Alpine Ascents Cho Oyu 2005: September 18- ABC

Update: September 17- ABC
    
Well the rest here at ABC has been wonderful and appreciated so far. This morning we have woken up to a beautiful sky with the mountain basking in glory. Yesterday that wasn’t the case. There was quite a bit of snow which insulated our tents against any extraneous noise and kept all of our tired bodies in the tents until late in the morning.

Our trip down from Camp II on Thursday was long but pleasant. There was quite a bit of wind during the night at CII and the fixed lines were buried all the way to the large ice step where teams coming up had released them. The night at CII was a success in that no one felt sick and rested as well as can be expected throughout the night. The team made a great showing and arrived in good time and form to CII on Wednesday. We were the only team there owing to our early schedule aside from a team of one Indian national and a Sherpa. On Thursday morning Lakpa Rita and Tshering set out to fix the upper mountain- that is fixing lines through the rockband section above CIII. It was a great effort as they were both postholing above their knees. Lakpa and Tshering did double duty as Mingma has a tooth infection and is staying in ABC trying to improve. Lakpa and Tshering did another carry to CIII yesterday morning and arrived here in ABC by 2:00 pm to join us for a late lunch.

ABC is quite crowded now with teams arriving nearly everyday over the past couple of weeks including a couple more yesterday as we rested. We’re now in a position to head for the summit starting tomorrow the 18th depending on the weather outlook. We’ll be making a decision on that this evening. Once our push starts we will be spending a night each in all 3 camps and then returning to CII after the summit.

The drying laundry which got soaked yesterday in the falling snow is already back out this morning in the bright sunlight. Mr. and Mrs. Smith kept us up last night until the ‘late’ hour of about 9 pm and I’m sure these guys already have something else lined up for tonight.

We’ll send an update this evening.

All the best, Dave

September 18- ABC: Here we are enjoying our last morning at ABC before heading up for our summit push. It’s Sunday around 10 am here in Tibet. We’ve decided to go up to Camp I after lunch today in order to start our push. Today is a bit windy and there’s a fair amount of moisture in the air. With a I, II, III, summit schedule we’re hoping for a shot on the morning of the 21st. We’re optimistic about the weather around the 20th, 21st and 22nd. Low winds and little if any precip is what we always look for up here and if things go well for us we’ll get one of those days.

Mike, Tony, Kevin and Suzanne are all feeling very well and excited about making our last trip up the dreaded scree slope to Camp I. It’s the fourth hike up to CI and no one will be missing a fifth. ABC is crowded at this point with teams squeezing out every last flat spot in the general area. Over the past two rest days here we’ve still seen teams moving in. It’s hard to know how many teams are actually here on the mountain but we did here a report from CI that there were over 80 tents as of yesterday. As far as our understanding there is one small French team that headed up to CI yesterday and will be hoping to summit on the 20th.

So this is the last cybercast from the laptop computer here at ABC but we’ll be making a serious effort to get out pictures and messages from up on the mountain. We’ll be thinking of you all back home as we head to the summit.

All our best, Dave and the team

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