원정 개요

Email from Tom McMillans about Kazufumi Watanabe - 14 Jan 2009

Some information of his climb I don't have an exact record of what day Kaz first reached C1, but above is a reasonable estimate. Also, I am not sure if perhaps he did climb above C2, but I don't think so since he was feeling pretty bad at C2. Lost his tent under deep snow at C1. On Sept 27 he arrived at C1 to find he had lost his tent. He dug several hours until about dark he came up to our C1 at 5770m and we invited him to sleep in our tent and shared our food with him. We made arrangements for Ang Dawa to bring up some extra equipment for him on Sept 28 so he could continue his climb. That morning, instead of going to C2 we stayed at C1 and helped him dig for his tent. We gave up at 9 am, but he kept digging until he found his tent and equipment about 11 am. This entire time he drank no water and so we think this experience weakened him and he caught a cold or flu. On Sept 30 he reached C2 at 6770m (the day after us) and placed his tent beside our tent. During the night we could hear him coughing and so Pete went out in the storm and checked his pulse and oxygen saturation, which measurement indicated that he was having a hard time with the altitude. And so Oct 2 when we left to climb to C3 Kaz stayed at C2. We are not sure what day he descended, but I promise that was on Oct 3 most likely.