Manaslu 2011 – Speedfly8000

19th October We’re on the walk out – we left SamaGoan a few days ago and are now about to head over the Lharka Lha. We should be back in Kathmandu bu the 24th or the 25th of October – maybe in time for the RWC final – go the All Blacks We’ve been joined […]

12th – 13th October. Things start to stack up. It’s amazing just how quickly things can go pear shaped. At C4 we had made a plan for Ben and Phemba to descend to C2 and Sidi Mama and I would remain at C3 where we would pack up the gear and then I’d try to […]

2 am – 12th October Ben wakes me from my hypoxic daze …. "Mal – I’ve run out of oxygen …. What do I do?" I look at him a bit confused, "You’ll just need to deal with it bro, sit up, try to relax, don’t panic. You’ll be ok. We’ll be starting to get […]

Setting up for the summit. 3 days of hard work. It had been essential that Ben and I had made the effort to reach camp 3 on our first cycle on the mountain. The first summit window had come and gone over the period 4th – 6th October and the winds on the upper mountain […]

13th October We’ll we’re all back at basecamp – we were the very last team to leave the mountain this year. Pretty exhausted so this is a very short update. Essentially I didn’t get to fly from the mountain – I tried but had issues with the wind and made a number of abortive attempts […]

12th October 2011 Today at 11:40am Mal, Ben, Siddhi Mama and Phemba Sherpa made it to the top of Mt Manaslu at 8,164 metres. It was an amazingly gorgeous sunny day but unfortunately the winds were too strong for Mal to fly from 8,000 metres, However it’s looking good for an early morning flight tomorrow […]

11th October – Manaslu Base Camp Right now Mal and Ben are slowly making their way to Camp 4 at 7,400 metres in readiness for their push to the summit tomorrow morning 12th October. The sherpas went up yesterday to pitch the tent and set up camp. The winds have died down a little but […]

8th October We’ve been resting and waiting at basecamp for the last 4 days, looking for a possible weather window to make our summit bit. It looks like it is finally arriving. Right now we’re banking on a summit attempt on the 12th of October. We’ll actually be leaving basecamp in the very early hours […]

4th October Ben and I are back down at basecamp after 6 days of hard work and effort on the lower mountain. Originally the plan was that we would only be on the mountain for 3 days, spending either 1 or 2 nights at camp 1 and climbing to touch camp 2. Instead, after reaching […]

Mal and Ben, are well and truly into their acclimatisation on the mountain. They tagged Camp 2 the day before yesterday and Mal went up again to Camp 2 yesterday to fly back down to Camp 1, just for fun. They’ll be sleeping at Camp 2 tonight and then heading back to base for a […]

28th September! – It’s Sophie’s Birthday The weather gods finally caved in – it must have been Sophie’s birthday present – we woke up this morning to SUN beaming into the front door of our tent and an amazing view of the east pinnacle of Manaslu as well as a totally clear view all the […]

Basecamp Currently we are at our base-camp at 4900mtrs organizing equipment, setting up the solar chargers and feathering the nest for what will be our home for the next month or so. Our acclimitization walk from Samagoan went very smoothly with Mal, Soph and myself slowly walking up to 4100 meters quite comfortably before returning […]

It never rains but it pours. The monsoon is still making it’s presence felt. Since we arrived at Samagoan the heavens have been open and the pani (water) has been falling. In the last 2 1/2 days there has been over 200mm of rain. There has been a steady stream of Sherpa’s coming down from […]

23rd September We’re now at the not so small village of Samagoan, which is at the base of Manaslu, one day and another 1000m from basecamp. We’ll be spending tomoro here resting and doing a small acclimatization walk before moving up onto the mountain. With any luck I’ll be able to up high enough on […]

The Monsoon certainly isn’t over! Hi guys, Ben here with my first team update, I apologize in advance to any mountain climbers reading this as I might explain the seemingly obvious for those non-mountain climbers reading. Ben and Mal taking every opportunity! The morning after our brutal, almost catastrophic, commute we hit the trail. My […]

Leaving Kathmandu -Enroute to Arughat Now that Ben and Sophie #2 have joined us we were keen to get on the road. Ben landed yesterday and, after the fastest shopping quest in the history of mountaineering, he was kitted out with millet 8000 metre boots, down suit, 2 new sleeping bags, crampons, harness, soft shell […]

The team is all here – the gear is all packed – the trucks are loaded and we're off!   the last few days have been fairly hectic and kaotic with lots of last minute shopping, getting electronic repair kits made, sorting out pelican cases – meetings with the Ministry of Tourism – avoiding street […]

Day 3 Testing and sorting gear. Before heading out for dinner last night Mal decided to test the satellite phone with the laptop to make sure everything is working properly. Good thing he did cause it did not work. The laptop was not recognising the phone and the sat phone appeared to have lost it’s […]

Well – Sophie and I are sitting in Kathmandu! Currently at the Mandap Garden restaurant enjoying a Everest beer, a Nepali green salad and BLT. Our flight from Auckland to Seoul Yesterday was … bumpy, very very bumpy. And as a PG pilot I’m totally comforable with turbulence, not. Actually I find that flying on […]

Packing ….   We're down to less than 24 hours before we leave … so that mean only one thing!  Lots of packing / weighing equipment / checking that you had just packed what you thought you had … and then checking it again!   We've got quite the weight restriction as we are with […]

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