Fredrik Ericsson rapport #4

Fredrik lägger sina första skidspår på Shisha Pangma från Camp 1.

17/09/04 – Skiing

I´m getting used to life here in ABC. We are having breakfast a bit after sunrise, lunch at noon and dinner at sunset. In between there is a lot of relaxing, reading books, walking around camp talking to the other climbers. There is a lot of different nationalities here. Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Check, Canadian, Nepalese and Tibetanian climbers. I am the only Scandinavian around.

This Tuesday we performed Puja. Puja is a Buddhistic ceremony where you make offerings and pray to the gods to be nice to you and give support while you climb the mountain. After Puja you are allowed on the mountain. Wednesday I took my first steps on Shisha Pangma.

I went up to Camp 1 (6300 m) and spent the night there. First there is a three hour walk from ABC along the moraine to what is called the deposit camp. In deposit camp you can leave some gear, so you don’t have to carry it back and forth to ABC all the time. From there you cross a glacier, with big serac formations to force through. After these formations there is a gentle snow slope up to the plateau where camp 1 is located.

After spending the night in camp 1 I skinned up with my skis another 400 meters. From there I got nearly 1000 vertical meters of descent down to the glacier. The snow was changing from powder to spring snow. Great feeling to be skiing again! The weather is great in the region at the moment and I am looking forward to more skiing soon.

/Fredrik