After a lot of discussion the tean has taken the tough decision to abandon the expedition due to the current snow conditions. The higher slopes of Cho Oyu need a long time for consolidation – at least 7-10 days – which we just don’t have.

Yesterday, a very experienced Japanese climber tried to go up and couldn’t get above the rock band at 7700m.  Following  2 recent avalanches that took 12 sherpas (thankfully no one was killed), we are not confident with the snow conditions and the sherpas understandaby don’t want to go above 7100m to fix ropes.  Also, the ropes that we were going to use were lost with the avalanches.

Apart from us, another 12 expeditions are wrapping up and leaving Cho Oyu.  We leave the mountain the morning of 3rd.

After our last post our whole team left to Camp1 with the intention of reaching Camp 2 next day. As a few forecasts have predicted, the day we chose to reach Camp 2 was extremely windy and we decided to push until 11am or turn around if the wind didn’t stop. This was based on the experience of our previous day expedition when the wind gusts were as strong as 70km/h.

After reaching a plateau at 6650m, Calin and I decided to turn around and descended to Camp 1 with Jangbu Sherpa.

Some of the team made it to Camp 2 and spent the night there.  Our team leader Max decided to spend another night on the mountain and reached the slopes very closes to Camp 3 this morning. It did not look good. It was knee deep snow at some parts and high avalanche risk. When he arrived at ABC, Raj and the sherpas told him about another avalanche that took 5 sherpas with it from other expeditions on the mountain and 2 had to be evacuated to Kathmandu.

Now we are facing a new problem: there’s no one else to fix rope. Most of the teams (about 8 big teams) have given up and are on their way home now. We’ll have a meeting and decide what to to tommorrow.

All members are back at Advanced Basecamp after 2 days of rest. Mark has sadly left the group due to medical reasons.

We spent last night resting in Advanced Basecamp and the skies cleared overnight. It was the first night of no snowfall at ABC. Temperatures dropped as the skies cleared.

Today the whole team is moving from ABC up to camp 1 to continue our push on the mountain. We’re staying upbeat and optimistic that the weather will allow a summit attempt.

Yesterday we tried to reach Camp 2 but the snow conditions were too bad and we decided to stay at Camp 1 and come back to Advanced Base Camp. Some teams decided to go up despite the conditions, and there were a few avalanches at 6700m. Lukily no-one got hurt and we are very glad that the teams are safe back at camp.

This monsoon seems very persistent and strong!  Three weather forecasts agree that the monsoon precipitation will end during the next few days, then the winds will pick up. We hope to use the windy days to reach Camp 2, sleep there and come back down to Advanced Base Camp and finish our acclimatization process.

With these poor weather conditions, we now expect to push for the summit on the 4th of October. But it all depends on weather. It snows every day lately and it’s very hard to keep stuff dry even inside the tent.

On the bright side of things, we ended up spending 3 nights at 6400m and are super acclimatized and ready for the push to 7100m! At ABC we try to keep ourselves busy although there isn’t too much to do when it’s snowing.  Calin and I also improved our timing to Camp 1 and back!

More news soon…

Yesterday the whole team went to Camp 1 to then try an acclimatisation push to Camp 2, however unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate and now everyone is stuck at Camp 1 and will be going back to Advanced Base Camp tomorrow morning.

The weather forecast doesn’t look good – they predict rain until the end of the month, however we hope the weather improves a little during the next few days so that we can push for our acclimatisation to Camp 2.

Sadly one of the team has had to leave the expedition due to a case of pulmonary oedema.  We will really miss Steve and pray for a fast recovery!

In another unfortunate event, an avalanche at 7700m swept away a lot of Tibetan sherpas and injured 7 of them, 2 very seriously. After a very complex rescue, they are all stabilized and are now on their way to a hospital in Lhasa.

Now the good news – Our team is doing great! We all spent a night at Camp 1.  The views from there are great!  We even had a kitchen tent set up with our amazing kitchen boy Chiring. The members love him! Every morning, afternoon and sunset he brings hot drinks and hot food to our tents. This really helps with the acclimatization. Everyone woke up in  great shape!

Today we geared up and climbed part of the route that leads to camp 2. The weather was great (for a while). After reaching 6600m, everyone returned to Camp 1, left all the heavy gear and continued to ABC. Our cook waited for us with meat stew and Swiss potato pancakes.  Everyone is in great shape and fully acclimatized to 6400m.

We’ll spend another 2 nights here, then head to Camp 2 to finish our acclimatization plan, which seems to be working very well!