July 1, 2010

 Even though Alexey and I knew that the weather was going to be bad, our goal was to try to push as high as we could toward Camp 2 on GI. Our first push got us to Camp 1 at 5926m. We spent a day acclimatizing there which means we spent 2 nights. We got up yesterday morning after the second night here and even though visibility was extremely poor, winds were high, and it was snowing, we made our way up along the glacier and up the ice fall towards Camp 2. We understand that Camp 2 is about 6500 m, but we haven’t made it there yet. Last night we camped just below Camp 2 about 6400m. Even though the weather is really bad with blowing snow and high winds, we don’t mind very much because we are dressed warm in our mountain gear and can get warm in the tent

 There is a ton of snow up here and it has filled in the crevasses. We’ve hit a few small ones, but nothing very big. Today we went up another 100m and think we found the way up into the pass.

 We feel satisfied that we have reached this high on GI and spent a good amount of time acclimatizing on the mountain. Tomorrow morning we will pack up, leave a stash of gear here, and head back down to Camp 2 and then to Base Camp where we plan to rest for a few days.