Ondra’s Star
On 25th November 2024 we started our climb through the as yet unclimbed eastern face of the 7,227 meter-high Langtang Lirung which dominates the surrounding mountains. There were two of us to climb the face. The Slovak alpinist Ondra Húserka and I, Marek Holeček, so called the Fool. On the sixth day, around 11 am, we reached the top, where, according to the official records, no-one had stood for more than ten years. Frozen smiles into the camera and quickly back down. On 1st November, after the total of seven days of drudgery, difficult climbing and seven nights spent in the bivouac I came back to the empty Base Camp. I was alone. Behind me, there was a climbed mountain face which had resisted many expeditions and had been beyond human imagination. To get down, it was necessary to cross a menacing glacier, still untouched by man’s footprint. What I carried with me was the heavy pain of having lost my climbing partner…

The Beginning
There are quiet moments when the race has finished and you can crawl into a chair after enjoying the luxury of hot water, with a vision of peace and quiet. Not having to talk with anyone, feet on the table. The previous tiredness of mind and body is dissolving slowly. The painful emotions are losing their sharp edges and their tremors resemble a light wind on the lake surface. This moment has brought me the opportunity to look back at the long days of ten thousand steps. At the beauty, strain and time of friendship bound by a climbing rope among the white peaks, falling avalanches, mountain cold, thirst and passion in every thump of the heart. The dramatic events of those days are deeply etched in my memory. They belong to the most wild and the most beautiful I have ever experienced in the mountains, but also to the most painful.

Our story began when we landed on the runway in Kathmandu on 25th November, as a confirmation of our previous agreement. The goal and the object of our love of the coming days was rising from the valley in a shape a mountain with a proud name: Langtang Lirung. It is a bit funny, because the Tibetan word “lang” means “yak”, the name of the local mountain hairy cattle. “Tang” means “to follow”. The legend has it that this picturesque hidden valley was once discovered by a local lama, the spiritual teacher of Buddhism, when he was looking for a lost yak. So hooray, let’s follow the horned cow.
We spent the first couple of days hanging around in bars, because the Himalaya was just struck by strong rains and the access roads were blocked by slid mud and stones. The tenacious local people soon managed to make the roads through the little valleys and mountains passes accessible and thus freed us from having to remain stuck on the bottleneck. Otherwise, we would have had to undergo some kind of alcoholic detox. Our team consisted of 4 people. The climbers Ondra “Oh” Húserka, Ondra “Oh” Mrklovský, both of them real foul-weather friends. The latter had taken part in lots of my expeditions. Pavel “Hoďas” Hodek, a former banker, extra league whistle, trekker and an instant climber. The last member of the team was me, Mára “the Fool”. My ambition was to keep up with the young climbers and to complete the group of the two Ondras.
After “gathering moss” in the Kathmandu pubs, we went by jeep to a little village called Dhunche. From that moment on we began to undergo our acclimatization “torture”. Our journey started at the lake Gosainkunda and continued up through the valley of Langtang, along the wild river which falls down from the mountain glaciers. We managed to accomplish the acclimatization trek in two weeks, on the top of Naya Kanga, at the height of 5,800 m. A wonderful “molehill” with a view of the whole surroundings; similar ones are abundant in the whole Himalaya. So, almost three weeks after our arrival we could approach to the second step, which meant to start climbing the Langtang Lirung with a sufficient supply of red blood cells. In other words, it was the right moment to move on to the Base Camp below the magic scenery, created by the monumental wall of the eastern face of the mountain Langtang and the surrounding peaks. Here, we were at the mercy of the Almighty who was supposed to bestow upon us the gift of good weather so that we could make an attempt to climb the mountain.

Climbing Langtang Lirung
The landscape where our Base Camp was situated (at 4,500 m ASL) was very romantic. The area is formed by a spur of a moraine covered with a grassy carpet, the perfection of which is maintained by the teeth of wandering yaks. This greenery is interwoven with small waterfalls and streams like an old man’s hand with veins. One can enjoy the freshness of water by just scooping it into his palms and sipping it. But behind this lush world, as if by the wave of a magic wand, there is an inhospitable land of rock and ice. This landscape lives a life of its own – it has lots of movement accompanied by mysterious cracking of ice, rumbling of falling rock and the cannonade of avalanches, the sounds which as if they were coming from hell, where there is no space for life. All this is framed by the gigantic backdrop of the 2,700-meter-high eastern face of Langtang.
We made our first attempt to start climbing the face on 20th October. Meanwhile, Pavel Hodek was staying in the Base Camp as a “watchdog”. Everything went wrong immediately in the early hours of the morning. At daybreak, we climbed the first two hundred meters above the snow tower in a shape of a cone, which was reached by the lower edges of sliding avalanches. Along with the morning sun rays, a very warm breeze started blowing, which appeared for the first time since the beginning of the expedition. The destructive effect of the temperature change began to show immediately. As if someone had opened a huge tank above, stones and ice began to fall through the air and sounds like the growling of an angry dog ​​could be heard. Before 10 am we hid under a small rock overhang. Clouds started creeping in from the valley. Not from the sky, but from below. There was nothing we could do. It was impossible to abseil down in that storm of falling rock and ice. With the falling graupel, which was gradually brought by the cloud cover, small snow showers also began to appear. We quickly crawled into the tent and stayed inside for the next 24 hours. During the night, as if several gigantic wagons of snow flew over our heads. Each time, we were crushed by the pressure in the tent, but thanks to the rock roof overhead the thousand-ton load always flew over us like a ski jumper. It was an interesting feeling to watch the avalanche from inside. In the morning, we saw new avalanches sliding down, some of them were several meters high. All that each of us had in mind was that we had to start abseiling quickly…
This unwanted experience resulted in one member dropping out of our strike team. The younger of the Ondras approached me with the words: "Mára, I won't go for the second attempt". He said those words with complete calmness and deliberation. There was no point in persuading him. One of the two Ondras backed away, yet he rose in my eyes. At that moment, he didn't feel like trying again and he knew how to say it without unnecessary beating about the bush. I realized he was half my age. So, there is a lot of time ahead of him with the prospect of dozens of expeditions. Being able to say a clear yes or no in tense situations is always difficult, but important.
"Well, what about you Ondra"? 
"I'm going on," replied the other Ondra with a smile.

Day 1, October 25 (Advance Base Camp 4,700 m – Bivi 5,500 m)
Our next few days of waiting for a window in the weather were not that interesting. Simply, on 25^th October, we set off in the morning cold. The black darkness was disturbed only by the light of our headlamps and the scratching sound of our crampons on the hard layer of ice. The goal of the day was to climb as fast as possible through the place where we had failed in the previous attempt. What came next were two vertical thresholds where the ice was packed in a narrow corner. This entire section was like a dangerous funnel which accumulated material from the vast space above our heads. We had to quickly traverse this place to get onto a mix rock edge. We continued to the top of this edge, where we hoped to find a place for our first good bivouac. Most important was to make it before the sun rose above us. Man proposes, but God disposes.
We took the meters, knowing that a delay could be fatal for both of us. Despite all our efforts, we were held back by difficulties. The structure of air-saturated ice was like frozen foam. The surface was vertical with short overhangs that exerted a force which was pulling on our backpacks and forcing us to lean back. Despite all this, Ondra was excellent and climbed like a motor mouse. Our belaying, in case of a fall, played a rather emotionally supporting role than a real one. I was breathing heavily behind him. I was very happy that the rope was disappearing somewhere above me and made my weight a few kilograms lighter.  With such a strong force were Ondra's strong arms taking me in. It was clear why. The faster we climbed over the ice step, the faster we would move away from the couloir of horror. Suddenly something happened.
I heard Ondra shout: "Avalanche"! I immediately thought it was the end, yet my hands automatically drove the ice axe as deep as possible into ice. For an eternity it seemed that nothing was happening, but suddenly a mass of white darkness began to roll out, as if it wanted to plunge me into the depths. I couldn't breathe because the pressure was building. I felt brutal blows on my head, shoulders and hands. I realized I couldn't hold on much longer. In the next few moments, the pressure slowly eased, but I still couldn't open my mouth as I had  been holding my breath and breathing only through my nostrils for some time and now I was stiff like a cube of ice. Good, it's probably gone. In the end, we call at each other and everything seems to be fine. It passed me by and Ondra managed to hold us both on the rope. There would be no second chance. Without any hesitation, we tried to get out from here to get protected from another falling mass of snow and ice by a near overhanging rock shelter.
Without having time to secure each other, we both started climbing simultaneously on the steep ice surface out of the reach of snow avalanches. We were panting heavily as our legs and arms moved very fast like those of some cartoon heroes above an abyss. There were only a few meters left to reach the rock shelter and I could not catch my breath. In the approaching twilight I could only hear Ondra calling "Watch out!" again. A moment later, an avalanche slid down, right at my feet, on the right side of the couloir, where the path widened a bit off the main course offering space for the white mass. It was time to assess the damage. Ondra got a bump on the helmet and above his eyebrow, and I was treated to a hard Thai massage, but without coconut oil. We were both laughing while I was trying to remove the snow off the inside of my jacket. It was over and the funnel was climbed and behind us. Nothing much, but we could go on.

Day 2, October 26 (Bivi 5,500 m – Bivi 5,800 m)
Our bivouac was on the very tip of a sharp rock edge. The position of the tent could be compared to the one of a swallow's nest under a roof. The tent was set up on a small platform with one side stuck to the mountain face. The other three sides had no support, just the open air, and right behind their edges there was a deep abyss with its ending on the glacier. It was a nice and safe place, but not quite suitable for playing tag.
To get out of that spot we started climbing on an almost smooth rock. It was not so high, but it was obvious that the climbing moves would be very difficult. There was no point in passing that section by because getting onto the traverse would have required our abseiling by one length of the rope – with the same uncertain result. We solved the problem by making several difficult moves which were accompanied by our heavy gasps. When we caught the breath again, we found ourselves in a small icy couloir which connected us to another rock threshold. Although we tried to move effectively, the number of climbed meters was increasing very slowly. The mix terrain, which consisted of a chipping ice crust on the rock covered with a layer of incohesive snow, did not add to a fast progress. Around 12 am, it was clear that we could not manage to climb the “heavenly bridges” (that’s what I named the traverse) on the same day. We had to bivouac for the third time, which apparently could not be good. And so it happened.

Day 3, October 27 (Bivi 5,800 m – Bivi 6,300 m)
In my mind I wished that this would be the last difficult section. Or at least the one where the technical rock climbing would finish and where there would be only a snowy couloir leading to the summit ridge. I wished we could already apply the routine of mechanical digging through snow and driving ice axes into ice. No way! Nothing similar was supposed to happen that day. The sky bridges ended with a sheer rock. When we looked around we saw that all the possible directions showed signs of some unwanted “entertainment”. We looked at each other with an unspoken question – who would start? We drew lots and it was Ondra’s turn. I swallowed quietly with relief. After a moment I could see Ondra balancing calmly and confidently on the spikes of his crampons. He was moving higher and higher while taking small steps. After some forty minutes I heard Ondra calling: "Come on... I'm belaying." Another of the puzzles was solved. But one thing. The evening hours were approaching. Where should we spend the night on these steep slopes?
Finally, we decided to abseil down a short section and stay on a small hill between two rock gulches. Ondra was worried that we could be swept away. I answered confidently that it would be all right. My feelings were the same as his, but there was nothing better around. The decision forced by circumstances was our only chance.

Day 4, October 28 (Bivi 6,300 m – Bivi 6,800 m)
The difficulties seemed to have no end and the fatigue began to take its toll. In front of us there was a seventy-meter-high step covered with a curtain of fragile ice that did not appear to have good cohesion. One option was to go to the right and take a risk of something falling on us. The other option was to take the opposite direction, where the section of ice was steeper. It was the other option of the two bad ones that won in the end. Our ice axes got always stuck in the ice and they began to slide under pressure with a tendency to unexpectedly fall out of the frozen mass. Our feet in boots with crampons seemed to be stomping in vain when trying to catch hold of a solid surface. This fight reminded me again of the futile efforts of one cartoon hero who was trying to pack the air hard. The same thing could happen to us. But at that moment the Almighty must have allowed us to go on. The wind started to blow and the sun hid behind the mountain ridge. There was an hour and a half left until dark. Both of us were shivering with cold like Min Pins. We scanned the terrain carefully to see where we could set up another damn bivouac. All around there were only steep slopes with snow like whipped cream on the ridges, reminding me of the curls of a princess. That was a trouble. Spending the night sitting in the harness, fixed on a screw in the ice is what I call pure masochism. Every further meter cost us a lot of energy and we were slower than a snail at a walking pace. But it paid off. Behind one of the snowy curls, under the fluffy ice cream, a tiny cave opened up finally. For another half an hour we were cutting out some space the ice and finally we managed to make something of nothing. At the very least, we could sit down there and were able to stretch the legs over one another’s a little. Although one of us had his legs in the air, it was still better than having the butt flailing around.

Day 5, October 29 (Bivi 6,800 m – Bivi 7,100 m)
The last day before the summit ridge was a sheer drudgery. The summit seemed to be only a short way. But even that short section before the mountain top took us the whole day. When I made four steps forwards in the deep snow, I slid through it three steps back. I had a constant feeling as if somebody was holding my leg. Ondra was already tired out, so I took the lead and trudged through the powder snow with the endurance of a bulldozer and fought for every inch. I switched off my brain and only mechanically counted the steps, always a series of six. After that I  leaned against the slope with my helmet and breathed deeply. Then the whole round again. It was not until sunset that we pitched up the tent under the mountain top on a nice place, which was rolled flat by the wind as if it was prepared for our abode with a front garden. Below us, a blanket of inversion spread all around, in which the blood-tinged sun was setting as if taking a bath.  

 Day 6, October 30 (Bivi 7,100 m – Summit 7,227 m – Bivi 6,300 m)
This time, also Ondra slept like a baby. He told me this with a smile in the morning. I had to believe it because when I sleep I don’t know about anything. The morning rays touched our tent and immediately began to greet us warmly. Sun, you are perfect! Then it was time to start cooking and give some water to the parched and craving insides. It was a beautiful day, almost no wind. We knew that the top was a stone's throw away. We climbed out of the tent and made our way to the top, leaving our backpacks behind us on the spot. We climbed simultaneously and dragged the rope between us for sure. The summit ridge is sharp and falls down from both sides into the depth of more than two kilometers into the valley. In addition, Langtang Lirung or “the horned crow” offers a phenomenal view thanks to its dominance. Suddenly, there was nowhere further to go. After six days of climbing and hardship we were finally there. It was hard for me to hold back the tears. Maybe I'm getting sentimental with age. We hugged each other and just for fun tried who would have a stronger grip… This was accompanied by unintelligible mumbling at the neck of the other. We were moved and for a short while also happy and without worries. The white peaks were all around us, visible also in the distance where the monumental silhouettes of Mount Everest and Lhotse stand out. Anapurna was behind us plus the other giants. Far below us the river of Langtang glistened like a silver thread. Another river on the other side, I just don’t know the name of that valley which slopes down to the Tibetan Plateau. All fun comes to an end sometimes. Although we had fought for a long time to get to the top, the joy of beautiful moments was reduced to only ten minutes. It was necessary to set up all the sensors to caution and activate the body to produce the last forces in a purposeful way. We were going down, home for a beer, "what a hell" – I was really looking forward to it. We started slowly going down along the northeast ridge, which was a phenomenal experience. We ended the day somewhere at the height of approximately six thousand meters, on the upper edge of a rock cauldron, under which a wild glacier flows down to the foot of the mountain. From above, it resembled uncombed hair of a rascal.

Day 7, October 31 (Bivi 6,300 m – Bivi 5,500 m)
We both felt devastated. Fatigue and exhaustion were taking their toll. Everything we had to do felt like a slow motion movie. Be it the annoying procedure of cooking, putting on boots and all our clothes or packing a completely wet sleeping bag. Not to forget the frozen tent and finally crampons. This is what I dislike the most because the gloves must be taken off, but the fingers are frozen from the previous work. We set off. I was treading a trail in the snow down the steep slope between the seracs and approaching the horizon, beyond which the view was interrupted. As if someone had stolen a piece of the slope and continued far and deep below. Suddenly, a dark crackling sound could be heard between our steps which made my heart clench. The entire area of ​​loose snow must have settled. This warning signal passed through my entire body. But what could I do about it? With the next step I would set hundreds of tons in motion and pull Ondra down the slope with me. I felt like calling for help, but there was no one to help. At least, I was trying to redirect my steps which I was leaving behind in the deep snow. I called out to Ondra, who was about sixty meters behind me, to take care. “Tighten the rope between us!“ I call out. It wouldn’t have probably helped much, but at least it worked like a placebo which helped remove my stiffness. A good thing was that nothing more was moving. A quick descent along with an avalanche would have saved us time, but it would have been like bringing sand to a beach. When I got to the edge of a serac and looked down, I froze in horror and felt cold drops of sweat run down my back into the cleft. That was really a trouble. We had managed to zigzag between risks up to this point, but here we had to directly take the roller coaster of chance. It meant to abseil at least four times before we could reach the plateau where we could afford to say: “Okay, the roulette is over”. There was no choice. So, we just chose a strategy. "Ondra, I will make the belay points and as soon as I manage to do so, both of us will clip to it and at the same time you will pull the pair of seventy-meter-long ropes down and I will put the rope through our current belay point and pull it down to prepare the next abseil immediately. Once we have the center knot with us, each of us will hang onto a different stream end of the rope and go down... And so on until we're out of it". All clear… We had to neglect safety, we pushed for expediency and speed, otherwise something falling from above would have killed us. “By the way, when you come down, don't let go of the rope in any case, even if something hit you, otherwise we'll both go to hell.“ Anyway, we got one hit from a swarm of falling rock and pieces of ice. A roaring piece of rubble landed directly on Ondra's helmet. It made a crater in it, but didn't touch the cap underneath. Ondra bit through his lips, but losing a few drops of blood was a satisfactory result. After thirty minutes, we were standing on the plateau, where we shook a batch of beans out of our pants. We laughed and hugged each other. So yes, we got away with this.

Fall into the crevasse
The day slowly drifted towards the end, there were only last two hours of light left. We had more bypassing and leaping over crevasses ahead of us. The ice bridges between the cracks could collapse under our weight at any time. In those places where we had to stop at a major ice break-off, we had to abseil to a lower level to be able to go on. We ran into one of such places again. I drilled a tunnel hole for an Abalakov thread, through which I pulled a sling. I made a knot on it and I clipped a carabiner with the rope to it. Above the sling, I drilled our last free ten-centimeter-long screw into the ice through which I pulled another sling to double the belay. We had that screw left of the original eight ones. We had left the other screws somewhere before. There was still one screw hanging in the carabiner clipped in my harness, but this one served only for drilling holes for Abalakov threads. I sat in the abseil and then loaded it with my own weight carefully. It held well. In a moment I abseiled those several meters lower. Then I just walked on over a narrow crevasse, I stepped over it, pulling the ropes behind me and loosening them in reverse. Then I reached an edge of another snow bridge and saw that there was another 20-meter-long abseil section. Damn it, I said to myself.  I returned to the crossed crevasse and pulled out the remaining rope ends which had fallen into it. I called to Ondra that he could start abseiling. I didn't notice what Ondra was doing up there behind me. There was no reason as each of us had to do his own routine tasks. Suddenly, there was a whooping sound, a dull thump, strange rustling sounds, then another thump and silence. The mind knows well, but for a moment it does not want to accept the reality. I immediately got up, leaped over the crevasse and approached the place where the other ends of the ropes were disappearing in a narrow crack. My calls stayed unanswered for a while. Then the horror materialized. I felt goosebumps spreading on my body.

Abseiling directly into hell
“Help!“ The muffled voice was coming out from the deep icy darkness. Within a moment I drilled the last screw into ice and abseiled somewhere down following the incoming voice. “Hold on, Ondra, I am coming to you.” The growing voice kept repeating the same request. I reached the bottom of the crevasse, but this was far from the end. The ropes lead ever lower into the crevasse. I got inside and crawled on my belly diagonally down a narrow tube. The light began to fade and then all was dark. I felt Ondra's hand first. I had no idea he was wedged upside down. I couldn't figure out his position.
After a long fumbling in the darkness and a futile attempt to pull him out by the hand, I decided to take the backpack off his back. His backpack was pressed between him and the ice wall. I took out my knife and started cutting into his backpack without seeing anything. In the meantime, Ondra kept repeating that I should pull him out. I answered him that I was doing my best and I would get him out of there. At the same time I tried to distract him a little by asking: “How are you feeling, does anything hurt you? I need to know. Can you help me by moving a little bit?” As I was throwing out the insides of the backpack, a bag with something hard fell out. I touched it and in the darkness my brain identified a headlamp. I put it on and turned it on. Only then did I see the whole catastrophe that the darkness was hiding from me. I didn’t know how he fell through the first part, but he must have slid headfirst into the very interior of the crevasse, which I could finally see. I could not get to him from the front. I pulled his legs closer to me to release his pelvis from the wedging. With great effort I finally managed to free Ondra from the tight grip of ice.
The next step was to turn Ondra to such a position that he could lay with his face turned to me. With great effort we managed to do it. The entire operation from the moment I abseiled could have taken about two hours. We were both panting as if we had run a hundred meters on one breath. I had no watch, but the sun above the crevasse had already been replaced by a starry sky. It was very dark. My next effort was to get Ondra to move so we could at least climb out to the wider bottom of the crevasse. At first, I thought he was just in shock and bruised. He had no visible injuries on his body, no bleeding, except for the bruised face. No protests when I was touching and checking his arms and legs. "Ondra, does something hurt you?" Instead of answering my question, he kept repeating: "Get me out of this hole". I understood this perfectly and wished the same thing. For a moment, I was convinced that we were lucky and everything would turn out well. “So, let's start climbing, Ondra, here are your ice axes in your hands and we are going up.” But his hands looked as if they were paralyzed. I thought they were just frozen, as he hadn't had gloves on for so long. He somehow managed to grab the ice axes. One crampon was missing from his boot, swallowed by the darkness.

No, that can’t be true
"We'll do it, I'll help you... so, come on, please!" I started raising my voice to get us both to perform. After a while I was out of breath trying to push Ondra’s back through the tube. My crampons were falling out of ice while I was struggling to find the support. It was no wonder as the space around us was hard like glass. Nevertheless, I managed to move Ondra one meter higher. I tried to hold him in that position. My hands were clenched and I could feel them weakening. The main thing was not to lose the hard-won centimeters. I was taking deep breaths and gathering strength for the next move. I shouted again to encourage both of us: “Come on!“ This time we didn't move an inch. On the edge of despair, when the moment of his sliding back was inexorably approaching, I called out: “Come on, damn it, I can't get you out of here if you don’t help me.“ He could not cooperate, but I still didn’t know. I figured he was frozen and stiff from the previous two hours of icy imprisonment. So was I, after all. I was slightly below him, holding his harness with one hand and his ankle with the other. I tried to fix the spikes of his crampon into the unyielding ice, hoping he would stand up and stay in place. "Go ahead and keep that foot on the spikes." It only dawned on me at that moment.  A wave of terror swept through me. “Ondra, can you feel your legs?”
There was no answer to my question, only the same whirlwind of words repeating that I should get him out of that mess. I relaxed my completely stiff hands. Ondra slid towards me again. It was only then that I noticed his swollen upper eyelids. Oh, no..., my brain immediately recalled the images that I had seen before. Suddenly, I was sure that he must have suffered internal head injuries and there was something wrong with his spine. Oh, my God. In the heat of the fight, I didn’t see it, but suddenly the pieces of the puzzle came together. The wrong move and his half-way answers. As if a jolt of electricity shot through me. It's fucked up. The only thing I was capable of doing in that dark icy tube was pure nothing.

What next
My brain skipped the track and started combining. I had to secure Ondra somehow for the night. I shivered with exhaustion and cold bit into my body. It was no wonder. When I rappelled down, the sun was still out. I had left all my things up in my backpack. I had no solution. Okay. The next step was to get Ondra somehow in his sleeping bag and put all warm clothes from his spilled backpack on him. I covered him with the sleeping bag as much as possible. Still, I couldn't wrap him completely in it. I put his feather jacket on the upper part of his body. The jacket was turned inside out, which I hadn’t noticed before, but I let it so and zipped it up. I was so focused on the activity that I didn't realize that I couldn't hear anything except the sound of my breath in my ears. I was cutting the sleeping mat into three pieces to be able to tuck it under Ondra in the tight space. But before I could finish, Ondra started to pass away. I spoke to him, shook him a bit, but there was only silence. He calmly left to the other side without a word, in my arms and I was holding him with all my strength.

I have to get out
I could not estimate the time before the despair gave way to reconciliation. Maybe it took just a few seconds when my consciousness wandered through space and the gravity disappeared. But my mind brought me back and started working at full speed. At that moment I could not afford to grieve and drown in self-pity. “Fight and start doing something.” It was a clear command from the instinct of self-preservation. I released the lower sections of ropes that I had previously unclipped from the rappel device on Ondra's harness. I untied the knot on it, where at the end as a memento hung the sling with the carabiner which I had put into the abseil point in the Abalakov thread. “You must not give in to horror now.” I kept pushing myself loudly. “Concentrate…” I had to get out of that hell hole and that was it. The ropes stretching above my head had turned into icy cables. The water that was dripping down due to the temperature difference on the surface and in the insides of the glacier had done its job. I had no chance of getting up on the ropes. “What am I going to do, am I going to stay here too?” Ondra's headlamp blinked three times and went out. I turned it on again, but I knew that these rechargeable lights have just several decreasing cycles before they finally go out. There would not be many more. So I had to hurry because the moment of total darkness in which I would have to go on was approaching. The crevasse was narrow and the ropes were completely useless for climbing up, not to mention that I had nothing to climb up except the rappel device, but nothing to fix myself in it and the Prusik didn't hold. So I slowly climbed up using the chimney technique and in the widening mouth of the crevasse I started praying. It was hard to drive the ice axes into the old solid ice. I left behind huge craters after kicking my crampons in the ice, but sometimes both of them slid anyway. For a while I was hanging over that icy gullet just by my hands. The interesting thing was that I suddenly felt no fear and my concentration browsed into the space of various memories. I know these moments well. It's a huge fatigue. But then an internal alarm goes off. I started to shout at myself. “Focus on what you should do, you idiot, otherwise you're done...”

Finally stars above
I climbed up completely frozen to the place where I had left my backpack. I started throwing things out of it onto the surface. I took off my crampons and shivering with cold jumped into my sleeping bag with my boots on. I took them off much later. I covered myself with the tent, which was missing the poles, as they were on the bottom of the crevasse. Yes, they had fallen out from behind my T-shirt where I had tucked them when I was trying to save a few things from Ondra's cut-up backpack on the bottom of the crevasse. I had left the useless backpack with a hole big like the one in the side of Titanic to its fate in the icy throat. One of the saved things was the JetBoil, a cooking pot. I also had a gas canister and a tent with me up on the surface. In that way we had simply and fairly divided the load between us every day. So, fine, I had something to be able to melt the snow. My desire to get a sip of liquid into my body increased with this possibility. I was extremely thirsty and shaking with exhaustion. As a last thing, after a few sips of water which I boiled from the melted snow, I wrote two SMS messages, one to Klára at home and another one to Pavel Hodek in the Base Camp, about what had happened. "An accident happened, Ondra fell into a crevasse on the descent. He is dead. I couldn't help him anymore. I'm so sorry. I'll try to get down tomorrow. My battery is running low, so don't be alarmed if you don't hear from me tomorrow." 

Day 8, November 1 (Return to Kyanjin Gompa, 4,000 m)
The last clumps of snow are melting in the cooker. I am watering my entrails, which have slowly given up their fight for moisture. My cracked lips are sipping every drop with passion. I am writing a message via satellite to Ondra’s girlfriend so that she gets the information directly from me. As soon as I press the SEND button, despair seizes me. I am crying and a desperate scream comes out of my throat. I want to curse everyone in this world. After all, I haven't done anything wrong, so why on earth??? My body is tense as a string and my fists are clenched, ready to fight. But there’s nobody to fight, I am here alone, in the most deserted place in the world.
After a hysterical soul-washing, the routine began again. I had to go down as fast as possible before the glacier came to life. Moreover, there was a whole-day threat of avalanches from the adjacent face of northwestern Kimshung. Just to give you an idea, the final run to the foot of the mountain means to leap over, zigzag and rappel down a wilder and longer glacier than the one that flows down from Mont Blanc to Chamonix. I left my orange sleeping bag at the crevasse as a visible place marker. It was clear to me that if I didn't make it, I would have to sleep just in the clothes I had on. I did have a tent, but without poles. At worst, this should be enough to be able to survive the night. Also, I had no guide how to get through the labyrinth of crevasses. No human soul had been on this place before and my eyes could only see the tangle of cracks which looked like deep wrinkles on an old man’s forehead. I was filled with horror, but I had to step out and go on…

Deliverance
I was finding my way through the maze of seracs for hours. I had no choice but to abseil several times to get a few more levels lower. So I drilled the holes for Abalakov thread again, or even slid down small icy formations, around which I threw a sling cut from the ropes. The simple reason was that the slings we had originally taken with us had already run out. I just had to hope that there wouldn't be a longer abseil section. Otherwise, I would have gotten into trouble.
Meanwhile, high above the clouds, I occasionally heard the air cutting sound of a helicopter which is unusual here. Later on, a high-pitched sound of drones. It was clear to me that the guys had organized a rescue and were looking for me. After some time, the same typical rumble of propeller blades again. But the weather was not favorable, so I could not see anything and I knew that they are in the same situation. I went on, because I simply didn't want to bivouac again.
Then I climbed over the last avalanche slides and around 4 pm the terrain changed from the gray stone moraine to grassy slopes. My eyes absorbed the green color of paradise and I felt the relief in every pore of my body. At that moment, I already knew the answer that I had survived. Still, I felt as if my movements were more like those of a robot than a living being. I came to the tents in the Base Camp. No one was there. I was thirsty again and started feeling hungry. I found some beer, Coke and dried meat. I stuffed myself with a hint of madness. As soon as the seizure subsided, I started feeling the distress and need to talk to someone in order to share the horrors and pain. I don't know why, but I mindlessly took out the camera and turned on Recording.
I flipped the screen where I could see my reflection. This was a substitution of someone to talk to. I couldn't speak much as my throat had been exposed to cold for long days and it had been burned, so I just hoarsed. I desperately wanted to speak to someone. So I started, but the despair seized me. I collapsed onto my back and took a deep breath. Another round of soul cleansing which brought relief after some moments.
It was getting dark, so I closed the tent, put on sneakers and went down to meet people, into warmth and safety. I walked down along a beautiful green moraine, where a couple of yaks greeted me with their snorting. Suddenly, I felt that my steps were lighter and my soul freer. After another half an hour, Pavel Hodek’s silhouette turned up from around the corner.
We hugged each other in silence. Although people say that men can hold back tears, at that moment I allowed myself to let out a whole sea of ​​them.
End of story.

Not yet...
The development of following events did not just overtake me, but directly skipped over me. It even seemed to me that it was still one step ahead. Before I could say anything to my close people and to the outside world, a hurricane of events had broken out behind my back which I was unable to stop. The next morning, I flew by helicopter to locate the place of the accident. Then there was a stopover at the Base Camp, where I hurriedly threw my things into a transport bag. The porters would probably bring me the rest of my things later on. Then we were in the air again flying to pick up Pavel and Ondra at Kyanjin Gompa. They were already waiting at the heliport and immediately we flew over to Kathmandu with unpleasant duties and necessary official tasks awaiting. I was still completely exhausted after the previous eight days, but I was answering the phone and called to my close friends to all sides. I tried to be the first one to try to stop the accumulation of misinterpretations which immediately started to spread and generate new ones. There is absolutely no chance of winning this fight. In view of these facts, I decided to post a message on my FB on the same day, so that the source and the writer were clear, and I could always refer to that information. I finished writing the last line around eight o'clock with the hope that the situation would calm down...

The show begins
In summarizing the events of the media frenzy, I will limit myself to saying: it is a shame to waste words. The only thing that really saddened me were the expressions of hostility from those people from whom I would have expected more understanding and support, including the opportunity to mutually share the pain over the loss. I believe that time will calm this storm and sun will shine again above our heads.
Just to repeat some facts: I am the only witness to the events of that unfortunate day. Therefore, the statements can only come from my mouth and written reports. The next point is the entire chain of events that led to the subsequent raising of Ondra’s body. From the very beginning I did not recommend raising Ondra’s body because of the threat to other lives, and I still insist on this. In my opinion, the place in question belongs to the category of extremely dangerous and it is dangerous even to walk through. The risk of bad luck statistically increases with the amount of time spent in this location. Nevertheless, considering the requirements, I took all the steps that ultimately led to the raising of Ondra’s body. Let’s leave aside the fact that I had left my sleeping bag in the location and then flew over the place on the following day so that the GPS coordinate and video recording could be provided. I then got involved in many other actions that ultimately led to the raising, including sending sketched plans of the place where the rescue team should abseil, communication with the team and passing on all information.
On the first day when the rescue team was able to get down into the crevasse, they couldn't find the place with Ondra, although they were standing right at the bottom of the crevasse two meters from the right place. There was probably some doubt that his body could be in such a narrow place. It wasn't until the next day, according to the video footage which I received, that I was able to guide the rescue team into the dark crack which falls even deeper beneath the place where they had stopped upon the first attempt.
Hereby, I would like to thank the brave guys who were flying a helicopter for two days to search the place and then went down, deeper into the crevasse and who relied on my words. At the same time, I am glad that there were no other injuries and my words were confirmed. I would also like to thank my friends who, after the first satellite message, organized help to get me out of the glacier labyrinth. Their names are Pavel Hodek, Ondra Mrklovský, Nicolas Hojac, Francesco Zazzanelli, Honza Trávníček, Subin Thakuri...

Summary
Ondra and I managed to climb up over two kilometers of a difficult mountain face with a combination of variously complicated sections. We succeeded in climbing up and through places untouched by human steps before. We had to endure five rough bivouacs to be able to reach the top of an exceptional mountain on the sixth day of our ascent. We faced avalanches, falling rock and ice and other risks. Despite adversity, the journey is accomplished. Ondra and I realized our shared vision, we put all our heart and skills into that ascent. This friendship is bound by the rope and I will always keep the memories of  supporting each other on the journey. Only one small move on the descent did not work out for one of us.

Ondra was a perfect fellow, he was an optimistic, smart and brave guy, skilled climber with lots of strength and energy. He had a potential to be the leader of a generation of climbers. The Heaven decided otherwise. There's no point in asking why, as there is no answer. I feel sorry and sympathize with everyone to whom Ondra’s death caused pain. For your understanding, we only did with enthusiasm what fills us with joy, based on free choice and decision. We are aware of the potential risks. On the contrary, we know that life itself is a risk from the very start to its end. There is no point in staying in a corner filled with worries, life is worth going out and living it until the last breath…
Ondra and I did not have time to think of a name for our ascent. Unfortunately, I have to do it myself. A new route leads along the western face of the mountain and will be an eternal memory of the great guy…
“ONDROVA HVĚZDA“ - “ONDRA'S STAR”

FOTOGRAFIE