Following in the tracks of the International Himalayan expedition to the Annapurna peak, the northern face, April-May 2007.

Members of the expedition:
Tortladze Gia – Georgia – 8x8000 – the leader
Ochoa Iniaki – Spain – 18x8000
Lokk Andre – Australia – 15x8000
Bogomolov Sergey – Russia – 13x8000
Kolibasanu Horia – Romania – 3x8000
Mamedov Emil – Russia – 0x8000

Part 1.

From the north the circus of the Annapurna is a gloomy gigantic crater along the edges of which ice falls, ready to fall down every minute, hang. And the higher the line of beginning of avalanche is, the more ominous the results of avalanche are.

Now I neatly understand why the most depressing statistics in the world is on the Annapurna . In my reports I deliberately didn't underline avalanches, taking all the negative of the subject to myself, in order not to excite my friends and relatives' imagination.

We couldn't get the base camp (BC) for a long time. Although we had a very detailed schedule of moving. Company “ Cho Oyu trekking”, through which we had been registrated for the third time, and which we liked, didn't display any anxiety about our foot going to the BC.

The first notes of uneasiness appeared in a settlement Lete ( 2300 m ), where the direction of going sharply changed from northern to western. There we attended a native porter, who paid attention to slopes and the pass ahead covered with fresh snow and stipulated for using ropes and hooks.

Theoretically, all those we always had and it didn't called serious worries. When we started climbing in the direction of the pass at first along very steep wood rocky-grassy-earthy path, and than along the snow, I understood the validity of such a demand.

Our porters were the fist who reacted on the situation, they struck, basing their demands on difficulty snow conditions and impossibility of safe going further. Even rise in wages two times more by leader of the porters didn't produce any effect.

We ourselves explored the strip of narrow path, covered with snow, the traverse along it and understood that it was necessary to fix about 600 meters of ropes, and left them for the porters' way back. We couldn't permit ourselves that.

And moreover, imagine a porter in gym-shoes or jogging shoes with a basket or trunk or octave of 30 kg weight on a head ribbon on his back. Any his creeping, incorrect step would cause convulsive movement, that could entailed falling the cargo in a kilometer-deep gorge. And all your equipment was in that trunk. What would you do ? Stop the expedition in that moment?

Therefore we decided to step back. We turned back to Lete and began to invent the tactic of our further movement. We called to the company . They began to insist on making the second attempt. We could understand them. They had already put up money to those porters, fifty strong.

And vice versa we began to insist on an assured vehicle – helicopter. We gave the company to talk to local porters it didn't get the guarantees too, and agreed with our reasons. Further, having come to agreement in finance question, we began to wait for a promised helicopter.

It appeared a very long process, we had been waiting for a helicopter for 6 days, but, as we understood later, this action was defensible. Spring season this year wasn't ideal, and even conversely. And when we took off (it happened on the 18 th of April), we had to turn in the direction of Pokhara (it was the second for its size city in Nepal ), having not hold out for 200 m on the altitude because of cloudiness.

Pokhara left us pleasant impressions by its meek summer weather, clear, with woody smell, lake, and, mainly, by its serenity and composure towards all extreme fads, that appeared quite near, in 50- 100 km from the city.

Part 2.

At last, on the 19 th of April, at 7 o'clock a.m. we arrived to the BC, heaped up with snow. Our Russian MI-17 landed to an excellent moraine stretch on the altitude 4200, having woken up our Hispanic companions.

Unloading took us about 10 minutes, and then the pilots, having waved in farewell, with eases soared up and moved away in the only possible direction – western.

Acclimatizing and preparing for setting off took us three days. Steepness and danger were the first bright impressions I got. The visible part of the ice fall, its first step was steep, but as it appeared later, it could be rounded along the rocks. But anywhere you were going, there was something hanging above you. It hung from the ridges, altitude 7000, under which we had to go, and there wasn't any other route.

The Spaniards had already managed to make the first camp (C1- 5100 m ) and brought reserves to the second camp (C2-5600m). We passed the night in C1 and went to the C2. The day was hot, snow was shank-deep, and it stuck to crampons. We had a heated debate with Gia. He was worried by the danger of avalanches, I didn't see anything extraordinary. He said that we would cut the slope when traversing and refused to go further. And only when I had passed all the rope and came to the rocks he started going.

We reached the L2 not at one stroke, made an intervening overnight stop we worked hard those two days, got acclimatizing and brought equipment. We met one problem, cloudiness came down at 12 o'clock, and it didn't allow us to work.

When we were in the C2, Spaniards said us that our cook Kulbadura got pulmonary edema. They called health service. And when we went down to the BC we learnt that we had a new cook, Lalbadur. Yes, unfortunately, illness on high-altitude developed in a trice, luckily, the company operated quickly.

The second march was more dramatic. On arriving to the C1 I sent SMS: “We are making the second march. Going to the C1. Spainguards are working in the C2 and higher it”.

It could be so if at 6.30 p.m. a gigantic avalanche from the apical ridge between the Eastern and the Central summits hadn't fallen to us. It went down from the very head of the Mount. At first Gia heard a plop and looked out from the tent. He saw that an avalanche was going and called us, for about 40 second we, like captivated, were watching it. But, when I began to understand all the inevitability of oncoming horrors, in the form of quickly forthcoming as large as ten-storied house “locomotive” of snow dust, I became panic-stricken. Shouting “Run away!” I was the first to jump out of the tent, without boots, pulling through sleeping bag and down socks, overturning a pan and falling in snow. I climbed to the ice ridge on my hands and knees, and hid behind it.

Suddenly it became cold. Then this coldness was run through by snow darkness, that became stronger and stronger. I began to suffocate. I hid my face in the jacket. My hands and legs sunk deeper and deeper into the thin layer of snow, covering that ice ridge.

It went on such a way for about 5 minutes, then the head of coldness and wind began subsiding. I felt that my arms were cold, and my socks got wet through. I went from the shelter to our tent. I couldn't recognize anything around – all the things were white. Our and neighboring tents were tumbled down. I mended them and looked in. I chilled - inside the tents everything was covered with snow dust. My friends were not there . I shouted . From the neighboring voices sounded . Gia and Emil went from it . When they saw me, they began to laugh – I was white, covered with snow dust.

The devil takes it! Only five minutes of such a horrors and what it did! But it seemed that the avalanche couldn't cross the circus. But there were quite other examples, it was better to secure. We began to clean, shake out everything and get warm. High-altitude boots that were put in a “lobby” were filled with snow, we left them till morning.

Nobody suffered physically, but all of us were “morally killed”, and all the night long we jump out when heard any crash, from any side.

I had never seen such an avalanche before. Moreover, when the next day Spaniards went processing the route to the third camp (C3), straight from the French route, from the middle part of it, a big avalanche run down,.

That moment I, sorry, was in a toilet, but my camera was with me and I shot all the oncoming horrors with commentaries. It seemed that the avalanche would kill the guys. But, fortunately, the avalanche became exhausted and our companions became covered with dust.

Later, when we watched and analyzed the shots, we saw that the avalanche blocked the approaches to our route.

But that was not the last horror. During that morning two more, smaller, avalanches went down directly in the circus just before our very eyes, excluding those that run along other slopes.

In a moment Gia invented a theory about the danger of the region for avalanches, and about impossibility of walking there. Russian roulette! Of course, it made us strongly puzzled.

But when the Spaniards came back and we started telling them about our gigantic avalanche we had watched the day before, we didn't saw any reaction. It was clear that it hadn't even touched them. So, it was the trouble of the strip it went along. There either couldn't be seen any consequences of the avalanche in the circus. There were no pieces of ice, no deep snow, even the tracks couldn't be seen. The avalanche from the French route didn't blight either.

But it hung above you when you go! Spaniards said that it was really dangerous, but only in some special strips. It was necessary to risk. To pass that strips quickly.

Photo: www.mounteverest.net

As for Gia, he strongly objected: if there was the slightest danger, we had to avoid. Therefore he declared that he put a stop to participating in the expedition. His valve of danger was fully opened and snapped into action at the faintest wind.

The weather turned bad . The entire mount was closed . We went downwards. All the day long we were thinking over and discussing the situation with Gia, Emil and Spaniards.

The next day stared with arriving of small army helicopter with two couples of Sherpas. The thing was that together with Spaniards their communication officer flew to the BC. But on the 17 th of April when the guys were working on the mount, he, pinning and suffering for idleness, went down without sleeping bag ant tent, and up to that moment nobody had heard or saw him, and two weeks had already passed after his departure. Just at that time we couldn't pass there with our caravan. And the canyons there were terrible.

Nowadays there is such an anachronism in expeditions in Nepal as communication officer. As they think, he has to assist the expedition in success, solving all disputable questions appearing in the process of ascending. But in actual fact all these people are from different departments, they are attend by the ministry of tourism, and are only getting money, at the most they go-flew to the BC and back, and further sit at home. They are out of any concrete use.

On the third of May Andre Lokk ( Australia ), written in our permit, after getting acclimatizing on the Shisha Pangma (26289 ft/8013 m) arrived. He climbed up only the altitude 7800 because of heavy winds and snowfalls.

And Gia went away by that helicopter. It appeared that Andre was there in 2005 together with Mondeneli and Ed Visturs. He told us how Christian Kutner died on the French route. Yes, they really were under the avalanche.

At the moment we went making the third march, but in the latest moment Lokk refused because of his indisposition. And we together with Emil, continuously changing time of setting off over the weather, came to the C1, and found ourselves in “milk”. And we took a decision to go down the next day, if the fortune was so.

We wanted to walk and work normally. And when in the morning the weather was fine, we in the moment, at 7.45, went to the C2. Spanish tent was very big, for about 10 persons, an all of them were standing around it.

Further we set off at 6.30 in order to work up the end the counterfort up to the C3. The strip under the French route and way to the couloir under the serac was very difficult. We were going very nervously, I was ready to run anywhere if we came across any danger. After the bergschrund there was an ice wall about 7 meters high, two ropes were hanging along it, at first we found an ice screw, couldn't understand what for they put it there, then there was a break in fixed ropes. The rope was torn by an avalanche. I elicited one of ends, added a length to it, and quickly climbed upwards to the left, to safety. Snow , ice , steep . Emil remained behind . At about 11 o'clock ye declared that it was too difficult for him, and that he wouldn't go upwards with the rucksack. A pretty business this! And what could we do there without rucksacks, without cargo? I answered him something like…

To be continued…