원정 개요

Report from Adrian Ballinger:

Team left C3 at 2 am. Calm in night, windy after 5 am. Cloud/whiteout after 5 am. Passed all climbers by 7900m and my two Sherpsa and I broke trail the rest of way. Fixed rope ended before top of French Couloir. We fixed 300m rope to finish couloir and the entire summit ridge to top. Conditions on summit ridge were challenging.

First team on top for season! And the I made first ski descent. Due to technical nature of summit ridge and other climbers coming up, I downclimbed from true Summit approx 15m (passing climbers coming up). Then put on my skis to descend. I took skis off one more time to make a 60m rappel on rock in the middle of French Couloir. Other than that I kept skis on for entire descent to crampon point at 5800m. I occasionally used fixed line as a hand line where route was pure ice or rock. Reached ABC at 6:30 pm. Ballinger left BC on 14/05.

Ballinger and Dorje Sonam fixed 300m to summit.
Mena and Palden Namgye fixed 1000 in French Coulior.

Oxygen used from 7500m to summit.


Report from Topo Mena:

Approach: Jeep to Num, trekked to BC.

BC 14/04 4800m
ABC 18/04 5700m
C1 21/04 6300m
C2 22/04 6600m
C3 05/05 7500m
C4 12/05 7800m
Smt 24/05 by Perez, Mena at 8:45 am without bottled oxygen

Perez and Mena left C4 at 8 pm on 23/05. They reached 7900m at around 11 pm but it was very windy. They decided to turn back due to the strong gales, but after descending for about 100m the wind abated and they continued their summit push. They had to break trail a bit, but conditions were good overall.

They spent about 20 minutes on the summit and descended to C4, where they rested for an hour and continued to C2 where they arrived at 6 pm. On 25/05 they descended to BC.

Mena had already summited on 12/05 with Alpenglow [with Christine Ochs]. On that summit push Perez reached 8250m. She got too cold and descended to ABC while the others in the Alpenglow team continued to the summit. She stayed at BC until she left for the next summit push on 22/05. Mena and Perez descended directly to C2 on 22/05 and C4 on 23/05.

After his 12/05 summit success, Mena flew to Kathmandu on 14/05 and returned to ABC to climb Makalu again with Perez and without supplemental oxygen.

Left BC on 26/05 by helicopter.

Oxygen: Not taken, not used.


Report from Karl Egloff (SVM):

BC 12/05 4800m (by helicopter)
ABC 18/04 5700m
C1 20/04 6300m
Smt 09/05 by Egloff and Miranda at 14:33.

ABC to Summit 17hr, 18min to ABC 25hr 48min round-trip, no oxigen, no Sherpas. From C3 on lots of wind, from C4 foggy, from French Coulour perfect weather. Previous summit attempt on 05/05. Left BC on 14/05.