Valery Babanov and Victor Afanasiev are in the Base Camp

Good news from Valery Babanov`s official website www.babanov.com:

04.04.2009

«We are in the Base Camp at the 3950 m. The way to the BC was very difficult: there was a lot of snow. On the steep grassy slopes we had to fix 200 meters of rope for the porters. We had 30 porters that we had hired from the small village Lete.

On April 4th we made a puja and opened the Base Camp.
On April 5th we are planning our first acclimatization ascent by the classic route from the northern side till 5000 m and on the next day to 5600 m.

Today we spend time together with climbers from the Korean expedition.

The weather is nice today and we are ready to start. We had some difficulties with the connection, for some reason Thuraya was not working. But now all seems to be fine.

Lots of greetings to everyone.

Valery and Victor.»

04.04.2009