The first part, right beyond our camp, was the notorious crevasse section, which didn't look or feel as dangerous as we had feared. Sure, you have to be careful and all, but the section is not that long or technically difficult - it takes about 15 minutes to get across. We did the section unroped, as our inexperience would have made it even more dangerous to do it roped.
It was the next part that was the hardest. What seemed like a fairly straightforward section turned out to be the steepest of them all. Luc was feeling as strong as ever, and he didn't seem to mind the extra effort. But I was struggling with my snowshoes, which kept on sinking in the snow, wearing me out. At one point my boots got stuck under the front opening of the snowshoes, and I fell straight on my face in the snow. Next, I started sliding down and tried in vain to stand up straight again. Luc was trying to tell me something, but I couldn't hear him. After about five minutes of very heavy struggling against my snowshoes and my own weight, I had the lucidity to turn my body around (Luc had been shouting all the time to do exactly that), which allowed me to get up and get out of this slippery melted patch of snow.
I barely made it to Camp 2, but felt really happy because I had finally found what I had been looking for all this time: the limits of my strength...
