In the midst of summiting Annapurna IV, Ben Clark is now down one teammate but up at 20,000 feet. Here's his latest dispatch:
"We arrived in camp three today at 3 p.m. We are now in the high Himalaya at
20,000 feet and as wide-eyed and ready as ever. For what? Everything a
mountain can throw at you.
We awoke at 6:30 a.m. this morning, ready to meet the daily slush of
Annapurna IV, but today was different – we no longer wanted to fight the
snow. Josh took the first three hours of moderate and steep wet
slogging up 45 to 50 degree slopes before handing me the crux. It was a
hot day again but when we arrived at the technical difficulties, both
our heads cooled down.
Step after step of knee-deep snow had Josh psyched to turn over the
lead, peering above it seemed straightforward – but no one had ever
carried skis up such terrain. I grabbed the ice scews and took some
deep breaths. I swam through deep snow and levitated across two very
steep snow bridges, or roofs over crevasses. Turning a corner, I belayed
Josh around and showed him what was next. Being a "junk" or "heady"
climber, amongst my friends I tend to get the truly committing
lines – not always the hardest.
As I set forth to surmount the steep, rotten, bulging step, an old rope – a
fixed line – tightly ran down to my left. I began swinging my ice tools
and cleaning the rotten snow away until suddenly I found myself
vertical, legs high. I stepped left, my hip chimneying rotten cold snow and
picks biting on the last bit of frozen blob before the mother of all
gifts...the top out into solid glacial ice! I burrowed my way over
breathing heavily from the 45 pounds on my back and the 19,700-foot
altitude. Slowly I walked and collected my thoughts. Then....
I whooped for joy like I was on the summit. I've never been so excited
on a mountain. Usually I just collect myself and move on but we have
reallly been working on this thing and it felt good to be through the
worst of it.
We will climb about another 1000 feet tomorrow and set up our last camp. If the slopes leading to that camp and above prove safe, we will
likely summit. We'll post some pics for you today and again tomorrow,
have a great day!"
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