But this is 8000 meter winter expedition climbing. What else could we expect? In my opinion, this last foray up the mountain was not a carefully designed trip around a clear weather window, but rather an open attempt to face the worst the mountain could throw, hoping it would be kind and give us reprieve. My initial suggestion was that we not do this in the first place, and now it is my firm conviction that we not try this again. I feel like a child, warned not to touch the oven, left with a little sting to remind us why: The mountain let me off easy, with some minor "frostnip" on my nose and cheek, in addition to an increasing numbness already resident on all my fingertips and toes. Qadrat didn't fare so well, with frostbite to 5 fingers, one in particular is a little serious -  but, none is serious enough that he will lose anything, so he is fortunate as well. Robert suffered a small patch of a frostnip on his cheek. The rest managed to escape with little more than a bitter scolding.

The ascent to Camp 2 - on Friday the 13th, mind you- should have been the first indicator. Winds at the elevation of "Summer" Camp 2 forced Qadrat, Ali, Amin, and I to fall prostrate every few minutes, hugging every available rock to avoid flight. I was only able to film twice: once behind a rock for a few seconds until my hands froze, and once for a few seconds during the full force of the winds at "Summer" Camp 2, aprox. 6200 meters. In the latter clip, you'll notice the white frozen patch on my nose. Our goggles were completely iced over at this point, and useless. 

High winds to Camp 2 from Calpinist.com on Vimeo.
When the four of us finally reached "winter" Camp 2 at around 3:30pm, the full force of the gale was upon us. To our dismay, both tents had been demolished by the winds, and we had no place to take cover. In the force of the wind it was hard to breathe, and communication was possible only by shouting in each other's ear. It took over 2 hours of creative engineering, various rigging, and forced ingenuity to make one of the two tents inhabitable, using spare parts from the unsalvageable tent, and taking adequate breaks to pull our hands inside our mitts to save our fingers. At around 6:15pm, the four of us finally poured into the tent and tried to warm and encourage each other, laughing and shaking our heads at just how bad the conditions outside were.

Just before 7pm Artur arrived, followed shortly by Robert. The six of us were now crammed in a tent made for three people - so, pretty tight quarters, but the close body contact gave some residual warmth. I had the Jetboil fired and soon began serving up tea, while a few of the others melted ice for soup and drinks. The night would prove to be a rather uncomfortable one, to say the least. Once in position, each member was completely unable to move for the night, imprisoned by a pretzel of knees, elbows and frozen nylon - a sadistic form of the game Twister, played inside a meat locker, inside a wind tunnel, in the middle of O'Hare airport runway, in record setting winter. Robert and I shared the right hand side of the tent, the snow crystals blasting through the door zipper, turning the left side of my down suit into a frozen, powdered donut. To say the least, the night sucked for everyone. The only consolation is that Taqi's knee was bothering him a little and he turned to go down below Camp 1, thereby reducing the number of sardines by one.

On Saturday, Feb 14th, the winds abated a little, at first, then started again in the afternoon. Although slightly lower winds than the previous day, climbing to Camp 3 in these conditions was certainly less than advisable, so we sat tight. Sometime during the morning, a conversation took place which resulted in Ali and Artur setting up a small (emphasis on small) Vaude tent to give us some space to breathe, but this only reduced our number by one. Meanwhile, Amin began an impressive display of super-strength: he would descend to base camp and return to Camp 3 with another tent the following day - a vertical gain of over 2000 meters.

Next Dispatch- Camp 3, High Winds, and the Gear Burrito that Ate My Harness.