원정 개요

Peru Everest, Richard Hidalgo (only climber) - 10 June 2009

Hidalgo climbed without Sherpa support or artificial oxygen. From ABC on 5 May, he went to the North Col, where planned to have his C1, but he did not sleep there; this was an acclimatization climb. He made another acclimatization climb to the Col, then descended to BC on the 12th to rest.

On the 19th, he returned to ABC, made C1 on the Col on the 21st, and on the 22nd went up to his C2 site, but it was windy and he went back to ABC to wait for good weather. Snowfall and wind kept him in ABC until the 27th, when returned to C1. On the 28th he reached 7500m, but again the wind was strong; he stayed that night in C1, down to ABC on the 29th.

On 2nd June the weather had improved and he climbed back to C1. On the 3rd he was in C2, and on the 4th he arrived at his last campsite for C3 at 8300m. He got there rather late, at 8:00 pm (Nepal time); he had planned to stay for just two hours helping the Canadians to dig their tents out of the snow. Now he was tired, so he stayed the night at C3. He left C3 for the summit at 10:00 pm on 5 June with Canadians but had reached only 8400m by 11:00 am. It was impossible to find under deep snow the fixed ropes that had not been used by other climbers during the previous ten days. So back to C3 and on the 6th to ABC.

His toes had started getting cold when he was at 8400m. Whether he would have continued to go for the summit if fixed ropes been available, he can't say. In any case, his cold toes plus bad weather convinced him he should abandon his climb. He left the mountain on 7 June.