We pitched the tent below the face of the second of the Four Sisters, planning to start for the summit at first light. In the night, avalanches thundered off the neighbouring peak. Towards morning we woke up short of breath: half a metre of fresh snow had pressed the tent down and sealed the vents. Kirill dug us out in the dark; I needed half an hour just to breathe normally again.
At dawn we were inside a cloud. We waited. By ten the cloud sank into the valleys and the face appeared: fresh snow over ice and loose rock. We had fuel and food for one more day at most. Mountaineers say a mountain either lets you in or it doesn’t. This one didn’t.
On the way down, disappointment slowly turned into something else: a wish to come back. At the guesthouse, the owner’s daughter asked whether we had walked around the stupas on the way clockwise. We hadn’t.
Leave a Reply