원정 개요

Report from Davd Watson:

BC 21/10 4530m
C1 25/10 5800m
C2 26/10 5950m
Smt 26/10 by Emma Griffiths and Nima Tashi at 9 am
Smt 27/10 by Watson, Parkinson, Fry, Mertin, Samuel Hitzinger, Hauser, Guerra,
Mingma Dorje, Da Rinji, Phurni, Dawa Jangbu, Tashi, Tenji around 9 am.

Summit on 26/10:

Griffith and Nima Tashi had climbed Cho Oyu a few weeks earlier and as Griffith is very strong, she asked whether she could try to climb Ama Dablam in one day from BC. The pair left BC at 9 pm and summited at 9am. They were both acclimatised due to their Cho Oyu climb. On the way down, they descended to C2 to have a break and then descended all the way to BC.

Summit on 27/10:

Samuel Hitzinger, Hauser, Fry and Guerra left from C1 at 9 pm; Watson, Parkinson and Mertin left from C2 at 11:30 pm. They team more or less climbed together as their paths merged. All in all, straightforward climb, however, according to Watson, the rope-fixing was very poor. Anchors were failing. Snow pickets were bent and not safe. The rope was often just clipped through the carabiners and not tied off. Poorly fixed also on the Yellow Tower. Too much old rope from previous years. “It looked like a Kathmandu electricity pole with all the cables.”

Parkinson, Watson, Guerra, Alexander and Samuel Hitzinger descended to C1 where they arrived at 7:30 pm. Everyone else descended to BC.

Oxygen:
Fom C2 to top to C1 by Parkinson, Mertin.
From above C3 to C2 on the descent Hauser due to his incident.

Hauser was hit by a piece of ice at the back of his head just above C3. His helmet was shattered. He took oxygen from that point as he was feeling dizzy.

Members who did not summit:

Stahl reached C1 but he felt that his heart rate was too fast and abandoned.

Cox reached C2, spent the night and when he woke up the next morning, he decided that it was not for him and went down.

Brunt reached C1, but developed HACE. He spent one night there and was put on oxygen the next day and descended.

Price reached C1 and decided that he did not feel good.

Hitzinger reached 6600m and when his son Samuel came down from the summit, he turned around to descend with him.

Sauer did not quite reach C1, but decided that this mountain was not for him.

Left BC: some by heli on 27/10; some walked to Shyangboche on 28/10.

Watson’s observations about Ama Dablam:

“Camp 2 is a complete mess, worse than the South Col. It is like a garbage dump. There was so much snow on the route that C2 had snow mushrooms which had clean snow to drink. Every day people were being rescued from C3. On 27/10, a woman was pulled off C2 who did not want to walk down. Lots of face rescues"