"Big Wall- Russian Way" team: "We are having acclimatization consecutively ascending upper and upper"

"Big Wall- Russian Way" Panasonic - Jannu
Åhe latest news (translation by www.mountain.ru):

12.04.2004
Our greetings to everybody! Things are going well thus far, keep your fingers crossed! We are having acclimatization consecutively ascending upper and upper.

11.04.2004
We descended to the base camp to have a rest. Odintsov - Prilepa acclimatized at 5100m and climbed lifting the gear up to 5600 for the further acclimatization. The group Bolotov - Borisov - Kirievsky ascended 5600m, and the same day Pershin and Totmyanin went from 5600m and fixed 5 pitches more on the ice up to the altitude of 6000 meters.
This is all the news for the present about our work on the route.

10.04.2004
We climbed a plateau, marked it with landmarks with tags for orientation in fog. There are some our trails from the last year expedition in places. The winter seems low-snowed or strong winds have blown all the snow: this year it is much less snow and the bergschrund became lower on about 40 meters. The scrap of the rope hung above the present bergschrund. As all the snow was blown away and frozen during the winter and the clear ice was opened: rigid winter ice in which hardly to set ice screws. The ropes particularly remained, but nobody dares to risk and to climb on them. We have to use tools for climbing and use a jumar belaying on last year's ropes. They, certainly, are torn, and we change them on the new ones. Our group ascended up to 5800 m, making 5 pitches and descended to 5600m to spend the second night at this altitude.

9.04.2004
We climbed up to 5600 and lifted some gear for the following work on the route.

8.04.2004
Our three-men team (Mikhailov-Pavlenko-Ruchkin) climbed 5100m and spent the night there.

7.04.2004
We began fixing the rope, the group Bolotov - Borisov -Kirievsky restored the fixed rope up to 5100m, settled the intermediate camp and stayed to spend the night there for acclimatization. Next day they descended to the base camp for the rest. The other members of our team did the full carry of the gear up to 5100m.

Ruhckin.

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12.04.2004