The commercial expedition attempting 8,462m Makalu in winter has reached Camp 3. But in a sudden change of plans, they have decided to launch their summit attempt tonight rather than retreat down for a couple of days’ rest.
“It’s because of the weather conditions: the weather is not good from the day after,” Mohan Lamsal of Makalu Adventure told ExplorersWeb.
This is a multimodel forecast for the summit altitude:
Multimodel forecast for Makalu at summit altitude by Mountainforecast.com
Camp 3 is typically at Makalu La, a col at 7,400m.
The team has no fixed ropes beyond Camp 3 and has not set up a Camp 4. They have done no previous rotations on the mountain. All members are on supplementary oxygen, and they will need plenty of gas to cover the remaining 1,000 vertical meters, exposed to the wind.
The Makalu Adventure team is the only 8,000m expedition this winter.
