Day 15, 7/19: C2 (20300 ft) - C3 (22500 ft)

Today head up to C3 (finally walking on new ground now). At 22500 ft, C3 is situated at the same altitude as Aconcagua (summit of South America’s highest peak), the highest point outside Asia. I’ve always wanted to climb Aconcagua, but now it’s like taking a shortcut.

Last night, although the headache was not as severe as it was the last time I was at C2, I still did not sleep well. The wind hit our tent flaps constantly and made some very loud noises, to the extent that out tent sounded like it was being disassembled. In addition, my feet just could not warm up, and I basically had to crunch myself into a very uncomfortable position. I needed to move as close to my hands as possible in order to absorb some of the heat from my upper body. Otherwise I would’ve gotten a frostbite after a long night of freeze.

In the morning, when we “woke up” (never really fell asleep), there were ice residues all over our sleeping bags. I had to be extra careful not to get my inner-layer clothes wet. It would be a hard time to dry them even though they’re not cotton. Stuffing a sleeping bag was also exhausting, since my stuff sack turned out to be too small for my -40 °F rated sleeping bag (it’s huge).

One good thing about the way up C3 was that we did not need to rope up. It’s actually the most straight-forward section of the entire climb — simple snowshoe walking the entire way. No rock-ice mixed sections like BC-C1 or glacial icefalls from C2-C3. There were some little crevasses, but they were mostly far away from us.

The route from C2 to C3 was a little similar to the one from BC to C1. We spend half of the time wondering about when we would be able to see the tents, and the other half on dreadfully moving toward the tents after we saw them.

This would still take 15-20 minutes to walk.

Above 20000 ft, the oxygen percentage was less than half of sea-level percentage. Therefore, walking today was even more tiring than everything we’ve done before, even though we’ve already done two acclimatization trips. People talked way less than they did before. Even when sitting down and resting, I felt myself panting harder than before.

When we got to C3, it was about 6 p.m. We actually took group photos here as a proof that we reached this altitude. You have to have physical proof to get the height or summit certificate (if you intend to proceed to higher mountains). In case some people failed to summit tomorrow, they could still say that they have reached 6900m.

But no one could see our faces...

Dinner was the same as yesterday, just some instant rice we brought from below. They’re actually really good! Mine was flavored “curry beef,” which kind of reminded me of Zareen’s (a really nice Indian restaurant in the Bay Area).

After photos, eating, and last-minute bathroom (bath “ditch”) trips, we were finally allowed to sleep early. I got into my tent at 8:30 p.m., and realized how ridiculous it was to even think about sleeping. Since it was extremely cold, and we need to get up at 12:30 a.m. to head toward the summit, we needed to wear down suits in our sleeping bags, which hindered mobility and turned the tent into an oven. The altitude was freshly high, so headaches were frequent. I just wanted the night to be over.