0600, Portaledge Camp, Torres del Paine. The weather has been quite unsettled the last few days. It has snowed, it has been bright. In the middle of that, we have worked our way up to this camp, took a day of, and finally hauled all our food, equipment and fixed lines to this little depression in the face. This is belay 13, our Portaledge Camp, and this is the moment from where on we have committed ourselves for the summit push. There is a time span of maximum 8 days in which we have to cover the remaining 23 pitches, and believe it or not, we already manage to oversleep on the very first day. A beautiful day.

0850, Portaledge camp, Torres del Paine. Lovely! After what has been straight forward A2 climbing, Ron has quickly reached belay 14. Martin starts jumarring up, and laying in our PAL´s, Gerke and I follow their movements. The warmth of the sun makes me drowsy, makes me doze off from time to time. We all seem to live in a dream state of mind. Every time I look up, Martin and Ronald have gained another pitch. Is luck getting on our side?

1310, Portaledge Camp, Torres del Paine. With the boyz already quite far up, I start collecting snow and ice from the ledge to melt for water. The four of us use about 6 litres a day, and now that our running water supplies are 500 metres down below, up here there is quite some melting to do. I have to be careful though, not to take snow were yellow and brown stains appear on the surface.. You´re never quite sure where previous climbers have had their ´latrine corner´, and if the were as disciplined as we hope to be.

1710, Portaledge Camp, Torres del Paine. Gerke hands over a brew to Martin and Ronald. They did a tremendous job today, by linking four pitches together and fixing lines to belay 17. If we continue like this, we have our summit attempt within three days! Gerke and I can´t wait for our turn tomorrow, for it has been a long day waiting today. The weather has changed again though. The sky is getting darker by the hour, and with the tower being a reference, we see clouds passing over our heads with tremendous speed. As we crawl back into our hanging shelters for dinner, we all wander what´s it going to be like tomorrow. The adventure just doesn´t stop!

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welcome to tuesday 1st of februari