Duncan arrives at ABC

Where has Duncan come from?

We are the only team getting bigger on the mountain

20 May - Duncan reaches ABC

Duncan, with his wife Jo, run DCXP out of Adelaide, Australia, mountain journeys around the world.

Base camp politics can be messy, if you want to get sucked in. Duncan was guiding for Russell Brice (Himalayan Experience), with a possible interest in getting more involved in that business, and suddenly found all his gear sitting outside his tent one morning, and a jeep waiting... Out!

So, as you can read on Duncan's site, he was in Kathmandu wondering if he wanted to return. Although the beaches of Thailand appeal, even the restaurants of Kathmandu, our 7ºC dining tent at ABC seemed to have more appeal?! I guess he is a climber at heart.

So Suman Pandey (General Manager of Explore Himalaya) arranged permits etc in an afternoon (!!!!) and Duncan was off to Tibet again before he could think straight.

He arrived in our ABC two nights after leaving Kathmandu!

Mac vs PC at 6400m, is Duncan looking envious?
Ours are one of the only two setups that works here; several other big name companies have lost the ability to use laptops, and therefore email.

We are expecting yet another guide soon too, more on this when it happens.

21-22 May - Sukhi

Yesterday Sukhi climbed up to 7500m in her down suit, an 8 hour test of fitness with Da'Oangchu. She was very happy with her performance. Today they are returning to ABC where we can discuss summit plans.

Summit worries

WHERE IS KARMA? Karma from Bhutan, his life fortunes seeming depending on him being the first Bhutanese to summit Everest, went for the summit yesterday. He is not a fast climber and when we heard at ABC that he was nowhere to be seen by early evening, we were distinctly worried. We knew if he didn't make it back to camp he was dead in that wind. I have to say that most of us thought he was dead, we had seen how slowly he had climbed to North Col.

Karma's situation was complicated, he had booked BC and ABC support thru Arun treks Nepal but didn't have oxygen or sherpa help, seemingly he had no money, but he did have a sat phone that could generate a little money. He realised that he needed oxygen and a sherpa and had bought/hired these. But where was Jimpa, his sherpa on summit day? It seems that Jimpa had helped fix the ropes from the third step and above; they hadn't returned from the summit together. Sherpas at ABC were very critical of this.

This morning Dawa Gelje was on the radio from first light, and the news was good, another Karma (from Kari Kobler's team) had returned from the summit with his Japanese client and the Bhutanese Karma to 8300m, they had arrived around 7pm utterly exhausted. So Karma is OK. We are extremely relieved. We look forward to hearing the story from them tonight or tomorrow.

22 May - Michael's progress

At 11am we heard that Michael, Da'Nima and Lhakpa have descended to their 7900m camp, are fueling up there and are hoping to make ABC today, tired though they are.

22 May - Our team

Paul, Moe, Duncan, Jamie and Julian are relaxing at ABC. We are hoping to clear the geeks out of the dining tent to have a thorough tidy. So I had better finish this dispatch!