Summitclimb Cho Oyu Expedition Autumn 2006: Phil is back ...

This is Phil Crampton for reporting for the SummitClimb Cho Oyu
Expedition 2006.  I apologize for not sending dispatches in the last few days, but we have all been climbing on this big mountain at 8,200 or more meters. September 18, Alain Denamiel, Philip Ling, Stephen Backshall from the BBC and myself explored the route to Camp 2 and we decided to spend the night there.  The route to Camp 2 has changed slightly from my five previous expeditions to Cho Oyu, and sits at an elevation of 7,110 meters.

We all descended to Advanced Base Camp on the 19th, and passed David Cole, Lee Farmer, Michael Hsu, Martin Holton and Tibetan Sherpa Liching who were all going to spend the night at Camp 2.  Philippe Caboche, Steven Marsh, Stephen Lawes, and Gianfranco Valente spent the night at Camp 1, and Jason Marsh explored the route to Camp 2 before all descending to Advanced Base Camp.

Tom Sexton has had a persistent cough, which has kept him sleep deprived for the last week and he has decided to descend and head back to Katmandu.  We wish him a speedy recovery, and we'll miss his Californian humor tremendously. 

Our Tibetan climbing Sherpas carried some rope and hardware to Camp 2 the other day as we are part responsible for breaking trail and fixing the ropes above Camp 2 to the summit.  Tomorrow, September 20, five Tibetan Sherpas from the Chinese Expedition will break trail and fix ropes to Camp 3 at 7,450 meters.

We are looking forward to making our first summit attempts from September 25 onwards.  The expedition members are all looking forward to a few days rest, and the weather forecast predicts light snow for the next couple of days. Steve Marsh, a British police officer who is also a qualified paramedic, has been very busy checking all the members to see how their visits to high altitude have affected them.  While Steve is on the mountain, the Chinese Expedition is also at Advanced Base Camp with their high altitude medical research team and are always willing to check the status and that's always nice for our team.  We would like to send our thoughts to our family members back home, and I'd like to thank EverestNews for their continued coverage of our SummitClimb Expeditions

Dispatch Index

Summitclimb Cho Oyu 2006 Expedition Team:

Dan Mazur. England and USA. Expedition organiser. 

Phil Crampton. England and USA. Expedition Leader.

Arnold Coster. Holland. Expedition Leader. 

Philip Ling.  Australia and St. Anton am Arlberg, Austria. Expedition leader in training.

Philippe Caboche. France.

Alain Denamiel. France.

Martin Holton. England and Belgium.

Samuli Mansikka. Finland.

Jere Pettersson. Finland.

Thomas Sexton. USA.

David Cole. Australia.

Lee Farmer. UK.

Stephen Lawes. UK.

Jason Marsh. USA.

Stephen Marsh. UK.

Stephen Backshall. UK.

Paul Burgess. Canada.

Gianfranco Valente. Italy.

Michael Hsu. USA and China.

Tibetan staff list for the current Cho Oyu expedition:

Head Climbing "Sirdar": Luda

Regular Mt. Climbing Staff: Dunba, Ping Tso, & Gesang

Personal Climbing "Sherpa": Tseren Dee'anja

Cooks: Sange

Cook helper: Chanba

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