Days 1 to 4: After a flight from Los Angeles to Beijing I meet Sepp there, who came from Europe. We continue together with flights to Urumuqi and Kashgar. After a night in Kashgar we continue with a road trip along the Karakoram Highway for another 200km and across 7 police checkpoints. When we leave the highway at 11,800ft, our gear is transferred onto 4WD trucks and we continue to our basecamp at 14,370ft. When we arrive at basecamp, nothing is prepared, no food available. We set up our tent and try to recover and acclimate to the sudden elevation change from sea level as good as we can with naps and short hikes. We struggle with the altitude and in addition we get heavy snow accumulation in camp. We are sustaining ourselves with Sepp’s stash of raisins and nuts and some minimum supplies the Nepali camp set-up crew can mooch of other teams. We are wet and cold but finally our acclimation is getting better.