A very quick update.
The winds blowing off the surrounding summits yesterday afternoon plus an updated wind forecast from the Kathmandu Airport (wind speeds reported by mountain flights) has ment that the lead Sherpa from Himalayan Ascents (Lhakpa Sherpa) made the decision to not start a fixing push today. This is despite reports from camp 1 of lite winds to an altitude of about 6100m.
From BC we could see winds blowing off the mushroom ridge and higher on the mountain. This may have been a function of lite dry snow being blown about but regardless it looked fairly strong and the the Sherpa team is not happy to go up when there is the chance of wind and cold temps
Wind has an effect called wind chill – for every 1km of wind below a certain temp it is like having 1 degree less. So at 6500m with an air temp of -11 and a wind speed 50km it is like being in -25 degrees. Not a pleasant experience.
Right now in basecamp it is just past 6 am, the temp is -8 and the sun isn’t due over the ridge until about 7:30 – the mountains around me look simply amazing but there are some clouds racing by overhead and further to the SW the mountains are already developing a steady plume of snow from what looks to be a fairly stiff westerly breeze above 6500m.
till later – Mal.