“There were only rope shreds left of what was once my established route,” Jost Kobusch wrote earlier today, back in Everest Base Camp. Restless after days waiting out the weather, yesterday he struck off in the darkness, despite high winds.
Ice particles swirled in the air. Conditions were so bad that he was glad that the storm had destroyed his route-fixing and that he had to descend again. “Yesterday morning,” he revealed, “I woke up with pain in my left foot. All the adrenaline must have covered the pain. However, if I had climbed to Camp 1, I might not have been able to descend again.”
For the last day and a half, he has accepted forced idleness, tending to his foot by immobilizing it and bathing it in warm water.
“I already have a solution to the collapsed route, and when my foot has recovered, I’ll try to push again to 7000m,” he insists.
