All news: 16 April 2012

Today there was a lot of things "at first"

First, we made the first serious acclimatization climb. Hooray! Shegar Dzong was climbed to the top (4800 m). This mountain name is translated as Fortress Xegar and it is very unusual. At its base there is an ancient Buddhist monastery school gelukpa - Xegar. And on the top we met a stupa and prayer flags. The last few tens of meters to go the top led by a very steep scree slope. And from the top we have a stunning view of the Himalayan mountain range and on ...

Yes, yes - this is the second "first" ... we saw Mount Everest. The majestic pyramid with a huge white flag. Probably a strong wind blows the snow off the slopes.

We hope that to the time of our climb the storm will be over.

Tomorrow we go to the base camp of Everest. That is, tomorrow we'll spend the night in 5100. With headaches of course, what would be a good for acclimatization.

We are in Lukla. Tired and satisfied by the work done. The guys still do not believe that we were able to climb to the summit of Mera Peak. For all of the expedition has not issued a single day to the sky that it is not raining or pouring. Numerous teams coming down to meet us is not getting to the top does not inspire optimism and undermine confidence in the success of their stories, why they failed. Especially liked the story about the new  crack width all  of the slope and length of 2 meters, which can only be overcome only with the help of aluminum ladders.

As a result, we have been to the camp at 5800m. On the climb we were out as scheduled at 3 a.m.. The sky was cloudless, only the stars and the moon. But our joy was not long. Just a couple of hours everything was clouded, the wind rose and it began to snow. We reached that big crack. It turned out not so scary. We easy found a bridge and crossed it.

Vlad Lachkarev was the first on the top at 10:30, breaking the 30 - meter vertical wall on fixed ropes. Here, еру nature took pity on us and opened up a half hour panorama of the Himalayas - Everest, Lhotse, Makalu and other big mountains can be seen from the peak.

The way back to the camp was not easy. We were forced to stray among the cracks, because the visibility was about zero. The old tracks were covered with snow. Each one of us fell into a crevasse about three times.

On that day, our team was alone on the top. All groups canceled one after another, what is especially valuable to us.