We were supposed to summit today but didn't for a variety of reasons. Yesterday was truly hellish. We broke camp and started hiking around 10:00, with our goal in site. We made it to the terminus of the previous day's hike in about the same amount of time--this time with packs. From there, our goal still in site, we set off across a vast snowfield. The snowfield gave way to broken hills which we steadily made our way through. Right at about the time we hit 17,000 feet, which was the same time we gained the gully that would take us to camp 3, we were hit with exhaustion. We decided to eat lunch--our first chance to try dried babaganuosh and bread we had purchased 4 days previous.
High camp was at a little over 17,500 feet...makes for odd dreams.
After lunch we had about an hour to climb 500 feet to where we would set camp. The first few hundred vertical feet passed as the past few hundred had: slow but steady.
As soon as we hit the steep snowfield, a truly torturous and hellacious situation broke out. We floundered our 50-60 pound packs--a few desperate flailing lunge steps at a time--to the top of the snow field and collapsed in exhaustion.
I set about melting snow and Joe pitched the tent: no small task when there are no rocks or solid ground.
We set the alarm for 5 in the A.M. and passed out shortly after eating. Our new camp set squarely at 17,640 feet.
The night was passed with a series of extremely lucid dreams and waking nightmares about our tent blowing away as we made out summit push. Needless to say, we slept through the alarm and awoke to a 10:00 sun.
