it’s 9am and we are packing. The usual morning routine (by now you all know it): melt snow, drink hot, eat a freeze-dried porridge or cereal of your choice, freeze your ass when you get out of the 32 degree inner sleeping back to the outside -10 degree world in your undies and t-shirt, get dressed in 15 seconds with clothes that are cardboard hard by the cold, stuff your huge sleeping bag into a mini sea to summit compression bag (it takes some skills), pack your inflatable mattress, get out of the tent, clip on your crampons with your frozen hands – by now at 6000m camp 2 you are totally out of breath – but that’s normal and you are used to it – when your overloaded backpack is packed, ice axe and poles in hand, hands covered by your -29 degree heavy duty black diamond guide gloves, you are ready to climb down for 6 hours to reach base camp. By the time this routine is done, at least 1h30 has gone by!

Yes, that’s the life of the crazy boys that choose to go on a 3 week expedition. But the scenery, the atmosphere, the friendship between all of us, the adrenaline, the glaciers around us make it totally worth our while!