Pythom dispatches: Quick roundup – updated
High winds are punishing the upper altitudes in Nepal. Most teams are currently shooting for a forecasted May 20 break in weather. Here a quick roundup from Himalaya collected from latest posts in Pythom dispatch section:
Dhaulagiri
Carlos Soria and his partner Luis Miguel Lopez Soriano have returned to Spain from Dhaulagiri. “The conditions are quite complicated on Dhaulagiri” said an update by Spanish Desnivel.
Recent Annapurna summiteer Matthew Du Puy (US) reported from Dhaulagiri yesterday:
“Of the 21 people that made a summit push on the 15th, yesterday, all turned back. Lakpa had the same respiratory problems I had after getting sick at high altitude. The Spanish team, our friends, are now less than half their size after Annapurna took its toll and the remaining are burnt out after 75+ days of expedition so they aren’t even going above base camp before flying out. Still Chris and Lakpa go up! I’ll monitor the radios and forecasts from here and report their status on my sat beacon site.”
Update: Chris Jensen-Burke updated late May 17 that winds are higher than predicted, pinning climbers in C3. Her own expedition is over.
Makalu
Leka Mohan updated to Newsdesk that Indian mountaineer Arjun Vajpai is expected to make a Makalu summit push on May 20. “The weather is not very good as of now with strong winds causing some problems,” says the 22-year old Noida based mountaineer. If he summits, he would be the youngest mountaineer to have climbed four 8000 mt peaks says the press release.
An update yesterday to Newsdesk by Ferran Latorre’s media stated the climber will push for summit taking advantage of a weather window predicted for later this week. If all goes well, Makalu will be the 12th eight thousand conquered without artificial oxygen by Ferran Latorre.
Manaslu
Larisa told Newsdesk Horia and Hamor moved to the North side for the new route on Manaslu.
Everest South Side
On Everest south side, teams are spread over the mountain in various stages of summit push. Anthea at Base Camp for the AC team reported latest, “the team battled strong winds today on their way from Camp 2 to Camp 3. The winds were much stronger than forecast are proved to be quite the unplesant suprise for all.
Mike reported winds gusting up to 60knots, that even had Danny struggling to stay upright. Colin had hoped to move from Camp 2 to Camp 4 to be in a position for a summit bid tomorrow. The strong winds forced him to bunker down at Camp 3 instead.
Everyone is currently hunkered down in Camp 3, and hoping for a clearance in the morning to move to Camp 4.
Today yet again proved there are no easy days on this mountain, and the summit will require tenacity, determination and perseverance in sometimes unexpected, and unpleasant conditions.
Fingers crossed for a kinder day tomorrow.”
Everest North Side and Cho Oyu
5 days ago SummitClimb reported the ropes above 8300 m/29,000 ft had not yet been fixed. “We are waiting on confirmation of the date that this will happen, which is weather dependent.”
Following rest lower down May 15 the team was headed back up to ABC to wait for the final summit push.
On Cho Oyu, a first wave of SummitClimb’s members summited earlier in the week.
