The expedition is now over and we're all down and back in kathmandu. I'll write up a full trip report soon but suffice to say that we almost made the summit – however deep loose snow conditions made for very slow climbing with exceedingly poor anchors. We made a 4 day push to get everything we needed to camp1 early on in the piece and then had one rest day before heading back up to the col for a summit push. Camp 1 was situated at 5640m and we bivvied at 6100m – the next morning above the bivvy the snow [/caption] got worse and the climbing slightly more tenuous over some narrow knifeblade ridge lines – and of course with faceted powder snow. The bivvy was a chopped out ledge at the last place we got to before it became too dark and whilst we were pretty late the evening was quite comfortable with plenty of water and no wind. Winter wasa bit cold and he'd managed to puncture his thermarest – but we were able to share some gear around to stay warm on the snow. [caption id="attachment_49" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Climbing solo through some rotten rock on the Eastern side of the ridge"] The upper headwall at the low peak had about knee deep snow with 1500m fall lines and no pro. After much agonising we deceided to turn back – continuing would have meant a forced second bivvy with little food but with plenty of water .. However the main factor was the snow conditions. The descent took us 8 hours with most of time spent trying to find acnhors. Downlimbing what we4 had soloed seemed stupid and scary as the steps we collapsing under our feet most of the time. We were able to find good ice after digging for 2-3 feet at each anchor point though. Back at camp 1 we all felt pretty drained and exhausted [/caption] – the descent back down the headwall and onto the glacier was punctuated with a massive slope settlement and the obligatory run under the ice cliffs – though the "bowling alley" as we came to affectionately call it. The glacier itself was moderatley chopped up with some decent bridges that allowed us access – in the future it may simply be a stuggle to reach the headwall .. Matt went back over the Cho La whilst Winter and I went down to Phortse and met him in Tengboche the day later. So now 4 dayslater we are back in Kathmandu – skinnier and very very tired. Enjoy the images – I'll have more up soon and bit more info on the trip. CIAO Mal [caption id="attachment_51" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The bivvy ledge at 6100m - -12 degree's or so."] [/caption]
Report from Mal who walked half way to Phortse to call and I missed
the call by a second! Grrr. Woke up this morning to 6 text messages
with the update.
They’ve been on the hill for a few days and now back down for a rest
before a summit push. They have already climbed to 5850 (summit is at
6440) and set up Camp 1 at 5650. Their plan is to head back up to
Camp 1 tomorrow and then push for summit 2 or 3 days after that
depending on whether they need to bivy high on the ridge.
Fingers crossed for a successful summit and a safe trip back down to base camp.
Friday 9th October: The team have arrived at Gokyo after 7 days of
bad weather – rain, wind and and snow above 4000 metres most days.
Today the boys climbed up to made it up to Gokyo Ri (5,356m) and Mal
flew his speed wing back down making a somewhat unplanned landing in
Gokyo lake!
They have now headed off for 4 days of acclimatisation climbing a few
smaller peaks in the area before heading to Cholatse base camp. All
are fit and acclimatising well but hoping for a change in the weather.
Will get a further update on Tuesday via the satellite phone on Gokyo village
–
Sophie Ward
3 Juno Place
Wanaka
H 443 2810
W 443 8606 (Tuesday – Friday AM)
M 021 0239 5498
Hi all – here is the first update from the new sytem. We can now update the expedition blog using text messaging service to wordpress – great! A hell of a lot cheaper than using a SAT phone and with mobile coverage in the Khumbu is now moderately cheap to do.
So it’s currently raining and we’re spending an acclimation day in Namche. It’s also Market day which means a bit more extra color to Namche Bazzar. Being here in the Post-Monsoon is quite different than the pre-monsoon. For starters it’s quite warm and very very geen an d lush!
Matt and Winter have been enjoying looking around at all the sites but we’re all pretty keen to get higher up. Over the next few days we’ll be heading to Mong La, Doley, Macherma (rest day there) before arriving at Gokyo. The rain has been falling as snow from about 4800m so we expect that there should be a fresh banket around Gokyo lakes.
We’v got about 400kg of food / gear / tents etc to cart around with us and we’re busy sorting out Yaks and getting a few last minute (un) essential items whilst we’re still in Namche.
