28.07.06

Greetings to everybody!

Yesterday our first group returned to base camp. For that acclimatization climb in conditions of really good weather they managed to spent the night at camp 3, and the next day on July 26 climbed up to 7800 m where left depot for setting C4.

Yesterday it was a good time in base camp - the two Italians (a married couple) at 13-30 on July 26 summited K2. This was the first ascent the mountain this year, furthermore without supplementary oxygen. The Italian expedition of four climbers arrived to base camp 4 days previously directly from Nepal where they had climbed Dhaulagiri. All the expeditions staying under K2 are faced with the new problem: the huge quantity of living stones was naked after snow and ice melting.

The terrain between 5700 - 6700 began to be extremely dangerous due to stone falls. "Old residents of the area" reckon this season is very warm and with a little snow. We will reconsider the schedule of working on the route and now wait for the weather window to make a summit push.