May 14

Weather: phenomenal ‘bluebird’
Altitude: 4300 (stationary at Camp 3, Basin camp)

The day starts on a roll. Its 1 am, I wake up to the wind blowing the tent around. I immediately wake up Xavier the ask him if he and Pat tied their backpacks down in the snow. There is not enough space in the tent so the bags always sleep outside. ‘No’ he replies and decides to get out in -20 and blowing winds to tie them down. When Xav enters the tent Pat and I sing him happy birthday.

(From left to right: Daniel, Patch, Patrick, Lexie, Kai, Xavier, Abdul, Benjamin)

Back in the tent, I am sleepless for the next 2 hours until at 4am our tent is rocked by a brief earthquake along with the sound of a giant explosion and rock fall   I freak out thinking this might be the start of something bigger. I wake up Xavier and Pat, Xav felt it, Pat was deep asleep and did not hear it. Things settle until morning. Breakfast of amazing pancakes and maple sirop. Then off to the ‘End of the World’ a 20 Minutes walk to a giant cliff with breathtaking views of the Alaskan range. All the way below we see camp 2 where we camped almost 10 days ago. Its a 2000 meters drop a few steps in front of us.

After coming back we practice fixed ropes techniques and running belays for about an few hours. Tomorrow is a very big day again as we are going up a long 45-55 degree slope to reach the upper mountain and do our final cache at 16,200 feet (approx. 5000 meters).

Tonight for dinner surprise meal for Xavier’s birthday: Cake, whisky brought from Anchorage and liquor chocolates.

Xavier desperately tries to blow the ‘candles’ that are actually windproof matches, not easy. A birthday in the mountains, that’s something special, it reminds me my birthday at base camp of Himlung Himal in Nov 2015. To this day, this is probably the most special birthday of my life.

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