II

This morning, after a leisurely breakfast filled with doubt as to whether or not we would in fact head up to Camp II today (base camp was very windy and the forecast hadn’t called for high winds today), Mario and I headed down to Carlos Pauner’s base camp and had coffees with him, Jose Ramon, and Marie-Antonio (both highly respected doctors in Spain and experts in mountain medicine and frostbite). Afterwards, the three of us started up toward Camp I in what was now a very warm morning. We arrived to Camp I in three hours; both Carlos’s and my tents were completely buried in snow. After freeing them just enough to get what we needed from inside, we continued onto Camp II. We passed by some French who worried us, glissading on avalanche prone slopes littered with crevasses. We expressed our concern and continued. The heat took its toll, but we finally arrived to a windy Camp II after only two and a half hours more. Upon arrival, I noticed that my tent (AGAIN) was completely buried under wind-hardened snow. After around an hour and a half of effort, aided by one of the Russians, the tent was freed from snow. I moved my things into the icy tent, pulled out my damp sleeping bag, melted snow, had dinner and tried to get some sleep. Winds gusted upwards of 100km/hr in camp as I lay restless in my tent staring at the pieces of ice on the tent wall that would be dumped all over my face when the next wind gust came. At one point in the night, around midnight, a Sherpa banged on my tent to wake me, but as soon as I unzipped the door, was gone. I assumed that he only wanted to alert me that I should shovel around my again nearly buried tent, but the winds were too intense for me to motivate myself into the sub-zero temperatures to work. I rolled over and again tried to fall asleep in my far from warm sleeping bag.

Photos: Left: View from Camp II; Right: Carlos and Mario taking a break