원정 개요

C3 at Makalu La
C4 in seracs
High point on NW Ridge.

Australian Makalu Expedition of Blair Falahey - 25 May 2008

Falahey arrived at Hillary base camp on 19 April and stayed there to recover from a bad case of flu until 25 April, when he went to BC. on 4 May he went to 7200m to acclimatize and back to BC the same day.

He left BC on 11 May for his summit push nad reached C2. But the next day he returned to BC in cloudy and "snowy" weather, and the forecast was for bad weather ahead. In any case, he had originally planned to go to the top on the 18th.

He left BC for another summit push on the 16th and went to C2. On the 17th he pitched his C3 at the Makalu La, a "huge expanse of snow and ice," far larger than Everest's South Col. On the 18th he made C4 at 7600m, and at 1:30 am on the 19th he left C4 for the summit with Tashi Lhakpa. "We were strong, without oxygen." They got to just below te summit ridge at sunrise at about 5:00 am. They had a drink and continued up.

But at about 6:30 am at 8350m, they encountered strong wind, which was blowing snow that instantly crystallized on his sunglasses; Falahey couldn't see through his blurred sunglasses, so he changed to goggles. By now the wind was "just roaring -- I've never seen such wind," he said. "We hunkered down among the rocks for five or ten minutes," then continued up, having to pause behind rocks from time to time when the wind was terribly strong.

Now spindrift crystallized on his nose, but he didn't realize it. They had just surmounted the rocky area and emerged onto a small snowfield when Tashi Lhakpa told Falahey that he had ice on is nose and it was blue. At this point they were only 120m linerally (15m vertically) from the summit. The wind was very strong, and Falahey did not want to have surgery on his frostbitten nose, so he decided to turn around. "I've got my nose," said Falahey back in Kathmandu; "this (touching the scab) will fall off in a week or two."

It was 8:00 or 8:30 am on the 19th when they turned back. They climbed past the rocks that were now covered by snow and reached C4 at about noon. Falahey slept there and warmed his nose, then descended to C3, where he slept on oxygen which he had to "borrow" from another expedition since he had brought none of his own. On the 20th he continued down to BC, where he arrived at noon, using oxygen until it ran out.

When he took off his boots in BC, he found that his feet had swollen (probably from pedal edema). He called for a helicopter because of the condition of his feet and left BC on the 21st to go to Hillary BC. He was picked up here on the 23rd and flown to Kathmandu.

Sherpa:
Tashi Lhakpa, 18/11/85, Mathilow, Walung, Makalu-5, Everest X4, Cho Oyu X1