May 6 2017 – Altitude: 2000 meters

It’s another beautiful day but cold.

We are totally geared up, harnesses with ascenders, 3 locking and 9 non-locking carabiners on the harness loops, all for a purpose, cordelettes for building crevasse rescue anchors, various pieces of webbing for chest harness and for securing the sled to the backpack, prussic knot for belaying rope teammates in and out of dangerous areas.

Snowshoes, ski poles, ice axe, a final check from our lead guide Kai Girard that all our gear is properly secured, a few last guidelines from Lexie, our assistant guide, on what to do if one of us falls into a crevasse. It is 10am and we are off.

We are all roped in. Kai in the lead, then Patrick, me and Xavier closing the rope. Our rope team spreads over a distance of 40 meters, enough to be able to arrest as fall. 20kg backpack and 30kg sleds and we start our slow & laborious walk on the glacier. We complete 5 hours of intense walking in deep snow and finally arrive at camp 2 mid-afternoon.