Mountain blog

C2 - C3 - summit attempt - C2

Originally I (Jamie) posted this at our blog site, now it is here permanently.

Apologies, the dates don't tie up yet.

26 Sept Depot Camp

We slept at Depot Camp, Hans and myself in Mark's green tent and Walter and Clive in the cook tent. Basically Walter didn't sleep well, getting perhaps two hours sleep and also had a headache, the same as last time here so he decided to turn back. Last time at Camp 1 he had similar problems, and also couldn't eat much, so we were fairly sure that the lab rat would react the same. It was a shame as he was fast on the trail.

27 Sept Camp 1

Hans, Clive and myself headed up to Camp 1, it was a fast trip thru the penitentes with the new snow making it easier. Bob had said our tents were barely visible but with a bit of digging the Himalayan 47 (a large 4 person tent) showed no damage. The VE-25 was crushed though. It took perhaps an hours digging so that I could get in and try and rescue my big camera, which was in the far corner under the most snow. Luckily the 5D is tough and it was OK. A plastic-bodied camera would have been crushed.

A couple of poles were broken but with another hour's hard work it was useable. Dawa, Namgyal and Serke (our climbing cook) carried loads to Camp 1. So we we were six at Camp 1...

The VE-25 was crushed; my camera was between their feet.

28 Sept Camp 2 6940m established!

We climbed out of Camp 1 following a line of sherpas and other climbers. The previous day the HimEx sherpas, Phurba Tashi and team, put a good trail, and a safe route up.

It feels good to be high. Dawa and Namgyal carried the supplies for Camp 1.5/2 and Camp 3, and are staying at Camp 1 tonight.

Clive and myself reached the remains of the Slovenian camp. The tops of the tents were buried under more than a metre of snow. Luckily, very luckily, nobody was in them when an avalanche hit during the heavy snowfall. Although we could see some of the ruined tents, perhaps not all were found. Certainly they were destroyed. The Norwegian team, three climbers and three sherpas are camping there - without danger now.

We are camped around 100m away, a place I am familiar with. We had fun putting up the tent, for some reason snapping a pole but it is now temporarily fixed. Just as we were expecting Hans to arrive, Inaki beat him to it. So we are four in the tent tonight.

The view from here is glorious, we look over Peiko Tso and several other lakes and also peaks on the Nepal border.

We have not entirely fixed our plans yet, but conditions look better up here than we were lead to believe. Lets see if we have another weather forecast and tomorrow we make plans.

30 Sept waiting at Camp 2 6940m

Last night Iñaki stayed with us and set off around 1:30am. He reached around 7700m [actually around 7650m, we found later] before turning back, not liking the snow conditions. The Norwegian team have headed up to camp just below the slope leading up to Camp 3 or perhaps they might even head up to Camp 3, they were still undecided.

And this is what we are, undecided. It was windy this morning, westerlies throwing on caps over all 7000m peaks and some occasional unpleasant spider clouds over Shishapangma too.

Conditions are marginal, not quite bad enough to call off the climb, but not quite good enough to summit, and it doesn't seem like the weather is going to be able to change the snow conditions up here.

One choice is to try now and see how far we can get. Summitting is by no means assured. The other is to work together with the sherpas of the two Japanese groups and make a strong, well-supported push. This may take some time though.

We will wait a day here, sleep another night and see what tomorrow brings.

30 Sept holding at Camp 2

Clive, Hans and myself are staying the night at Camp 2, Dawa and Namgyal are at Camp 1. Iñaki has made it back to ABC.

This afternoon Clive and I trekked up to the bottom of the route up to Camp 3, ie where the Norwegians are camping (called 2.5 in other places). There have been many avalanches, probably days ago when it was snowing, and so it doesn't look too bad.

Iñaki didn't like the slopes above Camp 3 and the more I think about it, neither do I. Although the westerlies are dominant, there seems to be a moister system creeping in from the east.

We expect Walter to be in Kathmandu tomorrow.

1 Oct summit push on

After a couple of days of watching the weather and seeing how other teams are doing, it feels right for our summit push. Dawa and Namgyal are hauling loads up from Camp 1 to meet us here at Camp 2 and then likely we will climb to Camp 3 today. That means we would make our summit push on the 2nd. However as always we will watch conditions and it may be better to break trail and fix ropes on the 2nd, and actually summit on the 3rd.

We headed up to Camp 3 getting the tent set up just on darkness as the sherpas had come from Camp 1. I am not sure that 7400m can be comfortable but at least we were warm.

Clive in the last rays of the sun, Camp 3.

2 Oct back to Camp 2

Tired from yesterday we didn't start early, and it soon became obvious that there was some serious trail-breaking to do. Dawa and Namgyal paid out the first 200m of fixed rope but didn't see any of the old anchors, all were covered in snow. This was slow going and it was increasingly obvious that we going to summit today. Still, we could break trail for tomorrow, but worse was to come. Clive lead up some horrible slabby stuff with a slab layer underneath the obvious top layer. To be semi-safe he had to break thru knee-deep with each step. I took over after this, staying near the top of the ridge, but even there it didn't feel particularly secure. The next section up the center of a broad gully looked positively horrible.

Dawa drags rope to fix while Jamie breaks trail ahead; the angle of the slopes is not obvious here. Jamie is about 20 metres from our high point. Photo by Clive Jones.

The other times we have climbed Shishapangma there has been the occasional dangerous section - but not the whole route. We called it a day.