Although Colin Haley abandoned the K6 expedition last week, his partners Jeff and Priti Wright have continued up the peak’s West Face. The couple had hoped to reach the 7,282m summit today, but because of deep snow, they only reached 6,800m. They plan to knock off the remaining 500m tomorrow, following the Graham Zimmerman and Bennett descent line on the West Face.
In Nepal, the Bahraini team trekked to Manaslu Base Camp earlier today. Meanwhile, a strong Sherpa team finished fixing rope up to Camp 4 at 7,400m yesterday.
One of the advantages of being the only expedition in Nepal — apart from Lakpa Nuru and Dawa Steven’s all-Nepali Baruntse team —ย is that you can have the very best working with you. Chhang Dawa Sherpa, the youngest person to summit all 14 8,000’ers, leads the fixing team, along with fellow 14×8,000m climber Mingma Sherpa and 24-time Everest summiter Kami Rita Sherpa.
Although the route is nearly fixed the entire way to the summit and the weather is good, the Bahrainis will further acclimatize by venturing partway up the mountain before their final summit push on October 17 to 19, according to the Himalayan Times.
Meanwhile, little news has come from the Baruntse climbers since Dawa Steven’s post weeks ago from Khumjung, stating that the climb would take place sometime in October. We also haven’t heard whether they first climbed Mera Peak for acclimatization, as they had intended.