원정 개요

Nuptse Attempt:

BC 14/04 5350m
C1 21/04 5900m
C2 23/04 6400m
C3 01/05 6830m
HPt 02/05 7650m

Rope was fixed by AC Sherpas. Mosedale, Booth, Chhebi and Pemba Dorje together with Plain and Gupta left C3 at 2 am. Weather was good. At around 7300m at sunrise 5 am wind picked up. They grouped up with Guy Cotter and his group at 7400m, discussed and carried on. They reached their high point at about 9:30 am and the fixing team said it would be too avalanche-prone higher up. They descended to C3, packed up and reached C2 at 5:30 pm.

Team left BC on 22/05 be heli.


From Jon Gupta's Facebook page:

Nuptse 7864m Update - Totally epic & SO close but sadly no summit!

On Tuesday 1st Steve, Tim, Adam & I, alongside Pemba & Cheddi Sherpa headed round from Everest Camp 2 6350m to the other side of the Western Cwm to Nuptse Camp 3 6830m in just under 3 hours. We dug out 2 tent platforms next to the 3 tents from Adventure Consultants & jumped in 3 to a tent.

At 02:00am we heading out into the clear cold night - it was super bright with a huge moon over head...perfect!! Just 50m away the route started up a steep snow arete (note: steeply...& it never relented!). Not once during the entire route was there a nice flat bit to stand on, it was simply just super steep all the time!

Adam & I decided to climb without oxygen whilst Tim & Steve wore their masks on a low flow-rate. At about 7200m my left toes were getting very cold (some minor damage left over from Denali) & refused to warm up with the usual tricks so I turned my oxygen on & they soon warmed up. (I was carrying 1 bottle ‘in case’).

Way up ahead 2 skilled climbing Sherpas from the Adventure Consultants team were fixing the final 400m of the route ahead of us, I could see their head torches from time to time. These guys had spent 3 full days fixing the route up to that point (over the last week or so) & were phenomenal mountaineers, I was super impressed as I climbed the route thinking about what they had done that days before.

At around 08:00am we all caught up with one another: Steve, myself, Tim, Adam & our two Sherpas, and Guy Cotter, Keshan (his client) & their Sherpas. It was quite windy & spindrift snow was being blasted around making it difficult for the 2 fixing Sherpas above. The slopes we were standing on where also substantially avalanche prone & a few sluffs were being self-triggered close by.

The radio call came through from above & the thumbs up to continue. Tim & I took the lead, both feeling good & took turns breaking trail for the next 2 hours. Spindrift had wiped out any sign of old footprints so we just had the rope to give us direction. The going was tough & deep but it felt amazing...every now & then looking around to see the view literally made me smile! Eventually at around 7630m (just 200m short of the top) we caught up with the 2 fixing Sherpas who delivered the blowing news that the next slopes that lead to the summit were substantially loaded & prone to avalanche & therefore too dangerous to cross.

Understandably we were gutted but accepted the decision without question. So so close but yet so far.

We descended via a number of abseils & arm wraps all the way back to our camp - this took about 3 hours or so. Exhausted but safe, we got the stove on & packed our stuff away & hauled the tents, cookers, oxygen, etc. back around to Camp 2 on Everest. We got in around 17:00 - we all enjoyed a huge 12 hour sleep!