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BC at west side of South Annapurna Glacier 1 hour from South Annapurna BC
C1 at 7 km from BC
High point at C1.

Italian Annapurna I/Kangchenjunga Expedition, led by Romano Benet - 24 April 2009

Annapurna I

Roman Benet and his wife, Nives Meroi, were unable to reach the foot of the South Face to start their ascent to the East Ridge because of the terrible condition of the glacier below the face. Crevasses were opening up and widening day by day. A crevasse that was two meters wide when they first arrived in just a few days became 20 meters wide; other crevasses widened to 50 meters across; it was impossible to descend down into them and climb up the other sides. Fallen seracs littered the glacier and were difficult to maneuver around. The face itself was in good condition: "perfect, snow, no ice." But getting to it was a nightmare.

They placed their BC on 30 March at 4150m on the north side of the South Annapurna Glacier one hour up from the South Annapurna BC site, which is marked on trekking map.

On 2 April they reached 5100m, made a deposit of gear there and returned to BC.

On the 4th they returned to the deposit camp and slept there. On the following day, they moved farther east and gained altitude to 5600m; they pitched C1 there. It was seven kilometers away from BC, below the South Face on the left side of an icefall. They had been climbing near Tomaz Humar's autumn 2007 route.

They returned to BC on the 6th, and now there was a period of bad weather with snow falling at BC, but not much new snow covering the face. But now seracs started falling.

On 12 April they were able to return to the deposit site at 5100m. But now Benet had developed a chest infection, so they went back to BC the same day.

On the 18th they set out for C1. It took them 12 hours to reach the camp because the glacier and the mountain side had been changed by the fallen seracs. They considered the site unsafe and packed it all up and descended 200m to bivouac in a safer place.

They had seen no safe route beyond the C1 site to cross an icefall above it. They were back in BC on the 19th, and they now decided to abandon the climb and left BC on the 22nd to return to Kathmandu and go to Kangchenjunga. They were the last of three teams to leave the base camp area, and were back in Kathmandu on the 23rd with plans to leave on the 25th.