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11 May, 2011
Hi, this is Max Kausch writing a dispatch for the Cho Oyu Spring 2011
Expedition. After 2 full rest days at ABC we are heading to C1 today and C2
tomorrow to finalize our acclimatization process. Everyone is healthy and had
their batteries fully recharged during the past 2 days. We hope we'll be ready
for the summit push in about 5 days from today. The weather forecast looks
promising for the next few days. The winds look fairly weak so we hope this
will allow us to reach C2 tomorrow with no problems. ABC is almost empty now.
There are only 3 expeditions left here. We will call voice dispatches from
high camps during the next 2 days.
Max Kausch
10 May, 2011
Hi, this is Grace from the SummitClimb Cho Oyu Spring 2011 Expedition.
Yesterday and today have been top notch rest days following our
acclimatization sleep at Camp 1 and a short hike up and then back down to ABC.
For the most part we all enjoyed a really nice night of sleep at ABC and woke
up to warm sunshine. But rest is hard to come by when your dining tent floor
resembles a swimming pool, so Max took charge and booted us all from the tent
and installed a lovely stone floor - OK, it needs some work but it was a nice
treat to be able to hop from stone to stone. I'm sure Zoltan appreciated the
new floor when his chair broke later that night. Rocks hurt but a wet bum
before bed is a terrible thing. In other news, there's a Bulgarian guy here
who had an interesting plan to take a bike up to the summit and ride it for a
meter or so - strange but true. Unfortunately we learned that his bike took
flight at Camp 1 in the high winds the other night (I'm sure that must be some
kind of record for highest flying bike in the world but that's of little
comfort to him). Max was on call as the camp doctor again last night. I'm not
kidding - there are camp wide referrals to our dining tent for a visit with
Dr. Max (although he lacks any formal medical credentials and always makes it
clear that he is not a doctor, he's the closest we got here on Cho Oyu and
we're glad he's our guide!). We met Alex from the Ukraine about a week ago and
marveled at the state of his throat. After a quick consult last night it was
clear that Alex would be heading back down tomorrow. The mountain is actually
emptying out pretty quickly but we're still in good company with a group from
Poland, another group from Holland and a group of French Canadians. Aside from
a few sore throats and coughs, the group is doing well. We had a nice long
sleep again last night and are enjoying our final rest day. After breakfast we
took our official team photo. Today we learned how to light the propane heater
in the dining tent ourselves. We feel very empowered - like cavemen
discovering fire. Hopefully we can harness that feeling of empowerment and
propel ourselves up to Camp 2 over the next few days. All the best to all our
friends and families and thanks for following the expedition.
5 May, 2011
Hi, this is Max Kausch writing a dispatch for the Cho Oyu Spring 2011
Expedition. We were very lucky today to have a clear and warm day. The whole
team trekked to Camp 1 at 6400m to acclimatize and our sherpas set a few tents
up there. The trek is not very easy. One has to basically trek for about 5km
over ice, snow and moraines to get to a place called scree slope at 6050m.
From there the "fun" starts. One has to gain 400m in only 2km of trekking. The
scree slope is fairly steep and it took the team about 2 hours to overcome
this obstacle plus 3 hours to get there. It was an interesting day. We had
amazing views on the way up to all the neighboring 7000m peaks and astonishing
glaciers. We are all back to ABC and will have a day of rest tomorrow before
heading back to C1 to sleep there.
Max Kausch
3 May, 2011
Hi, this is Max Kausch writing a dispatch for the Cho Oyu Spring 2011
Expedition. The weather was pretty miserable yesterday and today so we had to
postpone our glacier training and puja (Buddhist ceremony) until tomorrow. We
all look forward to having at least one sunny day at ABC so we can dry out our
stuff. Today another team arrived in ABC making a total of 7 teams here. We
are getting along very well with them and helping each other. All the team
members are adapting very well to the altitude. Half of our members took their
first shower after 1 week without one. Our staff set up a nice shower tent
with a mat to make it comfortable. It is quite amazing to see the amount of
commodities we can have up here at 5700 metres. We'll write again tomorrow
with photos of the puja and glacier training.
1 May, 2011
This is Max Kausch writing a dispatch for the Cho Oyu Spring 2011 Expedition.
We made it to ABC!!! From now on, this will be our lowest altitude for the
next 3.5 weeks. The approach was very snowy and setting up tents wasn't easy.
Now it's about 10pm and everyone is sleeping in their tents. Here at ABC,
every member will have their own tents. It took us about 6 hours to get here.
Everyone arrived pretty tired but after drinking a few cups of tea and having
dinner, we all felt good and I guess we'll all have a good night. From here we
can see several mountains and Cho Oyu itself. We can see pretty much the whole
route to the summit. It seems a very snowy spring, different than the last one
when everything was extremely dry. I hope we can use this to our benefit so
the members can have a faster and safer progress on the slopes above Camp 1.
There are 5 or 6 other teams over here. We heard that other people already
reached Camp 1 and fixed some rope on the way to the ice cliff at 6700m. We
will write you with more news tomorrow. Thanks very much for following the
news at SummitClimb.com
Max
30 April, 2011
Hi this is Grace McDonald from the Summit Climb Spring Cho Oyu Expedition
2011. We all staggered through the hot sun yesterday from Chinese Base Camp at
4900m to Interim Base Camp at 5300m. Me and Violetta kept hoping the camp
would be around the next corner but were continuously disappointed. We kept
crossing paths with Jurg and Irish Bob and then Enrico, our resident Italian
who continually entertains us with his authentic Italian hand gestures. Jurg
and Irish Bob are equally entertaining with their Odd Couple esque sparring.
Me and Violetta are just happy to laugh at the non stop entertainment offered
by this group. The rest of our group are 4 garlic loving Hungarians Zsombor,
Joszef, Istvan and Zoltan. They brought up the rear, but we're sure they were
just trying to give us a false sense of confidence. One of them proved his
intellectual superiority when a truck went by with all our bags and supplies
and Sherpas on it and he hurled his day pack on top. At this altitude there's
no way my brain could have come up with that idea on the spot. We all
eventually made it into camp and were happy to see our wonderful staff had set
up our tents. We all managed to stay warm last night. Today is Violetta's
birthday. We all sang her the Happy Birthday song over breakfast in the
dining tent. The fun isn't stopping there, we have a secret birthday cake
coming her way tonight and perhaps a few gifts and obviously another rendition
of Happy Birthday. I just want to add Happy Birthday wishes to my husband
Ilkim - you share the same b-day as the lovely Violetta, I guess it's no
wonder I get on with her so well. Thanks for following the news at
SummitClimb.com
Grace McDonald
28 April, 2011
This is Max Kausch writing a dispatch for the Cho Oyu Spring 2011 Expedition
Today we finally met Enrico Cambini, who came all the way from Lhasa and
enjoyed some site seeing on the way. Enrico is teaching us a lot of Italian
words so by the end of the expedition we'll probably speak some Italian or at
least speak with our hands like Italians do. Now our team is complete and we
can start moving up the mountain. Everyone did some light walks in the area to
improve their acclimatization. The team is very disciplined with the
acclimatization and I'm very proud of them! No one had any altitude problems
so far.
At lunch time today we had an interesting challenge: one of our kitchen boys
cut his finger with a kitchen knife and I had to sew it up with 6 stitches.
Sonam is fine now and very thankful for not having to go all the way to Nyalam
to get his finger fixed. We also helped a member from another expedition who
didn't acclimatize properly and had serious problems. He is OK now. Tomorrow
morning we'll trek about 8km to interim camp which is only 300m higher than
here. We'll also spend 2 nights there.
Regards from Tibet,
Max Kausch
Earlier:
27 April, 2011
Hi, this is Max Kausch writing a dispatch for the Cho Oyu Spring
Expedition 2011. Today we finally saw Cho Oyu for the first time.
Everyone woke up feeling well and said goodbye to the North Col and
Everest BC teams. They are heading now to Everest and will be there for
another 12 days. We all made good friends and will miss them a lot! Good
luck guys! Here at Chinese Basecamp it's about -5C and it's snowing
right now. We just had a delicious meal made by Dorje and the kitchen
boys. They made us pizza! Everyone loved it. So far all our members are
adapting very well with the altitude. The cooks are constantly filling
the thermos bottles with hot water and this is keeping everyone super
hydrated. Up here at 4900m, this is extremely important because of the
acclimatization. We all look forward to meeting Enrico Cambini, our last
member who has been traveling through Tibet and will join us tomorrow
morning. Regards from Tibet, Max Kausch
26 April, 2011
Hi, this is Max Kausch writing a dispatch for the Cho Oyu, North Col and
Everest Base Camp Expeditions Spring 2011. We left Nyalam yesterday
morning and drove for about 4 hours to Tingri. We stopped several times
on the way to observe the beautiful landscape and mountains of the
Tibetan plateau. As soon as we arrived to Tingri, the CTMA showed us the
new hotel they built here. It is quite amazing to be at 4400m and sleep
in a comfortable room with large beds and huge windows. The Chinese have
invested a lot of money in this place so the climbers and trekkers can
be comfortable while acclimatizing. We had Chinese food for lunch and
walked around town for a while. Everyone is getting along here. We are
17 people, from 3 different expeditions.Yesterday we figured that
between all 17, we can communicate in more than 25 languages!! Our EBC
member, Mr Shivesh Ram, speaks Mandarin and often helps us at
restaurants so we can get what we want. Our North Col member, Mr. Thomas
Sefranek, is a dentist and treated a tooth filling on Mr Jurg Merz, our
Cho Oyu member. Like I said, everyone is getting along very well. The
EBC and North Col teams will say goodbye to our Cho Oyu team tomorrow as
the Cho Oyu expedition is heading to BC. The sherpas already went to Cho
Oyu BC to set tents and find a good spot for us. Our amazing Cho Oyu
staff are:
* Lakpa Tendu Sherpa (climbing sherpa)
* Dawa Jangbu Sherpa (climbing sherpa)
* Phai Lama Tamang (climbing sherpa)
* Nima Dorje Lama (cook)
* Chimmi (kitchen assistant)
* Sonam (kitchen assistant)
Today we had a sunny morning here in Tingri. After breakfast everyone
will trek to a 5000m peak nearby. This will really help on the
acclimatization as we'll sleep at 5000m tomorrow. All the members from
the 3 teams haven't had altitude problems so this means our
acclimatization plan has worked very well. Thank you all for following
the news at SummitClimb Regards from Tibet,
Max Kausch
April 24:
Hi! This is Max writing a dispatch for the
Cho Oyu Spring 2011 expedition. We made it safely to China! The whole team
is healthy and acclimatising well at Nyalam, the second Tibetan city on
our trip. We left Kathmandu at 4am this morning and traveled for about 4
hours to the Chinese border. The trip went very well and we had no
landslides, protests or earthquakes on the way! At about 11am we crossed
the border and got stuck at the traffic in Zhangmu. All the vehicles
coming from Tibet kept coming without stopping and part of our team had to
wait for over 3 hours. One truck lost its brakes and bumped into one of
our cars. The accident caused an even bigger traffic jam, but Jurg and
other members lifted and moved the truck out of the way. Thanks to them,
the team will sleep in Nyalam today! Thank you guys! We'll spend another
night here, then move to Tingri, where we'll have another 2 nights before
heading to Cho Oyu. Our acclimatisation process will be very slow so
everyone has a chance at getting used to the altitude. Thank you very much
for following the news.
Max Kausch
Earlier: |
Hi, this is Max Kausch writing the first dispatch for the
SummitClimb Cho Oyu Spring 2011 Expedition. Every single member made it
safely and is healthy in Kathmandu working on their last minute preparations
before starting the expedition to the sixth highest mountain in the world!
Kathmandu has been partially cloudy for the last few days and we have had a
few thunder storms. Every one looks forward to the expedition ahead.
Yesterday we met Ms Elizabeth Hawley, to review our plans for the upcoming
expedition. She told us about other teams and wished us good luck! Today we
had our briefing so all the members could get to know the details about the
expedition, itinerary and other members. Everyone had purchased most of the
equipment they need and are now packing up their duffles bags so we can try
to cross the Chinese border tomorrow. Below is the team rooster:
* Mr. Maximo Kausch - UK
* Mr. Jurg Merz - Switzerland
* Mr. Robert Mooney - Ireland
* Ms. Violetta Pöntinen - Poland
* Ms. Grace McDonald - Canada
* Mr. Zsombor Tulit - Romania
* Mr. Jozsef Sukos - Romania
* Mr. Istvan Toaso - Romania
* Mr. Zoltan Szabo - Romania
* Mr. Enrico Cambini - Italy
Best regards from Kathmandu,
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