Thursday 19 July 2012

Sandy in his element!

Sandy Allan on the Mazeno Ridge.

Sandy on the Mazeno Ridge

Mazeno Ridge Climbers safe at Base Camp

Sandy Allan and Rick Allen arrived at the Diamir Face Base Camp of Nanga Parbat this morning (actually around noon Pakistan time).  They summitted by the Mazeno Ridge on Sunday 15th July. A Czech team are providing great hospitality!

Texts have been received from Sandy.  Both he and Rick are well (in an exhausted kind of way!)  It's expected that they will come out from BC quite quickly and meet up with the rest of the team.  It's a great (if not crazy) achievement and huge congratulations to all.  There is a story to tell and we look forward to hearing it.

Having had superb communications with the outside world for much of the trip it's been a tough few days not having had much news and grateful thanks go to the Planet Mountain team and in particular Nicholas Hobley and Vinicio Stefanello who have been intrinsic in providing the family with news: See their up to date article at:
http://www.planetmountain.com/english/News/shownews1.lasso?l=2&keyid=39810

Thanks also to the teams' agent (though he is much more), Muhammed Ali of Adventure Pakistan, his texts this morning were fabulous.  Laughter is a wonderful thing!

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Mazeno Ridge Update

Tuesday 17th July

Sandys' sister wrote:

I spoke to the agent in Pakistan yesterday (16th July).  He confirmed that he spoke with Sandy by phone (presumably satellite) ten minutes before I called.  Sandy and Rick are still on the mountain on the Diamir Face. They are in good form despite being low on supplies (that was the 14th day, so having taken 8 days of food etc this is no surprise).  Cathy and the Sherpas have safely returned but there has been no communications.

Apparently there are no teams at the Diamir Base camp at the moment so the agent is organising food and gas to be taken there.  Fortunately this is readily accessible and he hoped that would be there tonight/early tomorrow.




Friday 13 July 2012

Hyperlinks

Sorry - hyperlinks for planetmountain.com don't seem to work.

Google planet mountain mazeno to get there!

Still Climbing on Mazeno Ridge

Those of you following Sandy on the Mazeno Ridge will be aware of the super website http://mazenoridge.com/ which has photos, regular twiiter updates and even audio reports from Cathy O'Dowd.

Despite a post a couple of days ago, it appears the summit wasn't reached. Four climbers: Sandy Allan, Rick Allen, Lhakpa Rangdu Sherpa and Lahkpa Nuru Sherpa (I think) reached around 7950m yesterday, less than 200 m from the summit and returned to the high camp ( ~ 7200m after an 18 h day). Conditions are tough with deep snow and high winds 40-50 km/h).

This morning Cathy wrote "Rick and Sandy stay to try again, the rest descend via route we don't know-could be interesting."

The trip is also being reported at planetmountain.com an English/Italian mountaineering magazine who have also transcribed the audio reports (big thanks). Their news reports are at:


http://www.planetmountain.com/english/Newss/shownews1.lasso?1=2&keyid=39781

http://www.planetmountain.com/english/News/shownews1.lasso?1=2&keyid=39777

Wishing them all a good day, lots of positive thoughts.