원정 개요

Climbed as teams of 3 each - other 3 headed for C3 on 8th May but whiteout sent down to C2 same day and 9th to ABC. On 9th decided to go up and clean C2 with climb finished.

Cho Oyu news from Liane Owens:

Ok, to get on with the latest... right this minute, Georgie, Supy and Kathryn are going out of sight over the horizon of the summit! It is 10:40 [China time?] and they will probably will summit in an hour. The weather is great for it - calm and clear. This morning was so cold though that two of them thought of turning aroung at 2 or 3 in the morning. It takes about 12 hours to summit from C3 and get down to C2 if all goes well and smooth. They are moving very slowly, up through an upper snowfield and rockbands, as one must to conserve energy at that great altitude.

Let's see, to let you know how things are here. Well as you can imagine, many things revolve around the weather. It was very stable and predictable for at least a week, before the full moon. Then a few says ago it began to get less stable. We have even had two lightning and thunder storms, one when Georgie, Supy and Kathryn were at C1, which is on a fairly exposed ridge. They spent over an hour crouched in the position of safety and their hair and the radio were buzzing. Down here it was spectacular, with no pause between the lightning and thunder at the height of it. Cara was very scared, as she got struck by lightning this summer and was paralyzed on the right side of her body for some days. I'm glad it wasn't her up there this time.

So the mornings have been generally clear, but not always calm, and wind is one of the things we are most wary of. One can look up at the ridges and peak of Cho Oyu and see if snow is blowing about up there. The worst is a lenticular (lens-shaped) cloud sitting like a cap on the peak, but luckily we not seen many of those. In the afternoons, there is a lot of moisture buildup and the valleys sometimes fill with clouds. On occasion these lead to afternoon snowshowers, such as the day that Caroline, Cara and I went up to C2 to spend the night for the firsts time. It was a perfect day, so hot that I only had on two layers top and bottom, and thin liner gloves while ascending the icefalls. These are quite interesting: this year was such a dry winter in the Himalayas that there is a lot of blue ice on the route, that is usually covered with snow. In fact, the route is harder this year because of the lack of snow. Between C1 and C2 there is approx 1000 ft of roped travel up steep ice. One attaches oneself with an ascender, kicking in with ones crampons and hauling oneself up on the rope.

Anyway, I got to C2 at 1:40 in the afternoon, a bit ahead of the others. I cleared out the tent vestibule and started the stove to make water - it takes hours of melting snow up here to get enough water for everyone to stay well hydrated. By the time the others got there a cloud had descended so that one could not see more than 100 ft, the wind picked up and it was starting to snow little. We jumped in the tent (a crowded affair, with all our packs and extra clothes piled at the bottom to even out the tilty floor). Well, in the end it was a windy, snowy night. We ate soups and mashed potatoes for dinner, made water till 9 pm, then slept, waking often. I got out once for clear the snow drifts from around the tent.

In the morning, it was nasty until about 8 am when the wind died down and we got ready to go. Packed up by 10, we started back down, satisfied with the work we done and having stayed up at a new elevation successfully.

So now, we have about 4 rest days before our turn at the summit. That has been the pattern: go up with a load for 2 or 3 days, come down exhausted, rest for 2 to 3 days, then go up again, since we are working in two groups of 3, we leapfrog each other. As we were on our way down, for instance, we met with the other 3 at C1 and exchanged information and well wishes for their summit attempt.