Nadejda Usovich. Photos of expedition to Lenin Peak

 Nadejda Usovich participated in the expedition to the Lenin peak in early August. The expedition did not achieve its main goal. Due to bad weather conditions the climbers returned home without the summit. Instead, they got a lot of impressions and experience of high-altitude climbing…

 From her diary…

Day 14.

All night the wind was blowing and it was snowing. Since the hour of the night,  groups woke up one by one, exchanging a few words, and, obviously, delayed outing, the weather was bad. By 5 am a group of St. Petersburg climbers ventured to go to the assault, but they have not succeeded to reach the top in this day. There was a strong wind swept up the entire trail all the way and they had to make snow trails knee that takes a lot of strength. Other groups have postponed exit at night. By 7 am established fine weather, the sun was shining and it was even more or less heat. I slept most of the day, compensating for a sleepless night. By 7 pm the weather began to deteriorate again.

Day 15.

All night the wind blew a hellish and snowing. At times it seemed that the tent will take, as the house of Elli. Again, starting with the one in the morning, here and there flashing lights, there were heard a short dialogues and all subsided. I rearranged the alarm for an hour before 5am. Two my halves fought, one wished that the wind abated, and with peace of mind to go down. Another eagerly prayed to the wind ceased, and we finally came to the assault.

 We came out of the tent at 5 am, still a strong wind blew, but the snow had stopped, the view of Peak Lenin was excellent. The clouds were under our feet, and on the horizon, a thin strip of scarlet doing amazing beauty of the sunrise. I noted that some of the tents for the night drifted almost completely. At an altitude somewhere in 6300 could be seen three flashlight, nevertheless there were brave souls who dared to go out today to the assault. As it turned out later, they returned to the camp as early as 10 am, much frostbited.

 The forecast for the next 2 days were given the deterioration, sit next to an altitude of 6100 does not make any sense, and it was decided to begin the descent at 8am. The entire inside of the tent was covered with frost and any awkward movement, with its walls, attacked snowfall. All things were damp, at the feet of piled up a snowdrift. Several tents of our group had to dig out from the outside. It was bitterly cold, while a fixing crampons in fleece gloves, I froze all the.

All members of the group to the question «how are you?» - answered “never again”.

Down we ran almost happily. In camp 2 it was very warm and we stayed there for almost an hour, basking in the sun. This camp offers a great view on the top, I looked up to see around the ridge huge flags - the wind raged there until now, it was clear that to come in that day to the summit would be impossible, would there blew us away like dry leaves from the tin roof. By 3 pm we were down to camp 1, the descent took place without incident, though it was slow and tiring. By 5 pm again it threw the snow, but here, in a huge tent, its knock on the tent even gave some sense of comfort…