Manaslu, Sunday, April 26, 2009

DIFFICULTIES AT 7,100 METERS

Carlos called at one in the afternoon, Spain time. He and Javier were a little higher than 7,100 meters, with the Italians who are around 15, and the Portuguese Joao García, so around 20 people in total. Alberto has decided to go down and he was resting in camp 2. The weather, except for a little snowfall during the ascent, has been good along the way. But when they got to the place where they are now, they found a wall of around 200 meters, with no equipment at all and very dangerous. They knew what they would find but they thought it was going to be in better conditions and with some equipment, but it wasn’t so. All the climbers agreed that on this wall, with those conditions, they have to fix rope, because of the danger and it can be done by night (it is 5 in the afternoon there now). So they will spend the night there, they installed a tent under a serac, and tomorrow they will fix the wall and they will attempt to spend the night at 7,500 meters. So, the summit day is delayed for a day, until Tuesday 28, when, if the weather is fine, they will try to crown the summit of Manaslu. We will report when we have more news.

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Manaslu, Saturday, April 25, 2009

AT CAMP 2

Today at noon, Spain time, 4 in the afternoon in Nepal, Carlos called from Camp 2. The three of them have just arrived, Javier, Alberto and him. Now they had to hydrate and eat something. He was excited, happy to tell that the day had been really good, not a cloud in the sky, the best day of the whole expedition. Although a little wind began to blow, the forecasts say it will stop on the 27, which is the day they plan to make it to the summit.

Along with our climbers, the Italians, Koreans and Portuguese Joao Garcia were at camp 2. They will all spend the night there. Carlos, Javier and Alberto plan to leave to camp 3 at 6 in the morning. They said it will be a hard day, because they have to cover 1000 meters of difference in altitude, from the 6,400 meters where they are today, up to 7,400 meters, where they want to install camp 3. They also have to climb there with all the necessary materials to install this camp, and the trail is not open.

Let’s hope that they can climb tomorrow to camp 3 and that they call us from there. If that is so, their plan is to sleep there tomorrow, and leave for the summit on the next day, on Monday, April 27. We wish them the best of lucks… We will be counting their steps!

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Manaslu, Friday, April 24, 2009

THE FANFARES OF GLORY

The tugs of war sound far away. We will start our peculiar odyssey in the high altitudes tomorrow. The forecasts promise 3 days of good weather and then it will be disastrous, so we had not many options. We have to try, we have to fight for the first time face to face with the mountain and try our luck. Tomorrow we will cover a difference of 1,600 m of altitude up to camp 2, to continue day after tomorrow carrying everything with us to install camp 3 at 7,400 m of altitude. The next day will be the definitive day, when we will face high altitude and when we will use the last drop of energy from our bodies. If everything goes well we will reach the summit in the first hours of the morning and if not, well, each one will live his particular adventure. We have a nice group of people, because the situation doesn’t offer many alternatives. The sun shines on us and it has started to blow a wind from China, a sign of good weather. We celebrated with a good codfish a la pil pil, which tasted like glory, although it has made us think of how weak our situation is and that in a few hours we will be in a different place, a much hostile one and embellished by the sounds of the summit which will occupy all our senses. There we go, with illusion, with strength, convinced and with enough energy to climb up to the 8,163 m of Manaslu. Let’s hope all the winds in Asia are favorable in this occasion.

Carlos Pauner

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Manaslu, Wednesday, April 22, 2009

SEEN AND UNSEEN

That’s how our departure to camp 2 on this mountain was, seen and unseen. We left at 6 in the morning and at 2 we were in camp 2 at 6,400 m of altitude. A lot of difference of altitude, yes, but also the satisfaction of avoiding one more day at camp 1 and this way we suffered one day less in the high altitude. Next day at 12 in the morning we were resting again at base camp. It was a quick and effective incursion. There are different styles about that. There are people who prefer to wander a lot of time in the high altitude, having their body adapt by suffering in the altitude and others like us who like to make specific incursions, very concrete, so that they stimulate the organism and after some rest and good feeding at base, such stimulus turns into acclimatization. In fact, I am happy to be a part of this system, because there has been an unexpected change in the weather and a lot of people were still around camp 1 and 2, they were surprised by the weather and they should be coming down right now with an important risk because of the large amount of snow accumulated during the night. The truth is that these mountains are dangerous and the less time you are on them, the better, because that reduces the possibilities that something would go wrong. Javier and I have made our objective of sleeping at camp 2 and we have all the materials there to install camp 3 on the next attack and even attempt the summit, depending how we are. So, now we are going to rest quietly for 4 or 5 days, letting our organism adapt to the new proposed situation and when we have favorable weather, we will go to camp 2 again, we will try to install camp 3 and we will consider the coveted summit. There is much left to do yet, but the truth is that it is all going ok so far, despite the large amount of snow that this mountain has this season. Not in vain there are a lot of people in this expedition and that forces the opening of the trail to be a constant job, because otherwise, it would have been very very hard to get to where we have been. Koreans, Italians, Andalucians, Japanese, etc. are swarming around base camp and with their daily traffic to the high altitude camps, the trail is well marked, although it is also truth that with a snowfall like the one we had last night, of almost 40 cm, everything is covered and a lot of work is spoiled. Well, that is how the mountain is. Short periods of good weather seasoned by nightly snowfalls, which are the main difficulty with which we are going to fight on this Manaslu of 2009.

For the moment, and according to the conditions, the plan is going fine so far.

Carlos Pauner

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Manaslu, Monday, April 20, 2009

CAMP 2: Today at five in the morning, Carlos, Javier and Alberto left base camp.  Alberto stayed at camp 1, and Carlos and Javier climbed to install camp 2 at 6,400 meters of altitude.  They will spend the night there and tomorrow morning they will start their descent to go back to base camp.  There was a lot of snow and they were tired, but they were fine and the weather was good.

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Manaslu, Saturday, April 18, 2009: THE SUN SHINES AGAIN  

In fact, it stopped snowing today and a shy sun has shown, which turned into a crushing sun as the day went by.  Our spirits, a little down because of the recent events, were reinforced as the sun went on shining. We suffered a little delay, when we could not keep our objective of sleeping at camp 2, but really, the decision of going down was good.  We don’t have to goof with this mountain and even less when it is loaded with snow. All day today there have been endless little avalanches on the slopes that surround our base camp, because of the heat on the layers of fresh snow.  It is not hard to see that the same thing is happening all over the mountain.  According to the forecasts, which we don’t trust much lately, there are going to be 3 more days of good weather.  We’ll see if that is true and if we can install our camp two in this period of weather bonanza.  Besides, there is not much news.  We poked our heads out from the snow and we watch the sun with happiness and hope.  We also celebrated the arrival of the doctors from Zaragoza, José Ramón Morandeira and Doctor María Antonia Nerín, good friends who are going to share our base camp with us for quite a while.  They had work on their way and now they check our health and that of the 12 members of our expedition.  They are fine, ready to go and sure that we will enjoy good moments on these snowy slopes of Manaslu.  It looks that calm is coming to an end and action comes again.  It’s good, because it is known that too much rest softens the muscles and the spirit, and that way we keep in a certain state of activity which is better for us.  Let’s hope that we reach our objectives in the next days. 

Carlos Pauner 

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Manaslu, Friday, April 10, 2009

UNDER THE WHITE RAGE OF MANASLU

The worst that I feared in these days has happened.  From the last
chants of the Puja, the snow has been our constant companion during day and night.  It has fallen hard, heavily and we could hardly get it off our tents.  As I say, this situation resulted in what could have been our end.  Yesterday at mid afternoon, without seeing anything, we felt as if a tremendous explosion of wind and snow reached us.  A great avalanche of powder snow, probably the front end of another much larger one which stopped on the way, surprised us at our base camp, involving us in 1 or 2 minutes of a hell of wind and snow.  The mess tent exploded and threw the kitchen aid flying.  We could grab the mast of the tent, holding for the tremendous impact and feeling during that eternal lapse of time how the snow went into our lungs and prevented us from breathing.  Suddenly everything ended and we could confirm that everything was swept.  We yelled to find out the luck of each one of us, but Minma specially worried me, because I couldn’t see or hear him.  In the beginning I thought that he was buried after flying and I began to dig in the snow like crazy.  Finally I could hear his voice, far, coming to us from the place where he was thrown. What a tremendous happiness to see him and finally know that everybody without exception had survived such a wild hit.  The view of the place was daunting.  Several ripped tents, everything covered by snow, even tent masts broken in pieces.  But that didn’t matter now.  We had to do something, because it was still snowing and we feared another deadly avalanche.  I didn’t think it twice.  I called Mario, my Italian friend who is camping nearby in a zone that was not affected by this avalanche and I told him what had happened.  He didn’t hesitate and he took us all for this sad night.  We could not stay in the same place waiting for another hit.  It was a tense night, listening for the rumor of other avalanches, thinking about the luck we have of being still alive on this mean mountain.

At sunrise, it stopped snowing.  We went down to our camp and during a few hours we dug everything out.  In the end, the balance is not as bad as we expected and we could recover almost all the important things.  Some tents will not work anymore and we have some damaged equipment, but this morning, under the sun, we could be happy again. We are going to rest calmly, without giving up to Manaslu, conscious that the situation has turned very dangerous and that we have to take a lot of precautions.  Manaslu has showed us its strength, its rage and we can only be happy of having survived again in a situation which was not only unexpected but dangerous.  The scare will fade out, beautiful climbing days will come I hope and from here my gratitude and the gratitude of my people to the Italians, directed by Mario Merelli, for his hospitality and friendship.  Grazie mille.

Carlos Pauner

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Manaslu, Thursday, April 9, 2009

AVALANCHE AT BASE CAMP IN MANASLU

This afternoon at three thirty (Spain time) Carlos called from his
satellite phone.  His first words were: be calm, the three of us are
OK, in perfect shape, there has been an avalanche at base camp.
Carlos, Pérez and Alberto were in the tent where they have the
computers, trying to send a piece of video to Aragón Televisión, when they were surprised by the avalanche.  They were really scared, because it all happens in a second, and then chaos comes.  The first thing to do was to see that they were all ok, the three of them, the two French, the cook and the porters...  They were all ok.  Running, with fear of a second avalanche they climbed to the zone where the Italians are located, which was not affected.  The leader of this Italian expedition is Mario Merelli, friend of Carlos’ and a teammate in previous expeditions, among them Kanchenjunga.  He received everybody, and they will spend the night anyway they can.  Tomorrow they will go to their camp and see what they can recover, because everything was covered by the avalanche and they think that part of their materials and things have been damaged.

Carlos called today, around noon here, and he told me of his worries,
because since they arrived to base camp last Sunday, it hadn’t stopped snowing heavily.  They had to shovel snow around their tents for several nights, because if they didn’t, they would be totally covered. Manaslu is a very dangerous mountain when it snows a lot, and that is what is happening now.  That’s why they are unhappy and now with a big scare.  Let’s hope that the weather conditions of the next few hours
are more favorable.

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Manaslu, Wednesday, April 15, 2009

SNOWING IN CAMP 1

Carlos, Javier and Alberto are in Camp 1. They climbed with the idea of sleeping there and climb tomorrow morning up to camp 2, mount it, and depending on the weather, spend the night for another notch on their acclimatization. But against what the forecasts said, it started to snow a lot this afternoon. Depending on the weather, they will decide if they climb tomorrow to camp 2, or if they go down to the safety of base camp. Let’s hope it stops snowing so that they can continue.

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Manaslu, Tuesday, April 7, 2009

PUJA, SNOW AND MORE SNOW

I wake up lazily inside my sleeping bag. It takes a little time to see where I am. Let’s see, oh, ok, it is true, I am at base camp in Manaslu. Once this spiritual thing is surpassed, another doubt comes to me. Why is there no light, now that the day has arrived? Oh, that’s what I was afraid of, we are covered by a nice layer of fresh snow. I shake the tent and a dim morning light appears. I exit little by little and I dedicate my first efforts to dig our tent out from the snow that fell during the night. There is more than a meter and a half and it looks like the day is going to continue like this.

When we arrived to base camp, a couple of days ago, the weather was splendid and we could see the whole figure of Manaslu. From Sama, we climbed the 1,400 m of altitude difference that separated us from this place which is located at 4,900 m of altitude, in a little more than 4 hours. We installed everything provisionally and we decided to spend that first night in the high altitude. Yesterday, a proper day according to the lamas of the Samagon monastery, we had the Puja ceremony. It all went normally. A lama and his assistant came up from the monastery at daybreak, with all the paraphernalia that is needed for the ceremony, mantras, dishes, recipients, incense and tsampa. On our part, we had already built an altar of stones decorated with prayer flags and we had prepared the offering of food and drinks. Sitting in front of the altar and after the figures that are made with tsampa and butter are placed there, and the offering, the ritual chants started and then the deaf sounds of the prayers. They pray for protection on the mountain, so that there are no accidents, and for the gods that live in these high places so that they are benevolent and let us reach the summit and come back safe from up there. The different phases of the ceremony went by and at the end, all standing up, we threw rice and flour to the air as an offering. Then the meal of the good food concluded this ceremony which was one of the longest I have ever seen in my life. Almost four hours. However, it looks like the correlation between duration and effectiveness, for the moment and with reserves, is not totally lineal. With the last compasses of the Puja, it started to snow, at first it was imperceptible, but then it was heavy and hard. So we had our first hours at base camp this way. We have accumulated a lot of snow and we suppose it will be the same up there. So for now, tranquility. It has to stop snowing and then all that amount of snow has to be purged little by little. Manaslu is a very dangerous mountain with snow, so we have to watch this closely. We will use this medicine which is so much used in these places and which we sadly know too well, patience.

Carlos Pauner

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera