Dhaulagiri - "The White Mountain" - "Mountain Of Storms" - "Mountain Without Grace"

Introduction and Preparation

... and I decided to go for climbing another 8.000er... and how did that come???

Well, actually it all began with last year´s Nanga Parbat expedition in which I couldnt participate because of business reasons. my boss who always supports my expeditons, asked if I could delay the ascent of nanga parbat until the following year, since we had some important projects at work... and of course I couldnt... at least not with this group and guide... but of course I could go for another 8.000er with luis and alli this year. - and it happened that alli contacted me asking me if I would be interested to take part in an expedition to manaslu in 2009 with her and luis. this was around october maybe... and of course I was instantly enthusiastic... and hoped to get the permission of our company to take part. I had still enough holidays... but such an expedition is always a very time-consuming project... - only a short time later luis asked me if I would come with them to Dhaulagiri instead of Manaslu... and of course I agreed ... as for me its more important to go with the persons of my choice than to go to a special mountain with just "somebody"...



well... and so in the next step I asked my boss for his permission to go on the dhaulagiri expedition... and quite early in november he agreed ... and so I could start my preparations just in time with the turn of the year. - quite unexpectedly there was an incident which opened my participation in the expedition to a larger public::: during an annual festivitiy of our company my boss introduced me to one of our US-colleagues who was on business here with us... and this colleague was very intrigued with the expedition and when we talked about it, we got the idea that I maybe could take up a company flag to the summit of Dhaulagiri to leave another footprint of our company on this mountain. - and this flag should be signed by the top management of our company. well, to put it in a nutshell... when I started for the expedition I had this flag in my luggage... and the information about the expediton was published in our companies info-database. this was indeed a bit unusual for me... as normally Im not used to being in the spotlight but instead prefer to stay in the background. - my former 8.000er expeditions were quite hidden from the public before... and only a few people had known about them. of course such an expedition ist still something very outstanding. and some of my colleagues who are living in southern Germany are quite popular in these respects... some of them even giving presentations... earning some money that way... and others even have sponsors. and down there in bavaria for instance its difficult to keep your participation in such an expedition secret. - as for me I had never missed that and in so far this was quite a new experience for me that now so many people - at least potentially - could take notice of the expedition and even could follow it on the internet in our blog. - and indeed I must smile when I thought, that now maybe I would be better known in the USA then here in germany... as our company is a US one... and potentially now about 70.000 employees worldwide could take notice of what I was doing... however... poor me. -hahaha. - of course I even spoke about that with my american friend Kim... and she laughed and said: "bernd, now youre getting famous here in the united states" ... and she was quite proud about that and found it a very good thing... whereas I was not so quite sure about all that...



so the day of my farewell from home came closer and closer... I had done a good physical preparation and felt in a good shape - and I was full of confidence for our group as I already knew some members from former expeditions and others I knew by recommendation of my intimates... so the expediton could come...

there was another funny coincidence beforehand::: one of the members of our group, gerhard, was living in the same city as me... and moreover we even were classmates for a while in former times. - that was really an incredible coincidence as in a city like muelheim located in the flat lands of middle germany you dont find many high altitude climbers reaching out for 8.000er summits... - climbers of that category you usually find in southern germany closer to the alpes - and it was indeed a nice coincidence that two guys of muelheim wanted to climb dhaulagiri without knowing of each other. It was really quite unusual, since in some seasons there isnt any german expedition going for dhaulagiri at all... and in our case two muelheimer guys meet by chance to go for that mountain... crazy, crazy, crazy...



... so saturday, the 11.04. 2009 LG brought me to the central station of duisburg where I took the ICE to frankfurt airport at about 18:00. - when the train arrived and I was still standing in the entrance with my two heavy travelling bags, gerd appeared behind me ... so another coincidence again. of course it was not difficult to recognize each other because of our summit-club-bags. - so our trip to the airport was quite entertaining as we talked about our common past at school and even about past expeditions and of course about the coming challenge too...

... at frankfurt airport we joined our group. - first of all a reunion with alli and luis. and alex, who I already knew from the cho oyu expedition in 2004. Of course I had already heard of Jürgen and Helga who had participated in the nanga parbat expedition last year. and finally I got to know Rupert, an austrian mountain-guide and Dieter from Munich... - it was a great hello with alli and luis... on all our hitherto expeditions we always had built a good team - a perfect match allover...



our flight took us to abu dhabi where we had an intermediate landing with a break of about 6 hours... not very amusing in this airport... but in such a situation I always think::: may the flight and journey be ever so uncomfortable - what is coming afterwards in the heights of the mountain only can become harder and more uncomfortable... and so I stayed relaxed and indulgent. I even passed on taking a lounge... and somehow the time was passing by in spite of the boring environment of the airport. a plus btw is that you have free-access HotSpot... and so I spent some time to write emails on my cellphone which of course even is not too amusing on a cellphone keypad... quite nerving I found the aircondition which was blowing cold from everywhere... and ideally suited to catch a cold... which was the last I could need now...

the longest stopover comes to end sometime... and we proceeded our trip to kathmandu, where we arrived in the evening of sunday at 20:30. - meanwhile for me its a feeling like to come home, when I arrive in kathmandu where we were welcomed by the wellknown representatives of the local agency "trekkers international" - for my surprise and joy singi was at the airport too... great hello with him of course. he was one of our two climbing sherpas and is even the one who had the terrible accident at pumori in 2005 - crashing down more than 500m and survived this crash - supposedly only by help of his GuardianAngel...



...this time our hotel in kathmandu was the yak&yeti... its located very close to the center of kathmandu which was high appreciated by us because we could reach the midtwon of kathmandu and even the shopping center "thamel" very fast and easy by walking there within a few minutes. - in the hotel I shared the double-room with rupert... from the begining on we had a good understanding. - we stayed one more day in kathmandu. luis had to go to the minstery for the briefing... and he even talked to Liz Hawley to announce her our expedition. - dieter refused to be announced to ms. hawley. I didnt know why ... or better I couldnt understand him. he meant "he would do the expedition only for himself" - so far okay... I was doing it only for me too... and even didnt miss any publicity or special attention... but in that case I find it even means to respect the work of this lady who has dedicated her life to the documention of the nepal 8.000er ascents - its her life`s work... and I find it worth to appreciate it. for her nowadays - where she is an older lady - it means a high effort to organize all that and to meet the climbers face-to-face whenever she can. - she is appreciating the enthusiasm and dedication of the climbers by doing this documentation for us... and so I found it quite egoistic when somebody only is orbiting himself refusing to be listed there in egoistic reasons... but okay... thats just my point of view - and must not mandatory be right... I find, when you go for an 8.000 in nepal, Ms. Hawley is a must - same as the Puja in the basecamp to win the Gods over for a successful and prosperous expedition... thats the rules SoToSpeak...

for monday we had agreed to go for a short sightseeing in kathmandu... visiting some of the attractions of the city as pashupathinath, the place where the deaths are burnt... or bodnath and swayambunath. - I have seen these places already several times... but always find them worth a visit again... especially pashupatinath I find a very impressive and fascinating place. this year the sacred bagmathi river only had very less water... and even I missed the lots of monkeys which you normally fínd there. their number had reduced notably this year. - I can spend hours at pashupatinath - only sitting there diving into the scenery. - basically on first sight nothing had changed in kathmandu since my last visit in 2005... the confusion and fussing was still the same as always... but I found that maybe the quality of the air got a bit better this time. - maybe the cars are causing less pollution??? - at least the tuctucs have been switched to battery-power and before they were driven by two-cycle engines which were quite stinking. - after our sightseeing we used the afternoon to go to thamel for a first shopping... or at least window-shopping... and I bought an umbrella... as we reckoned on some rain on our trekking when passing thru the rain-forrest. - we even took the opportunity for a visit at famous pumpernickel-bakery where you get excellent cake based on german recipes as for instance black forest cake ... and even a good cup of coffee...



Trekking to the basecamp

... on tuesday finally we started our trekking to the basecamp... - on monday evening I got a certain rough feeling in my throat which made me think of a coming cold...something which I absolutely couldnt need on the expedition... and I blamed the aircondition to have caused that... be it the one of the airport in abu dhabi or the one in the hotel room in kathmandu... however... - but this progressing cold shouldnt remain mye onliest negative impact on this expedition... finally allover it was not "my expedition"... at least not in comparison to the former 8.000er ones - which worked smoother for me... - at the begin of our trek we still went by bus... our target today was pokhara... and from now on we even had to get used to getting up early... mostly at 6 a.m. - in pokhara we had a last comfort-night in the wonderful and popular fishtail lodge. its located on a small island and you have to cross over by a small "FerryBoat" which is torn manually by rope by a ferryman...



at pokhara we arrived in the afternoon and still had some time for strolling around. - ethiad airways, our airline to kathmandu, had plunged some of us into a sort of disaster::: they had confiscated our lighters when checking in at frankfurt airport. - the scurrility was that we hadnt put the lighters into our hand-luggage... but into our main-luggage and had to take them out... hitherto never before any airline had bothered about that... they argued the lighters could get inflamed unattended and cause a catastrophy... - so we had no choice but to trash them. - later I got to know that gerhard had taken his lighters into the pockets of his pants... and that was okay for them. omg!!! never before I have gotten the idea to take a lighter with me in my pocket into the cabin... however... now we were missing the lighters... and had to find new ones. and the problem is, in the height you cant use those working with piezo-technic - they dont work in great heights... and to find the normal ones with a wheel and firestone was not so easy - but finally we got them in a shop... whew!!! gotten rid of one problem...



next day, wednesday, we reached beni by bus around noon... had our lunch there and a longer break... before we started for our trekking - now for the rest of the way to the basecamp walking and sleeping in tents... - our way to the BC was a quite long one... and some of the day´s marches were quite short. but coming higher slowly was a good thing as for our acclimation... and even when you dont feel exhausted by the trekking that doesnt mean that your body wouldnt have to work hard... because of the inner processes of acclimatizing... - and as for me, my normal strategy is always not to go to my limits when its not really necessary... but always to have some reserves for cases of emergency instead. - meanwhile my cold developped in a shitty way... and I hoped that I would get better soon... but I was aware of the fact, that the higher we would come - the worse any negative impacts of our healthyness would get well ...



well, those who know me better even know that for me such an expedition doesnt only mean to go for the summit ... but has other important aspects too... - in so far an expedition isnt a fiasco for me, when I dont reach the summit... but depends on the circumstances... and even when I dont make it to the summit but can say, that I have tried at my best, its okay for me. - for me the expedition is an adventure allover and can be successful even because of other aspects. and one of these aspects is of course to look for cats ... and this time I wanted to find some - to open the page "cats in nepal" on my website ... and indeed, I had good luck to meet some during our trekking. - now we walked thru beautiful landscape and small and remote lil villages... and it happened that I got to see my first cat in nepal... and succeeded in taking fotos of her... - once I even was able to play with a cat... she was still young... I guess she was at most one year old... and still playful... she was biting in my glove ... not seriously ... but playful... and for me of course it made my day... - once when we were on our way to litschi, I even got to see a bengal cat. they are my favourite race... and for me it was very special to meet such a cat in the wiild nature... the more as they are quite rare in germany... and you never find one in free nature...



well, of course I knew that it hadnt been quite helpful for the expedition, when a cat which I stroked had bitten me... but this was a friendly and playful cat... and so I couldnt keep my hands off her... and as you can see, it was love at first sight... ;-)))

... well, meanwhile it was sunday and we were on our way from boghara to dobang, when we were caught by a thunderstorm with heavy rain in the afternoon... it started when we still had to go for about an hour to reach the camp... this region is wellknown for leeches coming out in rainy weather but as for them we had good luck. - the rain was indeed a very heavy and lasting one... for surely three or four hours the rain came down incredibly dense and in great drops... plopping hard onto the roof of our team-tent, in which we were sitting sheltered and protected meanwhile. - our local team already had built it up before we arrived... and when the rain decreased for some moments, we took the chance to build up our sleep tents... - the meadow was more a pool than a stable terrain in this moment... but later - still before the darkenss of the night fell down - the rain stopped. now the air and the whole environment was quite humid and even the temperatures had turned to become quite fresh. - in dobang we were on about 2.500m of altitude... and in the next days now we would come into greater heights. I was even still in some worries about my cold... especially a nerving cough was handicapping me...



meanwhile we even had built some bascial rhythms as for our daily routines. so mostly our wake-up call was at 6:30... then breakfast at 7:00... and start for the daily hike at about 8:00. mostly still before breakfast we removed our tents and even already had packed our luggage so that the porters could leave asap as they needed of course more time for the daily trek carrying the heavy load. - mostly at about 1 p.m. we took our lunch somewhere in nature. on that occasion our kitchenteam prepared sth to eat for us... mostly a complete menue starting with a soup followed by maybe bread with cheese and coleslaw... some potatoes maybe... and then a dessert of fruits for instance. - mostly we took enough time for our lunchbreak and afterwards started for the rest of our day trip... feeling reinvigorated. - already in these days Dill, our cook, had turned out to be a master of his job... with even two good assistants, his kitchenboys... - cooking such meals in the wild nature was really a lil miracle... the more as they always had to start with us in the morning... then made their way fast in front of us... and then coming out with such a splendid meal for lunch ... and again dinner in the evening. surely even a hard job allover...



well, so we came higher and higher... and even the landscape was changing... we left the rain forest and came to more barren landscape with even sparser population. a last stop in the richer nature at salagary before we went up to the places with now promising names like swiss basecamp or italian- and japanese basecamp... music in our ears as we were approaching our target more and more::: the dhaulagiri basecamp. - in salagary I felt quite low because of my cold... and poor rupert finally was escaping our tent because he was afraid to get infected too. so I asked luis if there would be a solution maybe that I could  take another of our tents as a single tent to protect my colleagues from getting infected. - but as our surplus-tents were already on their way up to the basecamp in front of us... the only solution was that alex took rupert into her single tent so that I could stay in a tent on my own until we reached the basecamp... where everyone of us would stay in a single tent anyway. meanwhile I had become very mindful of my cold - and how to proceed... - finally the solution was to take antibiotics which Juergen, our doctor, recommended me to take when we reached the swiss basecamp that afternoon. - and his advice was right... because after taking them few days later I had got rid of the shitty cold. of course I was not very happy about taking them... and as far as I can remember it was the first time in my life that I have taken any antibiotics - normally I never take any medicine at all... - the last pill which I had to take was an ibuprofen in 2006 when returning from GII and I had fallen into this shitty hole and had to walk along the damaged karakorum highway with my damaged knee and incredible pain... however...



... the 23. april was ruperts 40th birthday... in the morning luis lit a candle for him at breakfast on the moraine and we sang for him. surely he will never forget this birthday -hahaha. and in the evening Dill baked a cake for rupert to congratulate him... - already since we had passedby the italian basecamp on our way to swiss BC the other day, we walked on the moraine of the glacier... and that day we arrived at japanese BC quite early in the morning at 10:40 a.m. - We thought about if it would be a reasonable option to proceed our way to reach the dhaulagiri BC that day - or to make another stop here at japanese BC. - finally we decide to stay... because we even had to consider about the work which had to be done in the BC when we would arrive. we would have to build up our mountain dome team-tent... and would have to create tent platforms for our sleeping tents on the glacier and would have to build them up... in so far a lot of work ... and then the hike from swiss BC to dhaulagiri BC had been a quite long march with about 900 m of height difference and moreover spending the night in the greater height too. - so we decided to stay at japanese BC in reasons of acclimation... and moreover we hadnt the least pressure of time... it was a good and reasonable decision...



Reaching & Installing Dhaulagiri Basecamp

...on friday the 24. april we finally reached dhaulagiri basecamp... it is located on about 4.600 m ... and as there already were few other expeditions we had to take a place at the end of the BC... but it was a good place and we were apart for us. an advantage of our place even was, that we could not get disturbed by other climbers who were starting for CI in the early morning while we were still sleeping - having a restday maybe...



...when we arrived our luggage already was carried up too... and even our kitchen tent... which we unfortunately must move, because our choice fell on a place a bit below... - next thing was to build up our team-tent. its not so easy to build up such a mountain dome tent... but singi, our climbing sherpa had a good imagination of the howto... and so we succeeded within quite short time... - next thing was to make our farewells to the porters who had done a great job all the time and everyday... they really deserved a good tip which luis was handing over to Khiru, our sirdar... who in turn gave it to the leader of the porters to allot it to his crew... - then we started to choose and create/prepare our tent platforms. we found some places which were good preformed by nature... and others meant harder work to build them. in my case I had chosen a more remote place - as I like that - and I had a lot of work with my platform. - to build a flat place where you can setup a tent means to carry a lot of stones to create a preferably flat ground for the tent... and the better your work - the better you will lie in your tent later. - even considering of the fact, that with the time passing by, the glacier is changing its surface because of moving ...and even the sun which is melting the ice... which can mean that a tent platform - depending on - can change to so bad that you have to rebuild your tent on a new platform... and of course thats no fun either...



... for all the next time the BC would be our rest area ... the place to recover when coming down from the highcamps... regaining our strengths... and finally to go for the summit of dhaulagiri... but beforehand there was still a lot of work to do and to prepare in the BC too. - first of all we planned two rest days to get acclimatized to the height of the BC (about 4.600m). - even though I had a start with quite hard work in the BC - carrying many stones to build my tent platfom - I slept good. - and for my surprise even didnt get any headache. one of the allover results of this expedition was that I never had got so less headache allover during an expedition than this time at dhaulagiri - which was a great plus of course... and the more remarkable - as at the same time this expedition was the one with the worst and least sleep on the highcamps allover of all expeditions in which I ever have taken part in. in some cases I either slept only very few hours during a night on a highcamp... but in the majority of our highcamp-sojourns I didnt sleep for only one minute... and that was sth which was not even encouraging me as for my summit-ambitions... - allover it finally really was not "my" expedition this time... 

the next two days we had to arrange and to prepare a lot of things to get installed... and we had to check the material which we had to bring up to the highcamps later ... as for instance the tents and stoves before all. we even arranged the food and energy-bars which were part of our supply for the heights...



Acclimation tour to French Col on sunday, the 26. april

well, its wellknown that a rolling stone gathers no moss... and so we went for an acclimation tour to french col on sunday...  - the weather was beautiful... and we even hoped to get sight to our climbing-route via the north-east ridge... to get some impressions about its structure and maybe conditions... - french col is about 5.335 m - which meant we had to ascend and afterwards to descend about 700 m ... we walked quite slowly and even took some breaks. - the higher we came the more impressive dhaualgiri came to our sight. the "Eiger" rockformation which is dominating the view from the BC lost its dominance more and more until it was still not more than only a small piece of rock in the mighty structure of the impressive dhaulagiri-massif. - indeed we could track the climbing-route on the north-east ridge by help of a spyglass... and we could perceive three climbers and two tents on CII. the summit had a snow-flag caused by the jetstream up there... surely a day where you hadnt could summit the mountain because of too strong winds. - as for me I turned around to descend a bit before reaching the french col... as I thought it was enough and only an acclimation tour... not a must to reach a certain target. the ascent to french col was more than only a light acclimation trip... and I wanted to be cautious - the more as I even hadnt yet completely recuperated from my cold. - the rest of the day we spent with relaxing... having our meals with lunch - today a bit later than usually because of the tour... and then coffee which we mostly took around 4 p.m.... and later dinner at 7 p.m.



... in these days the weather was quite the same every day::: sunny and less wind in the morning - until around noon or early afternoon... and then clouds came up from the valley... and wind started blowing... going along with the temperatures decreasing of course... - in the evening at about 8 p.m. it was around 0°C... and occasionally down to -3°C - but not colder. - in comparison to cho oyu BC this was indeed a warm place - and even the nights were not very cold in the BC... whereas in comparison to the GII BC you can say the weather was a lot harsher in the basecamp of dhaulagiri... and those of us who had been at nanga parbat last year were spoiled by the wonderful BC-situation over there (blooming green meadows -hahaha)...

First climb of CI on tuesday, the 28. april

well, now - slowly but steady - we came closer to the point of saying goodbye to the comparatively comfortable life of the last time... looking forward to our first ascent and material transport to CI. but before we were still missing our puja... and no 8.000er expedition in nepal would take place without the puja having been celebrated before. - in our case dorje, our climbing sherpa, was predestined to celebrate our puja, as he was a kidmonk for many years. our team of locals built up the altar and we brought some of our things to let them be blessed by dorje during the celebration... and thanks to dorje it became a very dignified and thoughtful event. - afterwards even our prayer flags were blowing in the wind - as a sign that we now were ready to start our climbing project...



so for tuesday the 28. april we planned to go up to CI... and monday afternoon we prepared the material which we wanted to carry up... as tents and stoves... food and gaz for the highcamps and of course especially the things for our first overnight stay on CI. - that day we even received visitors of the indish expedition. they came with their team-doctor, their nepal L.O. and a team-member. we had a coffee and some chitchat about the situation and each others plans for the next days... - later another guest came to visit us... tunc findic, a turkish climber and an old friend of luis. so it was a great hello when meeting him unexpectedly - and by chance - in the BC too. he was already staying in the BC since longer - and was by then yet planning his summit attack... a very nice guy and a strong climber too...

whenever we left the BC to climb CI that always meant to get up very early in the morning at 3:45 a.m. ... having breakfast at 4:00 and to start at 5:00. - the reason for this procedere was the climbing route ... crossing below the "Eiger" rockformation... which you should have passed before sunrise... because with the sun coming out you have a high risk of falling rock ... and avalenches too, going down in case that snow has been falling the days before... - and even the flat passage crossing over the glacier after you have left the Eiger-passage was best to pass over before the sun could warm it up - softening the bridges you need to cross over the crevasses as long as they still were frozen...



our first ascent to CI was quite hard... in reasons that we were not yet acclimatized to the height ... and even had to carry our heavy rucksacks with the material... and moreover the height difference from BC to CI is about 1.100 m which is quite a lot in these heights and even one of the marks of this mountain. - the ascent was quite straining... and I didnt yet feel perfectly fit as for my cold... and even alli was suffering from a cold meanwhile. - we needed quite a long time crawling at a snails pace -hahaha... and the sun was shining hot meanwhile too... and so at about 5.540 m we decided for the turning point to return to the BC for those who wanted - creating a depot up there to store our material. - some of us decided to go on for CI which was not so far away from the depot any more... and one moment I hesitated to go further up too. - but one hand I thought about my healthyness which wasnt yet  perfectly good... and on the other hand I thought of the risk to go down still later... as the sun was shining hot meanwhile... and I could imagine what sooner or later would happen to the snow-bridges and the crevasses... which were numerous between CI and the Eiger. - not to speak of the risk of rockfall crossing below Eiger... and so I decided to turn around too. with me alli, gerd and dieter went down too... and we went in a rope because of the risk of falling into a crevasse...  - as a warning we took the death of the unfortunate polish climber who had fallen into a crevasse a bit below CI begin of april... and I was very aware that its not only always other persons who experience the bad things of life ... and that for sure even the polish climber didnt fall into the crevasse because he was especially careless or more venturesome than we were... so I was warned...



... during our descent we experienced indeed some rocks and blocks of ice falling down when we were crossing below Eiger... its really dangerous to pass this section when the sun is shining. - and even wearing a helmet - what I did - couldnt really dispel my concerns about that... - unfortunately I had hurted my ankle during our ascent in the morning... and even had overstretched my right calf in the steep terrain... I couldnt accept my fate as for that... such a bad luck... but okay... I was experienced enough to know how such an injury would heal... and so I hoped that with some rest until our next trip to CI this negative impact would have faded away ... resp. that I would be able to compensate it with slightly changing my climbing technic in the steep terrain... - another thing which I had to do was to adjust the inner shoes of my new thermoboots... they turned out to have been a bit too slacky... but this was just a matter of a basical adjustment of the lacing-system...

First overnight stay on CI on thursday, the 30. april

after this first climb we took a rest day in the BC... but already for the next day we planned to go up to CI again... sleeping there to get acclimatized to this new height and to adapt our bodies to go higher later... - of course we even had to carry up more material and food too... - so on thursday afternoon we disposed and packed the material and food - and some personal things too which we would need later in the highcamps... - most essential: not to bring up innutile things - and of course not to forget things which you really need. as for me I wrote down a list of what I would need in the highcamps... for not to forget anything. as I would share the tent with rupert again, we planned our food and devided it among the two of us to bring it up the next day...

... on thursday it was the same procedure with getting up early at 3:45 in the morning... and at 5:00 we left in direction to CI. we had very good conditions as for the snow - which was frozen and easy to climb. that morning I felt strong and good and even my leg wasnt aching too bad. this time our skiers - to name alex, rupert and luis - carried up their skis... - as for luis his plan was to ski down in a direct route from the top of dhaulagiri - which - in case that he would succeed - had been the first time that somebody could have mananged to do so. - as for luis I knew him good enough that I thought him to be capable to have a realistic chance for making it... whenever it should be possible in respects as for the weather-conditions one hand - and the terrain as for rock-formations which he had to come over and thru on the other hand... - and even rupert was very strong and a perfect skier so that I also had no doubts in his chance to make it too... whereas I couldnt imagine that alex should be able to go down on skis from the top too... however... we would see that later...



... this time we even picked up the material which we had stored in the depot below CI the other day... the main part of it was taken by luis and rupert ... pulling a seesack behind them skiing up... and some of the things were taken by dieter and me... - this time we arrived at CI still before high noon. - now we had to build our tent platforms ... which always means hard work in these heights... depending on the underground you either have to shovel snow or even have to hack ice with your iceaxe - which then is still more straining and exhausting. - after installing our tents we went to rest... which meant to stay in your tents ... melting snow on the stoves to boil water. to drink as much as you can is the most essential thing in the heights... because you lose a lot of your bodys fluids by sweating and even via your respiration. when youre dehydrated you lose all your energy and power quite soon. - missing only very few percent of your bodies fluids weakens you overproportional - every experienced high altitude climber knows about that and takes care. - in the afternoon the weather was changing to bad - as we already had expected in advance - and as it is quite normal for this mountain. we had a light thunderstorm with some hail coming down. - on the highcamps mostly even the night´s rest was starting soon. here it got dark about 7 p.m. and then you even should have had your dinner. as for me mostly I liked to listen to some music on my mp3-player before falling asleep - a small piece of luxury here in the heights... and so I spent my first night on CI... a night without any second of sleep... but even - and that was quite a surprise too - without getting any headache...



Making a depot 200m below CII on friday, the 1. may

... next morning I felt good in spite of the bad night without any sleep which I had. - our wakecall was at 6:00 in the morning. - for breakfast I couldnt eat very much... but I enjoyed a cappuccino. so at 8:00 we started in direction of CII. the weather was beautiful that morning... as mostly in these days... and so after a while the impressive panorama of the famous annapurna group came in sight. we met a polish woman climbing up very slowly. I couldnt imagine that she would be able to reach CII when going so very slowly...however. (later we got to know that nobody of the polish expedition could manage to summit dhaualgiri). - after a while a strong wind started blowing...and the higher we came, the stronger the wind became. so I had to put on my stormcap after a while... and changed my gloves to thicker ones. it was really hard work to climb up and to fight the strong wind... at 12:00 we reached the point where we decided to return to CI... making our depot there. - it was enough for that day... and while we were descending afoot... our three skiers were skiing down to CI. in this section of the mountain - by comparison - the terrain was not very difficult... and luis and rupert were going down very easy and smart... whereas alex - who basically is a good skier too - obviously missed either her nerves or her power - or both... but her style looked quite awkward... and it was obviously that she never would be able to ski down from the top of this mountain...



around 1 p.m. we were back at CI... the weather had changed to bad again... and again we had a thunderstorm with snowfall... meanwhile I had gotten light headache... but fell asleep for maybe an hour in the afternoon... and when I woke up my headache had vansihed. - the following night I slept better... maybe because I got the insight that I perhaps had worn too warm clothes in my sleepingbag the other night ...

next day our group splitted up in so far, that luis and rupert started for a ski-ascent of tukuche peak, 6.960m high... a mountain opposite to CI with skiing down to the BC afterwards... whereas the rest of our group went down to the BC... - alex had come to the insight that she wanted better to pass on skiing at dhaulagiri... a wise decision as we all found... to ski down an 8.000er you must be outstanding strong and be a perfect skier. and doing that means either to bring up your skis additionally to your normal luggage when summiting the mountain. and then even to ski down with a very heavyweight rucksack when bringing down the material of the highcamps on your way back down after summiting. or you do it in speed-ascent style going up to the summit for a second time with only light equipement. but even to do that you must be very strong... and as for luis he had already put in evidence at GII in 2006 that he is capable of a speed-ascent ... and rupert was same as strong as luis... the both had planned to go for the summit a second time at the end of the expedition...



...that day I took the time to take some photos when going down... I love the bizarre ice-structures of the glacier next to the Eiger-passage... and beyond that I even love the loneliness of the mountains... and so I walked in a distance behind the group. - back in the BC we were welcomed by Khiru with lemon juice and a good lunch... - the rest of the day I spent with washing myself and relaxing - lying in my sleepingbag reading and listening to some good music. - a faux-pas which happened to me was that I forgot to bring down my therm-a-rest mat from CI... and a very nice guesture of helga and jürgen was to help me with a ridgerest-mat which they didnt need in the BC... but only wanted to take up to CI when going up the next time... I appreciated this loan...



Life in the basecamp

well, meanwhile we got used to the life in BC. as for me I like to stay in the loneliness of these places. for me its an own dimension of such an expedition. and I even like to stay in desert places like on a glaciers moraine, where you have nothing except ice and stones. - some other persons dislike it absolutely so for instance gerhard who was dreaming of the wonderful place of the nanga parbat basecamp... with wonderful green meadows and warmer temperatures. - I even like to lie in my tent in the evenings and to listen to good music... dreaming... especially when maybe outside the wind is blowing and snow is falling. this time I also spent many hours reading "Inkheart" - and I had voted for the english version as I thought I would need longer to read it than the german edition - and so would need only one book during the expediton (thinking too of the luggage restrictions on our flights and the heavy weight of a thick book -hahaha). - in the BC we had snowfall several times too. and it was amazing how the landscape changed its face when snow had been falling when you left your tent in the morning and the sun was shining. - then it was a real winter-landscape around us. allover the temperatures were changing to warmer during our overall sojourn... and at the end of our days in the BC we had rain instead of snow and during the nights the temperatures didnt fall under the frost limit any longer. our supply in the BC was very good and life in so far very comfortable in comparison to what you experience in the highcamps.



... days in the BC even were time to wash some clothing maybe... and to cultivate and wash yourself... - allover you could relax and reenergize down there... normally even sleeping good at night... which I unfortunately couldnt say as for myself from the highcamps... where I slept worse this time than on any other expedition ever before... - one of the good things on such an expedition btw is, that you can eat as much as you want. - at the end of the expedition you will have lost weight and substance nevertheless. this time we had a lot of cake which Dill, our cook, made for us... and his pizza was infamous too... a very bigsize creation... and very tasty. - it is always good use too, to visit other expedition-groups or receive guests when you stay in the BC. we had contacts to the indian army group and even to tunc findik and a korean group which arrived quite late in the season... but they already were acclimatized because of a sojourn at manaslu from where they had moved to dhaulagiri because of too much snow at manaslu.

Climbing up CI --> CII --> CIII on the 5. may
... now we had two days of rest before we climbed up the heights again... and this time we knew in advance that it would become a hard piece of work. our plan was to climb CI... stay there for the night... then to climb CII next day... sleep there too... and next day to go for CIII to bring up our material and food for the final summit attack...



...as usually we started at 5:00 a.m. on the 5. may... and again our rucksacks were quite heavy. this time I even carried up my down-clothing to store it on CI for the summit attack. and actually before I had thought my rucksack would be less heavy this time... but its always the same: apparently a rucksack never can be lightweight (and even not empty). - but I admit that rupert and me had agreed to carry up a little goodie: a cake -hahaha... of course adding some extra - "luxury-weight" - to my rucksack - however... - during our ascent we had beautiful weather with hot sun and less wind... and we were indeed climbing faster than last time... our acclimation was progressing and made us stronger now. - at CI we were installed very soon... melting snow and boiling water... taking a rest. the sun was shining and the temperatures in our tents increased to incredibly hot... but later in the afternoon the weather changed to bad again... and we had a little thunderstorm going along with a strong wind and snowfall... - the night was another bad one for me... and I was happy when finally the time of our wakeupcall had come... it was 6:00 a.m. and time to get ready for our ascent to CII...

... before our start to CII we had to remove one of the tents to take it further up with us. the choice fell on ruperts and my tent... - our start was delayed for half an hour that day because of a photo-shooting which alex still wanted to do for her salewa-sponsoring. - the weather was beautiful when we started... but after only few meters I got the feeling that my rucksack was so heavy that I couldnt imagine how to climb with it to CII on about 6.700m - yuck!!! - well, and quite soon the weather again turned to bad... it started storming again... and even the sun hid behind the clouds. - when we passed by the place of our depot we were not able to add the material to our stuff, which we already were carrying. - and when we finally arrived at CII in the storm, we still had to create three tent platforms... one for the VE25 tent of alli, luis and me ... and two for the two-persons quazar-tents for helga & jürgen and the other one for gerhard & dieter. - rupert and alex decided to go back down to the depot to spend the night down there and to bring up the material next morning... - except us, even the indians had installed 4 tents on CII... and even the single japanese climber was staying there. - finally we had installed our tents... and could start the usual procedures ... with melting snow ... eating something... and afterwards preparing for the night...



unfortunately this time I made a serious mistake: I had decided to go up to CII with only my ridgerest mat... leaving my therm-a-rest mat on CI. this was in reasons of that I found my rucksack to be already heavy enough... and I even thought it would be enough comfort to sleep on just the thin ridgerest mat... but I hadnt reckoned on and not considered of the too less isolation of this mat... it was too thin and so the coldness came thru the mat and made me freezing during the night... and so I had another very bad night without any sleep...

... for the next day we decided to stay on CII because we needed to bring up the material of our depot. - alex and rupert told us by radio that three more persons should come down to help them carrying up the material of the depot as it was too much to carry up for only two persons... - so we had to choose three more persons to descent to help them... the rest of our team had to build two more tent platforms inbetween... and as luis wanted to go down and jürgen too... and even dieter and me offered to go, luis decided for dieter to go down with them... and helga, alli and me built the platforms and even prepared drinks for the team coming up later... - after doing that work we spent the rest of the day in our tents... relaxing and waiting for the night to come... - as for me I was prepared for another bad night because of my shitty position in the tent - one hand... and additionally because of the poor ridgerest mat on the other...



well, now we were already since 3 days in the heights... and now had to go higher again... - our plan was to bring up the material to CIII... and then to descent to CI afterwards... and so at least I was looking forward to spend hopefully a better night on CI that evening. - climbing up direction CIII was hard work again as the ridge was quite steep and in parts we had to climb in blue-ice... - must I mention that the weather turned to bad again??? the mountain really lived up to its bynames "mountain of storms" and "the white mountain" - storm came up again and it started snowing... so that finally luis decided for a turning point again... making a depot... this time only about 60m in height below CIII. - in fact it was not such a drama this time to make a depot... because you couldnt yet install tents on CIII now because the risk was too high that the storm had destroyed them until our next climbing up... as the location of CIII is a very stormy place on the exposed ridge.



so we went back down to CII... and when I had dreamt of sleeping on CI that night... I even was in err as for that: when finally the last one of our team was back on CII at about 4:30 p.m., the weather was still quite stormy... and nobody had fun in still going down to CI, except of alli and me. - me in reasons of expecting another bad night on CII ... and alli as she had already worn her down clothing which was quite humid now... and she wanted to dry it over night and in the morning sun on CI... - but finally nobody had fun in going down except me - and my last hope were our climbing sherpas... as luis had told me that they wanted to descent too at 5 p.m. - but when I went to their tent and asked them, singi replied that they even wanted to stay on CII as "Dorje wanted to sleep" - I was quite fed up and angry... but even didnt want to take the risk to go down to CI on my own... because I didnt want to take any risk of falling into a crevasse maybe... and so I had to accept another night on CII - and this time it was one of my worst nights of the expedition because meanwhile I was freezing a lot... - I surely had spent another half an hour in the storm only for putting on my crampons - and finally in vain as I had to stay and finally to go back into our tent. I was quite exhausted now  -even because of the other nights before without any sleep and the hard work of the past days... my teeth were chattering and I could not warm up before I put a sigg-bottle with hot water into my sleepingbag... and after midnight I became so cold again, that I refilled the sigg-bottle with the tea of my thermosbottle to have a hot-water bottle again to warm me... phew!!! I felt very relieved when I finally got up - to descent to the BC the next morning... - just to mention: when you wake up in the morning your tent is an ice-cave inside... thats because of the humidity of your respiration which is covering the tents walls and freezing there. and when the sun warms the tent... the ice is melting at the walls and water is dripping down everywhere and you get showered... not very amusing as I can tell. - when arriving at CI we had a short stop there to dry our sleepingbags in the sun on the roofs of our tents. - this was a need as we had to let the sleepingbags on CI... but had to compress them and to store them in a plastic sack to protect them from becoming wet maybe in case that a tent should be damaged by the storm and snow would come in...



... back in the BC we were welcomed by the crew with a very good lunch... but after 5 days in the height our stomaches were not ready for taking up so much food... be it ever so good... - now we were prepared for summiting the mountain... as our highcamps were prepared and even the supply with gaz and food was done. it was saturday, the 9. may now... and we had still enough time to go for the summit... and so now we were waiting for good weather... after having three days of rest. - luis asked for the weather report via satphone. the specialist for that is charly gabl... and we came into discussion when charly prognosted a period of better weather for thursday and friday... - but the forecast was not so good that we felt too certain about it... and beyond that we would have had already to start the next morning... which had meant that we actually hadnt had enough rest before after being so long in the height during the last days. - finally we passed on that chance when we compared our weather report with the one of the indish team... and their forecast was quite bad for that space of time... and so we decided to stay in the BC... for good luck as I found... as we already had enough time... and the forecast hadnt been too encouraging... so this even meant some more rest in the comfort of the BC...

... buuuuuut then we got another good-weather-prognosis from charly for sunday/monday... and this time when we discussed it, everyone agreed that this should be our chance now. we had rested for some days... and the forecast was really good for this time... with less snowfall... and less wind in the 8.000 m region. - but of course there was a fly in the ointment too... as the prognosis for the days before the summit-day was less good. we should be confronted with snowfall... and even very strong wind the days before... but if you want to  wait for 4 or 5 perfect days at dhaualgiri you can become a very old man before that might happen. - as for my constitution I felt quite good after these days of rest in the BC... the only thing which I was thoughtful about was my coldness with a cough which I had caught the last freezing night on CII. and I was even angry about that, because I knew that I hadnt caught that cold when I could have descent to CI as we originally had planned... instead of staying one more shitty night on CII. - however... now I had to go along with that... and was asking myself, how this cough maybe could develop in the increasing heights... beyond that I felt good and unaffected as for my physical strength...



of course its always a special thing, when you start to go for the summit of an 8.000er... now you know its neck or nothing... so to speak... and so I thought about some things... how to do them... even pondering this and that. - for the summit attack I always wear my special "summit clothing" - very old but reliable clothing. sponsors of clothing surely wouldnt have the least fun in me... hahaha. - and another important thing always are my luckycharms which my lovelies have given to me... and last but not least I thought of course even of the flag of our company which I wanted to run up on top of the mountain... and I didnt want to imagine that I would make it to the summit... and then would have forgotten to take up the flag... or still worse: to have the flag with me and finally forget to run it up... omg! - but I even was aware of how your thinking is becoming slower in the height and your concentration is reducing too. you can forget about things in these heights very easily...

Going for the summit - starting on 15. may from BC --> CI
... and so it came that we reached for the summit... starting on friday, the 15. may with our wakeupcall at 3:45 in the morning... the usual procedure when going up to the heigths. our ascent to CI was a perfect one in good weather conditions and this time we were a lot faster then the other times before because of our acclimation.. - when we arrived at CI we were shocked that the indians had left a lot of their stuff and trash even up here. we found a lot of food and even gaz-cartouches. - they also had let back lots of trash in the basecamp. really absurd - not alone because of the environment of this wonderful piece of nature... but the more too because they had enough staff to clean their BC... and even CI... and beyond that the army is an authoritative institution... and when they are guests in a foreign country they should know how to behave themselves... and so it was a very evidence of incapacity and they should shame themselves...



...luis saved some of the things he found in their trash... he is quite adventurous in these respects... and even saved some food which we tasted later for dinner. - now in CI alli, luis and me shared a VE25 three-persons tent... whereas the others shared their tents with only two persons. of course this was a certain disadvantage ... but at least the three of us are a quite experienced and very good fitting tent-team in case that there is a need to share a tent with three persons. - when we arrived at the camp, our tents were covered by a lot of snow and we had too free them, which was quite a work... - we even had to work to flatten the ground inside of the tent to have a good platform for our mats as a good basis for a rest- and peaceful sleep... - that night I slept fairly good... one of the best nights which I had during the expedition on the highcamps this time...

... our climbing sherpas had come out with a quite strange idea... they had asked luis that they wanted to climb up one day behind us... and then wanted to go to CII directly...and they argued that they had let their sleepingbags on CII. oops!  there hadnt been any agreement with us about that before... and it even was not in our sense... but luis crossed their plans in a clever way... telling them that they could go directly to CII... but not one day behind us... but with us... and then should care about CII... freeing the tents from the snow... - maybe they were not too enthusiast about that... but it was not their choice. - going up to CII straight from the BC is a straining thing... and this time our climbing sherpas were not outstanding strong... - we had experienced other calibers on other expeditions, as for instance nawang at cho oyu... especially dorje who had been 4 times on everest and  - so he said - even summited it... never made a dent of being such a strong climber. - however... the both went up to CII that day... and even had to fight the bad weather which was coming in the afternoon with strong wind and snowfall... and they needed til about 8 p.m. before they finally reached CII... I think they have shot themselves in their feet that day... and surely basically had reckoned and hoped for one more leisure day in the comfortable basecamp... and now instead spend one more night on CII...



16. may from CI --> CII

... in my preparational thoughts for climbing up further now and making it to the summit I thought about if I should already go to wear my down clothing next morning when going up to CII... or if I should carry it and still wear my goretex pants and jacket. actually the down clothing was still too warm for that height and could mean a lot of sweating when climbing in the sun... but on the other hand it had meant to carry up heavier load in my rucksack. so finally I decided for wearing the down-version. and when we went up next morning, I shouldnt regret it. - when we woke up that morning at 5:30, our tent was an ice-cave again of course... and the procedures of getting ready for the start meanwhile were routine for us. - at 8:30 we started in bright sunshine and a feeble wind... but only after a little while very strong wind and later storm were coming up... and so I was glad to wear my down pants. again I even had to wear my stormcap and the hood of my down jacket because of the strong wind and the shifting snow which was hitting and hurting my face...



... finally a while past noon we arrived on CII... where our tents were deeply under snow... and in case of ours it was dented by the heavy layer of snow... and even damaged at the outer shell at one side. - freeing it from snow and flattening the inner ground was hard work now. - actually the weather wasnt really bad... and the sun was still shining... but the storm was drifting the snow down the ridge. - a snow wall which I had built to protect our tent from being covered too soon again by the shifting snow was overcome by the snow within the shortest time. - our problem now was that the shifting snow was blown into the space between our tent and the hillside of the tent platform... so that it was filled up by the shifting snow with the time passing by... and the snow was pressing against the defect wall of our tent. - the problem was that the defect tent wall was dented into the room of the tent... and the more snow came down... the worse this effect became. - I had the badluck to lie at this side of the tent... and finally the wall pressed into the inner space of the tent so extremely that I lay there like in an ice cave. I only could lie on my back and had an ice-ceiling over my head in a distance of only 5 cm... this was a situation and position which was not quite amusing and gave me a very psychic feeling... and so I left the tent to free it from the shifting snow again before we lay down for the night... - it was hard work to do that in this weather... and even I had to be extremely cautious with the damaged tent shell... because increasing damage could have meant that the tent maybe could have become unusable... - well, to put it in a nutshell: after freeing the tent from snow again... it lasted maybe 2 hours before I lay under the ice-ceiling again... - I went out one more time to free the tent of the snow at about 9 p.m. - still less amusing now in the darkness... and still colder temperatures and in the storm with the shifting snow... however... this was one of the worst nights of my whole life... - its one thing to stay awake for a long night ... but its another to lie under such an ice-ceiling... not able to move... - I felt like burried alive ... it was going to my psychical limits... and I was more than glad when the clock finally stroke 5:00 and we could start to prepare for going up to the next hop of our chain of highcamps - which was CIII now...



17. may from CII --> CIII

... in the morning the wind had calmed down and the sun was shining... we had serious difficulties to leave our tents. the snow was blocking the entries like a wall... and it was not easy to cut ones way out... in these reasons our start this morning was a bit delayed nevertheless we had gotten up so early. at 8:30 we started for CIII in good weather with a feeble wind. - up to CIII the ridge became quite steep and even with passages of blue-ice... - so climbing up was quite straining... as one hand my rucksack was quite heavyweight again... and wearing the down clothing in the sun was even not too amusing. occasionally I put off my hood - always of course thinking of the sun which is very dangerous for burning your skin when youre not caring about your sun-protection... - but on the tick when I arrived at CIII the weather changed to cloudy and even a strong wind started blowing. we still had to build our tent-platforms and had to install our tents... - and this time it meant still harder work - when you couldnt use one of the two or three already existing platforms. - when alli still had meant on CII that I would deserve a good platform for our tent on CIII because I for sure had the worst night in this shitty psychic situation... of course that was forgotten now... after some confusion I had to create a platform with gerhard this time - sharing the tent with him. and this meant hard work to hack the blank-ice with the ice-axe... and even because of shovelling a lot to remove the snow of course. - finally our climbing sherpas offered us their tent which meanwhile was already installed at least - wheneven not completely preapared... and to go on building up our tent. - they knew that it was important for us to come to rest because of the summit attack starting that night. and so it was a very nice guesture - as we were the last ones working in the storm which meanwhile was blowing very strong... and gerhard and me even were the ones who had to create a completely new platform directly in the icy steep slope. alli and luis and even jürgen and helga stood on an already existing platform and rupert and alex stood a bit below beside the rocks and had a better terrain for building their platform... however...



... being in our tent this still didnt mean to come to rest. the ground was absolutely not flat... and resembled more a small mountain range... normally you flatten it before you install your tent... and so I tried my best to do that now from inside with my thermosbottle. - next thing then was to start melting snow... and I even had filled our snow-sack before I came into the tent... but the evil now was the storm... which was blowing very strong. so it was quite difficult to melt snow on the stove in the apsis of the tent. - this time we had a new generation of stoves with us... and they were really excellent...  - when they once were lit, they even worked in storm... but it was not so easy to light them... - as for me I was very aware about the importance of drinking a lot now... because the climbing had been quite straining and our bodies had lost a lot of water - which now must be replenished. - as for gerhard I couldnt understand that he had not the smallest interest in boiling water or drinking. but we already had spoken about that before... and he had meant that he wouldnt need to drink so much. in my sight it was a serious mistake... however. - the boiling of the water was quite straining in this situation... and of course I also had preferred to come to rest finally instead of spending my time by the straining snow-melting-procedure... - we had moved into the tent at 6 p.m. - and finally at 10 p.m. I came to rest. I had gotten light headache which was not a surprise for me after all... when I thought about the last night... and the straining dehydrating ascent to CIII. - by radio we had agreed to wake up at midnight... and to start for the summit at 2 a.m. - of course even considering of the storm - hoping that it would calm down until then. - so finally I slept indeed for 2 hours between 10 p.m. and midnight... and when I woke up I felt recuperated and even my headache had disappeared for good luck...

now we had to get ready for the start... and 2 hours seem to be a long time... but thats a viral error. again you have to boil water... have to eat something... have to put on your down-clothing and the thermoboots... and when two persons are busy preaparing themselves in such a small tent in the very height, nothing works fast... - even the fluffy big down sleepingbags and the voluminous down clothing are filling the tent almost "to the roof"... - with waking up we had a first radio session at midnight with our team - discussing the situation... - luis meant he was hoping that the storm would calm down at least some time before our start.... because it was quite marginal if it would make any sense to start in such a storm... and we agreed about another radio-session at 1:30. - that night melting snow finally really went on my nerves... as it was so difficult and straining because of the storm... and you always had to open and close the tent to reach the apsis and always shifting-snow was blown into our inner tent... and then always the shit with lighting the stove (my thumb was irrated by rubbing the lighter and close to build a blister because of that -hahaha)... - finally we even had to change the gaz-cartouche... and at least I had to take one liter of water with me which hadnt boiled... but I took the risk... and hoped that the snow was clean in these heights...



18. may from CIII --> Dhaulagiri summit

well, when we left the tent at 2:00 a.m., I was prepared... and the storm was still blowing but indeed had calmed down a little bit... and so we left the camp at about 2:15 in the morning. basically I felt good... and quite soon found my rhythm... we still went in the fixropes which were installed til the end of the Northeast ridge - below the easier snow incline... - most of us now carried a small and very light rucksack which we had particularly taken up for the summit attack. and maybe thats the reason that Im normally always quite strong when going to the summit. Im not very gifted for carrying heavy loads... but I have a very good endurance... and maybe thats an advantage when going for the summit... as I dont have to carry heavy load anymore... and my endurance is a plus now... however.

... meanwhile dieter had given up already at CII - turning around in the morning... as he didnt talked to anyone of our group, it was a quite lonesome decision... we only knew that he had slept bad... but we all had slept bad... and when I thought about my psychic night - pheeew!!! - however... and maybe he even was dehydrated... as gerhard, who had shared the tent with him, told me that they hadnt boiled much water... and only drunken less... - I think, dieter really had become a victim of his refusal not to communicate with anyone of our group in the least - as it is normal in a good working group - which we were - except dieter - who was an extreme loner by his own choice. its normal that you discuss things... that you discuss and agree about decisions... and even talk about when feeling bad, in case that you do. - you can get new impulses by talking to your colleagues... and youre helping each other of course too. - to put it in a nutshell: youre a team... - and I think when dieter had talked to us, it had could help and encourage him. but so he gave up... and later regretted that there was no second chance for him to go up for the summit... but during our presence at the mountain we only had this single chance - which we could use consequently - even thanks to luis feeling and experience for this kind of situations and making the right decisions. - the next one to give up now was gerhard. he was walking behind me... and only about 50m of height above CIII he informed me that he would go back to the camp. - in his case he was exhausted and afraid of frostbite. - he had realized that he wouldnt have been able to stand such a 20 hour-straining which the summiting of the mountain now meant for us...



... tha day two koreans and the japanese climber were going for the summit with us too ... the japanese originally wanted to climb a difficulter route thru the east wall of dhaulagiri ... and wanted to ski down from the summit... he was accompanied by a film-team... but meanwhile he had given up his ambitious plans and moved to the modest climbing via the classical normal route which we all did too... and which was challenging enough in these conditions...

well, the weather was clear and we could see the stars shining above us... but the storm was still blowing strong enough... and going along with the windchill the temperatures were quite marginal... I was wearing my stormcap to protect my face... and I had decided for the full-fingered-gloves... because its almost impossible to handle a jumar in the fixrope with the thick and less flexible down gloves - which I nevertheless had in my rucksack for any cases of emergency... - but my fingers got very cold again and again... and with every little stop I made a fist in my gloves and moved my fingers to warm them up... even I tried to turn my face out of the wind whenever possible. - so we climbed up the ridge in the fixropes... passing by the higher CIII at about 7.400m where you can find a lot of damaged tents. - Finally we reached the end of the ridge - with even the end of the fixropes. - in its last passage the ridge is getting quite sharp and exposed... and there the wind was blowing very strong and cold ... so that I even got cold feet in my thermoboots... and was hoping for the sun to rise soon and to bring us some warmth hopefully...



... we made a short stop in the rocks which were coming now before we came to the snow incline afterwards... here I changed my gloves to the thick and warmer mittens... but they were so cumbersome that I changed back to the full-finger-gloves some moments later... - well, but the good thing was... now with sunrise indeed the storm calmed down... so we finally still got our perfect summit day which charly gabl had promised us. quite soon even the sun was shining with some more power and I stopped freezeing when crossing the snow incline... - now walking was easier... and in front of us we could see the japanese who had doubled us some time before... - passing the incline now was not difficult... but nevertheless its a dangerous terrain - depending on the snow- and weather-conditions... because when you come to fall accidentally and come to slide on the slope... you can crash down over 2.000 m - and in so far you have to walk concentrated... and the more when going down when descending from the summit and you are exhausted...



... after we had crossed the snow-incline we took a longer rest. singi showed his frozen finger to jürgen and the diagnosis indeed was "begining frostbite" ... after dorje already had given up before, now even singi gave up and returned to CII. - with dorje even so it was a twilight thing... and we all had the feeling that he was quite dull of doing his job in the heights::: he had informed luis that he wanted to return because of begining frostbite in his toes... and of course luis agreed. reckoning on dorje to return to CIII to hava look at his toes there... but when I returned to CIII that evening I asked singi - with who I shared the tent that night - about dorje, where he would sleep... and singi told me that dorje had returned to the basecamp. BIG OOPS!!!! - I asked singi if luis had been informed about that... and he told me no. - I couldnt imagine that luis would have been lucky about that... as dorje´s job was to help us carrying down all the material. - okay, when he had been hurted seriously of course it had been another pair of shoes... but we got the suspicion that dorje had escaped from his work... and even singi had been so angry when he had gotten to know that, that he had thrown dorjes thermos-bottle down the slope because he hadnt any fun in carrying it down for him. - later in the basecamp jürgen looked at dorjes toes... and there was not the merest sign of any frostbite...

... after our break we proceeded our climbing towards the summit. the weather was very good now... and no clouds to see at the sky... rupert meanwhile was about one hour in front of us. he was very strong and we even saw him talking to the tow koreans in front of us... - later he told us that they had told him to have been weary of toeing the line... but at this point it was where they parted company anyway... as the koreans decided to climb up another couloir beside the right one to the summit whereas rupert took the right and direct way. we saw him going up same as we had seen the japanese climber before too. we followed them crossing the slope under the couloir and finally still had to climb the couloir. but standing at its foot it seemed quite steep to climb... and I estimated we would need another hour before making it to the summit. - we could climb the couloir in good snow conditions and we had a good and not too deep snow-layer to climb it... but depending on conditions you can have blue ice in the couloir... and then its of course quite dangerous to climb it as it surely has 45 - 50 degrees and you are not going in a rope...

... so finally we reached the end of the couloir ... and you come out stepping onto the summit rock-plateau. - maybe 100m lefthand you come to the very top of Dhaulagiri - a rock-formation. and so

on 18. may at about 4:15 p.m. I reached the top of Dhaulagiri I - together with Alli & Luis, Helga & Jürgen, Alex and Rupert - WOW!!!!!!!



... what a moment again in my modest life...

we stayed at the summit for about an hour... taking photos and enjoying our success... the weather had been perfectly all day long since sunrise... but now it was already changing. - clouds were coming and when some snowflakes were falling on the summit it was time to cut and run from there...

a very distinctive and eye-catching warning of how fragile a human being is in this gigantic, powerful and extreme piece of nature... is a dead climber who is lying on the rocks - just right hand to the place, where you leave the couloir onto the summit-rock-plateau...





Descent from the summit to CIII

... so we left the summit quite fast by rappeling down the couloir ... the weather was cloudy now and the sun had disappeared. Im always very aware that most accidents happen while descending... because climbers are exhausted and even their enthusiasm has faded away after summiting... and the concentration is worse than during the ascent. - and so I always try to stay very attentive and concentrated. and even try not to go to my very limits during the ascent but always try to keep some reserves for any cases of emergency ... and even for descending safe and sound. - when I reached the incline-passage, dusk already was announcing the coming night... and as I knew about the danger of this passage I walked very concentrated and proper, because now going down of course one hand you could go faster - but there even was a certain risk of coming to fall in the soft high snow in the deep traces from our ascent in the morning... - it was a quite exhausting thing... and basically I didnt felt too good. maybe now I had to bear the consequences and had to pay for my missing relaxations during all the nights before. I felt quite tired and even my cold was quite nerving with the coughing... and beyond that even my old injuries of my calf and even the hollow of my knee were hurting again at each step now... especially when I came into an overstretching position of my leg in the soft snow and deep traces. because of my injuries I had some serious problems to walk properly on crampons over the snowy stones in the rocks above the begin of the section with the fixropes...

rappeling down the fixropes now was easier... we only had to wait as we could use them just one by one... and as normally... I liked to be at the end of the group and had let the others pass by after the incline... - then for bad luck I lost my headlamp on the slope directly above CIII. it slipped off from my head as I had worn it over the hood of my down jacket from where it slipped away - which was quite annoying... because next day I missed it when going down to the BC in the darkness. - however - so finally I was back at CIII at 10 p.m. - where singi was already waiting for me in our tent. gerhard had left to CI and so singi could overtake his place. the night before he had stayed with alex and rupert which of course was quite uncomfortable to stay with 3 persons in a two-persons tent. - singi already was melting snow... and we exchanged our experiences of that day, before we went to sleep. - Nevertheless of the great height of CIII I had a very good night - when even a bit short, because the sun woke me up quite early in the morning by heating up our tent...

Descent from CIII to the basecamp

 ... our wakeup call was at 7:00... and we had to remove our CIII and even CII bringing down all the material at least to CI - or better to the BC directly. - I felt quite low that day... and had a lot of problems when rappeling down. my leg was hurting and I even felt low because of my cold... going along of course even with a basical exhaustion because of the straining of the days before with so less sleep and even very less eating because of missing appetite... and of course now our rucksacks were very heavy too... I was not able to put mine on my back while standing, but had to sit down to heave it on my shoulders - however... I took my time to go down... and was always a lot behind the group. - actually I had reckoned on that we would stay for another night at CI... but when the camp came in sight I was surprised that only three - instead of the before four - tents were still standing there... and when I asked luis if the new tent-team-composition already would have been made, he told me that we would still go down to the BC that day. - but the good thing was, that we could let some of the material at CI now... and as for me... with this heavyload rucksack... I hadnt could go further down - feeling so low and with my leg aching so badly... and so it was a relief to let some things back at CI. - Luis meant we all would have to go up at least one more time to bring down the rest of the material... and that was a good thing as I found. - Because going up again after a rest in the BC... and to go up with an empty rucksack that time... to bring down the material ... was not "such a thing" in my sight...

 well, and so we proceeded with going down to the BC... meanwhile the dusk fell down and before the Eiger passage we had to turn our headlamps on. it was no fun now to descent without my headlamp... which I had to - because I had lost mine the other day - but jürgen helped me and stayed with me illuminating dangerous passages for me like crevasses which we had to overstep... and I was very thankful to him doing that for me. - so we finally reached the foot of Eiger where Khiru and the kitchenboy welcomed us with orange juice and cookies again. Very nice of them to take the effort to welcome us - as they had to walk over the glacier thru the darkness to do that for us... - now we still had to cross the glacier to reach our BC... and when we finally arrived in the BC, I was very glad that the straining finally ceased. - we were welcomed by our team... and then had dinner with even a beer which Khiru had brought up for us from the italian basecamp... - Dill congratulated us with a cake and Khiru gave us a bottle of brandy, which we didnt drank that evening, but next day had a "chinck  cups" with the hole team. - Before I went to sleep I still arranged some things in my tent... even unpacking some things of my rucksack too... as for instance the mats. and then finally ended up in my sleepingbag... still enjoying some music... feeling good and happy now to have made it to the summit, although some things hadnt worked out so good for me during this expedition and especially even during the days of our ascent to the summit - not to speak of today with my negative impacts during our descent...

the last days in the basecamp

 ... the next days we enjoyed relaxing in the basecamp... our porters were already ordered - and should come on saturday... and luis and rupert still planned a second ascent to the summit with skiing down from the top of Dhaulagiri to the basecamp... but the weather turned to bad now... we had a lot of snow during the next days... and even charly gabl couldnt bring us good news. two days later our climbing sherpas went up again to CI bringing down a lot of material... and finally luis and rupert gave it a try to climb up in spite of the bad weather  - but it wasnt possible to go higher than CI - and so they returned to the BC the same day, bringing down the rest of our stuff  - so you can say, we had finished at Dhaulagiri and were ready for leaving... only waiting for the porters now. their arrival had moved to monday inbetween... because of the bad weather and the snow...

escaping from the basecamp

well, finally it became more and more clear, that the porters wouldnt come in time because of the bad weather... and so we decided to leave the basecamp without them... which meant we had to let back most of our personal things... and could take with us only our bare necessities. - we had to leave the BC over the French Col... then making over to the Dhampus pass... from there going down to Marpha. Normally you do that within 3 days... but we wanted to do it faster of course. and were discussing if we should do it within only one day... or if we should spend one more night in tents, making a break. well, our rucksacks already were heavy enough and to stay for a night in the tents had meant to carry additional things to name the tents, stoves, gaz and even food. - we even asked our locals who knew the way, what they would think about the duration and straining of that trip... and they meant we would maybe need 10 or 12 hours... considered even of the snow. - well, and so we added some more hours as a reserve ... and thought, even when we would need 15 or 17 hours we could have made it...

... so tuesday morning we got up early and put all our personal luggage into the team-tent. dill and pasang, our kitchenboy, stayed in the BC to watch over it... - so we left the BC at about 6:00 in the morning... hoping for good weather now.... because in case of bad weather that could have meant - and we even reckoned on that case - to be forced go back to the BC. - so first we had to climb french col. it was not a fun to do that with a heavy rucksack... and the less at the end of the expedition, where you actually only want to leave the BC... and to come back to the civilisation asap. - well, but for the moment we had the luck to have good weather conditions... better ones than we had expected before. - at least it was cloudy - but the sun was dominating... and we hadnt seen the sun during the last 5 days before. so we were in a good mood and looking forward to reach marpha in the evening of that day. - meanwhile my leg had gotten better because of the rest in the BC - but I expected another problem coming::: sooner or later I could reckon on to get a carpal tunnel syndrome at my left inner knee-sinew. in reasons of the heavy-weighing thermoboots which we had to wear... and my damaged left knee on the other hand... and the fact, that we had to go thru deep snow which meant to step into deep traces and to be forced to bend your knee quite strong to get your feet out of the deep trace and to put it into the next trace-hole - which is very painstaking. well, and still before reaching the top of french col I felt the shit starting by a - still light - pain in my knee...

 so we went down french col in direction of dhampus pass. - we had to cross a big flat terrain where a very strong wind was blowing. and then we reached the dhampus pass which was less high and straining to overcome than french col before. - well, and when we reached the peak of dhampus pass, we knew that we still only had to go down from there - down - down - down... and when I asked Khiru about the remaining time to reach marpha, he estimated about 6 more hours... - ooops!!! I cant say that i was very enthusiast when hearing that... the more when I thought of the increasing pain in my knee... but on the other hand we could reckon on reaching marpha around 11 p.m. ... and then could spend the night in a warm and comfortable bed... yeah! - if, yes, if we hadnt come into...

... bad weather forced us to a terrible bivouac night

 ... we came into bad weather after descending since about already an hour from dhampus pass. - and bad weather now didnt only meant clouds... but it meant a strong thunderstorm with storm and snowfall in the height of about 5.000 m - and that was indeed not very amusing. - the worst thing was, that we lost the way. our locals who actually knew the way had lost their orientation in the whiteout... and in front of our group luis and rupert gave their best to find the way. - once we had found it again... but only short time later had lost it again... we went a lot up and down whenever we realized that we were on the wrong way... but finally all that counted for nothing... and we went down a snow gully to give it a try to come down somewhere and to find a way to marpha hopefully. - so we came down til beneath the snow-limit and then had to go thru permanent rain... and the ground even had some green already again. - but all our searching was in vain ... no way to find any trail in the rainy darkness... and so finally we had no other choice than to stay and spend the night outdoors making a bivouac...

we climbed back up again to find some rocks where we could find some shelter from the rain or snow and even the wind. - the terrain was quite trappy to go up... because the wet stones were very slippy... and meanwhile we were very exhausted too, because it had been a straining day... and inbetween most of us even were wet to our skins... nevertheless of the gore-clothing which we wore. as for me, my gore-pants were completely wet and even my body was wet under the gore jacket... be it because of the mix of the rain and sweating... however wet is wet, isnt it? - and the bad thing was, we were not prepared for making a bivouac on such a hiking-trip. at least we had talked about bivouac before - but had found it enough to take one bivouac sack with us for cases of emergency. nobody had reckoned on such a situation...

well, that night was another very matchless night in my life... and for all the others too. - nobody had spent such a poor bivouac night hitherto - even not luis or rupert who are very experienced climbers even in respects of bivouacing. - as for me I had a place next to a bigger rock-plate. I had found three slabs of slate which enabled me to build a small protection for my head by lying them on the rock plate one side and on the slope on the other... and then I put my rucksack on the ground... lying with my upper body on the rucksack... so that my face was under the slate-slabs now... with a distance of maybe 5 cm - not enough space that I had could wear my headlamp - and I put my compressed sleepingbag under my butt... and draw up my knees to bring them under the small umbrella which I had with me for good luck - and which now was of good help to keep the snow away  - even was at least a certain protection against the wind... wheneven only a very little protection... but I was very thankful for it in this situation. - as my gloves were completely wet too I crossed my arms over my breast and put my hands under my arm-pits to keep them warm. - I had absolutely no place to move... and only could lie on my back... my left arm touching a wet rock... and my right one touching the wet rockplate on the other side (big compliment to arcteryx - their gore-jacket did a very good job that night and I only can recommand it). - in the begining my feet still were warm in the thermoboots... but I knew in advance that this of course would change after a while without moving and lying there in the wet clothing in the humid coldness... - at first it was still snowing and even lightnings were still coming down... and later the sky cleared up. - the temperatures fell under the frost limit. - I got very cold and couldnt avoid my teeth chattering... - I only hoped for the morning to come and still more I hoped for good weather. - thinking about our situation I became aware that it was a dangerous one... because we were very exhausted... hadnt anything to eat nor to drink anymore... and as far as I could see ... our only chance was to climb back up to the height - to look for the right way. - but this was only possible in good sight conditions. and beyond that it was obvious, that we wouldnt be able to climb up more times than still once... because we were basically exhausted and all our power and energy had left our bodies. - so the situation was critically anyway...

well, the worst night ends sometime... and we had good luck that the weather was good and clear in the morning... when even the sun was not shining on our slope but the opposite one... but at least now we could hope to get out of this situation. - we all were freezing and now discussing the situation. - we came to the conclusion that we only would have a chance when climbing up again. we couldnt take the risk to go further down... and to fail in finding a way in the end... for then maybe to go up again - we wouldnt have been strong enough for that... - well, and then Khiru came up from his bivouac-place and joined us. and he told us that they had found yak-trails further down... and he proposed, better to descent and to use these yak-trails then to climb up again to find the original right way. - now we were hesitating... because we had lost our trust in Khiru to a certain degree  as for guiding us now - because of our yesterday experience and the fact that he even was not familiar with this terrain ... and we knew that we wouldnt be strong enough to go down now... and in case of err to climb up maybe more than 1.000m of height in the steep terrain to find the right way in the heights. not to speak of that nobody could say how long the weather would still stay good...

back to marpha

... but finally we agreed to go down instead of up... Khiru had meant: yaks never come down from the heights, but come up from the valley - and so these yak trails must lead us back to the civilisation... sooner or later... and in Khirus estimation we should reach marpha within 3,5 hours... - now we were full of confidence... and when going down, only after a short while we met a yak shepherd who stayed in a small hut... wow!!! what a relief finally... and he offered us tea which was very high appreciated now by us and was taken and drunken with pleasure... - at this place I even could change my boots to the lighter normal trekking boots... which was very helpful for my irritated aching knee-senew... and now of course we knew we would come to marpha sooner or later. well, when I had thought "sooner", I got some doubts when we were walking and walking still on the same level of height... and even climbing up in some passages... and quite soon I got some serious doubts that we would reach marpha so soon... - well, in a nutshell: I reached marpha at about 3:30 p.m. - inclusive a break of an hour which we had taken before finally going down - and I had to go quite slowly because of the problems with my sinew. I didnt want to take any risk that the sinew maybe could tear now on the last passage which we had to walk at the end of the expedition...



back in marpha I walked down the road to the center of the village... and a group of old men told me the direction where to find our group... when I already saw dieter who was waiting for me. together we went into a lodge where we had a break... eating and drinking something. - later we continued our trip by jeep to the thasang village comfort lodge. a last little straining was to climb up to the lodge for half an hour... and then the work was done. - the lodge was really a first class one... and it was a very good compensation to stay there after these two straining days. especially taking a hot shower was a very good feeling... and to sleep in a bed...  - I slept like a baby that night...



back to kathmandu

... next morning we left the lodge by jeep and bus to tatopani, where we stayed one more night... we visited the famous hot springs and rupert and luis enjoyed to take a relaxation in the hot water (drinking a beer -hahaha)... - the next steps of our trip back to kathmandu was pokhara... where we returned to the fishtail lodge and even got back our things which we had stored there in a depot... - it was a good feeling to wear my jeans after such a long time... and next morning we took the aeroplane back to kathmandu... where we spent two more nights. luis had to go to the ministery for our debriefing... and he even talked to Ms. Hawley... while we were going for shopping in thamel...



singi invited us for sunday to his home where his wife cooked a very tasty meal for us... for bad luck we were short in time... because we had our farewell dinner with our local team that evening too... for this dinner intrek ordered a poster for us ... congratulating us for our success at dhaulagiri - a very nice guesture which was high appreciated by our team. - our luggage still stayed at the BC or maybe italian BC... and now it was fact that it wouldnt reach us before our departure... - this was a bit sad in respects that I still had some things which I originally wanted to give to our local team... and which was not possible now anymore...

returning back home

...the next day - the 01. june - was the day of our departure... and it was a day with a general strike in kathmandu. no cars were driving... and the shops were closed too... - when we were taken to the airport, a police-officer was accompanying us in our van... and the van was marked by a poster outside, saying: "for tourist purposes only" - so that we were allowed to drive to the airport. - a last goodbye to our nepali friends... and we returned back home to munich with a stopover again at abu dhabi...

on tuesday at 3 p.m. I was back home...



résumé
well, dhaulagiri now was already my third 8.000er expedition... and again it was a very outstanding experience... dhaulagiri was the expected vehement challenge... and for me it was the more outstanding to have summited it, as for me this expedition was going along with some strings attached... and in comparison to some other expeditions before it was not really "my expedition". - when you can say, that for cho oyu the very high located basecamp and the very cold temperatures were most characteristic for us - and for gasherbrum II the icefall between BC and CI and the summit-ridge which - depending on conditions of snow can be very difficult to overcome... and also the much warmer temperatures at gasherbrum in comparison to cho oyu... then in case of dhaulagiri it was especially the weather which is most characteristic. dangerous is the mountain too because of the many crevasses especially in the section between Eiger and CI... and the blue-ice which you - depending on the snow-conditions can find at the steep northeast-ridge and also in the summit couloir. - even the great distances of height between the highcamps are a challenge - especially when you are not yet acclimatized or have to go in hot sun... or snow and storm... - so even you can´t count on a period of good weather for summiting the mountain... thats indeed a great difference to cho oyu and GII too... insofar at dhaulagiri we even had to work a lot more than at cho oyu and GII...

the good thing is indeed that we hadnt to experience any accidents or serious diseases with our team this time... and even I had good luck myself to come back safe and sound... without any negative impacts AFTER the climbing... as very serious diarrheas... or serious colds... or ...eeeehm... crashes into holes when peeing ;-))) - therefore I had a certain "weird" feeling in my fingers and toes afterwards which likely is caused by the coldness... and fade away after a while at home... - and of course I had lost some weight again too... and once again had an incredible craving for food... the famous jojo-effect... - oh! not to forget to mention the humps on my finger- and toe-nails which became visible again too after a while at home giving evidence of the long time of hardship and straining in these extreme heights and conditions...

...so now you got to know my experiences about our dhaulagiri expedition... anymore questions??? - and please be soft on me because of my poor english... the english edition is dedicated to my american friend Kim... who hopefully will proofread it some day -hahaha... (come on, Kim... go, go, goooooh!!!!!!)



... and this is THE END

but no end without a PS

PS
I was asked: whats coming next now???

well, of course it would be a challenge to go for another 8.000er in the future... maybe not next year... but in the following year. of course Im aware that I come closer to my limits in different respects. one hand I must be able to keep my fitness and healthyness -thats most important of all... because I dont want to lose my life in the mountains... and dont want to give only a single of my limbs as a compensation for summiting another 8.000er or any other mountain at all. - well, on the other hand I would have to get the permission of my boss and our company - backing me again. - of course its very outstanding to get the permission for such a long absence. and it depends on the situation of our business projects of course too. - and in case that it would be possible to go for another 8.000er I would have to consider of my own facilities too. but another challenge of the category of dhaulagiri could be manaslu maybe.  - but even shishapangma or broad peak would be in my range and focus. - so there are still challenges waiting... but it depends on circumstances, what might be possible or not... so lets see... - just to mention::: wheneven and whenever possible I would prefer to go with luis as the head of the expedition... and of course with my friend alli before all...

if you like - more photos of the expedition: Dhaulagiri Expedition 2009