"An icy, starry night welcomed the climbers as they departed," Ralf Dujmovits reported from BC. "Cold made things tough since, although the slope above the bivouac place is "only" 45 degrees, most of the time they have to climb on their crampons' front points, which restricts blood flow and, at -25 ° , leads to to icy feet."
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| K2 north pillar upper slopes. Close-up on the left shows the climbers bivouac at 8,300m. Image by Ralf Dujmovits, |
Gerlinde, Max, Vassiliy and Darek are also fighting wet boots and general exhaustion after over two months on the hill. Nevertheless, at 07:30 clock they were on the go and making good progress, according to Ralf.
Gerlinde has checked in on the radio from 8,400m at 11.30am, local time. The team was having a though time due to bitter cold, but hoped for the sun to hit the face soon, and therefore felt confident. Check for further updates later to day...I realy hope that Gerlinde will summit this time and get back safe! Take care up there.....
