THE SIEGE

How many times we read in mountain books this magnificent word: "The siege". The climbers sieged the mountain for few days... The siege lasted few weeks, etc... Well, we can say that we are now in a fierce siege to our Dhaulagiri. We have climbed part of its slopes and we are now waiting for the final attempt. If we really think about it, Dhaula is not the besieged one, but ourselves. The mountain besieges us, throws strong winds towards us, freezes us with its snow, keeps us in the base camp. The mountain tests us to see how much we can bear. It drives us crazy, with some good days for climbing, making us doubt about our weather forecasts... Time passes and we do not find the right good weather. Dhaula laughs, shows himself ironic. This rough and unpleasant mountain will test our spirit, our psychology, our experience. Each day we spend down here is one more test. We start getting nervous, we talk, have meetings, argue about the forecasts... I take this chance to thank all those who give us the weather forecast information. To get these forecast facilitates to make our decisions, to be more sure about our raids to the mountain. More or less, all our weather forecasts fit in. There is a very strong wind now, and in altitude he is the owner, the boss, God Eolo. It seems that from 1st to 3rd of May the wind will decrease and we could have our chance. Nevertheless, ironic Dhaula, it seems it will snow at the same time. Difficult task: to find a room in between the hurricane and the weather change. We really do not know what to do. We do not know when we should go up, but in the next hours we will have to make a decision, to bet for one date. Right now the mountain has not got much snow, we have to take advantage of it. It will not stay like this for the rest of the reason. We will think about it, we will argue, and for sure in the next coming days a decision will be made. Our leeway is not very big. We keep being in our siege, or rather in the Dhaula's one.
Carlos Pauner