On Island Peak

Satphone Report 4

Call received at midday Monday 22nd October from Sandy Allan. Everyone is well and recovered from minor ailments. The last 24 hours have been pretty exciting on Island Peak. They had arrived at high camp (approx 5,500 m) on Sunday 21st, pitched their tents and settled for a good nights sleep at this "new" high altitude. Everyone was awakened by extremely high winds and by 2 a.m. the decision was made to go down too base camp. The team left base camp again at 3pm and had just newly arrived at the high camp when the satellite phone call was made. Winds were still high and it is hoped that these will settle down so that a summit attempt can be made tomorrow (Tuesday).

Update of Island Peak

Everyone is doing fine and all colds are getting better.

Today, the team were at Island Peak base camp at 5110m. While at base camp they've been practicing rope work and doing jumaring. For those who don't know what jumaring is, like me, its when you use a gadget on a rope to help you get up, but it doesn't slip down the rope. This helps with getting up fixed ropes on the mountain.

Later on today, after lunch, they will be moving on to Attack Camp...

Tomorrow they're having a very early morning and setting off at 2am to try and reach the summit of Island Peak then heading back to Base Camp for a well earned rest.

Good Luck Chaps.

"The First Summit"

Satphone Report 2

A phone call was received today (12.43 UK time) from Sandy. He and John were literally on the summit of a "small" peak, Chukingarie (5035m). Kathy had turned back just 50 m below the top. The sun was beginning to set with marvellous views all around. They were keen to leave before dark and planned to stay in the village of Chukum (?spelling) tonight. A happy outing!

Dimboche Thursday 18th October

Satellite Phone Report 1

We have been at Dimboche, 4410m, for two nights. Due to some colds and travellers tummy upsets have decided to stay here at this altitude for another night to help recovery and acclimitisation.

Acclimatisation day around Namche Bazar

Last night most of us slept reasonably well at this new altitude of 3400 meters, although we are beginning to feel the altitude a bit. We all had steaming bowls of Garlic soup and well done Yak steak for dinner last night and then sleep came easy.

This Sunday morning we awoke to slightly better weather and after a light breakfast took a long acclimatising walk above Namche. We visited the sherpa cultural centre where there is a fantastic sample of the inside of a traditional sherpa house. We also visited the National Park Headquarters and then walked a nice circuit taking in the Everest View Hotel at around 3900 meters and had lunch there. Sandy met Pemba Dorjee another four times Everest summiteer and he has climbed with Sandy on Lhotse and Ama Dablam in the past. This year Pemba is working for another company and climbing Labouche Peak.However Sandy hopes to hire his seven Yaks when it comes to clearing our Ama Dabalm base camp loads after our expedition finishes.Pembas Yaks graze around Pangboche the closest village to Ama Dablam and they are wondeful pack animals and an important income stream for the sherpas.

We walked along to Khumjung and visited the Gompa ( Monestary) there where we were shown around and also saw the famous Yeti head which is kept in glass box with strong padlock and then locked in another big steel locker also suitable padlocked. We also visted the famous Khumjung bakery where they make world famous apple pie!

We returned to Namche for around 5.30 pm and after a well deserved hot chocolate, we all went our separate ways to make phone calls and e-mails to folks back home. We will meet up in an hour or so for dinner. This is our last night in Namche and we leave the internet behind. Everyone is doing fine, no sore heads from altitude which is really great, Sandy and John have colds and Kambiz a running nose but hopefully these will get better before we gain to much high altitude. Today the weather was much better and we did get some views of the high mountains, Everest, Nuptse, Lhotse, Middle Lhotse, Shartse, and of course Ama Dablam, our main climbing objective.

Our plans for tomorrow are to load up the Yaks and head on up the valley to Tenagboche Monastery and camp overnight at Deboche ( 3820m) and then on Tuesday go on to Dingboche ( 4410m) and overnight there for two nights to acclimatise. There after we head up to Chhukhung( 4730m) and then on to Island Peak Base camp forThursday night ( 4970m). We will spend few days there attempting Island Peak (6189m). We hope to make some Sat phone reports which hopfully will be transcribed to this blog!

Eventually we got away!

We are in Namche today, the weather is still not great but yesterday we chartered a helicopter sharing the fees with another trekking group. It still took a long wait at Kathmandu but eventually we got out. It was quite a smooth ride up to Lukla although we did not get any views as all the mountains were obscured. The old Russian M19 helicopter was great though, even although it was stuffed to the gunnels with luggage and Kathy, Ed and I had to squeeze into the tiniest space as all the others took the better seats. Lakpah our sirdar sat on a bag of rice on the floor and the whole journey was unlike anything that anyone had experienced before. It took fifty minutes to fly to Lukla and we kind of hoped we would get to Nanche but at Lukla the rain had just stopped pouring down for our arrival and Namche was obscured by thick grey turbulent cloud! So we got out at Lukla, ,sorted out our loads into Yak loads and once the yak drives were ready we commenced our walk towards Namche. Our original plan was to walk to Phakting but as we were late we walked for about one and a half hours to the village of Ghat where we stayed at the "Everest Summiters Lodge" owned by friend of Sandy's. Phanden sherpa summited Everest with Sandy and his American client on the 23rd May 2001. Phandens sister and her husband mange the trekking lodge and we all had wonderful night there, eating garlic soup, and Dhal bhat with vegtables and drinking Shandy. This morning we awoke at around 6.30am and after breakfast of Porridge and cheese omelette we had the yaks loaded up and continued our trek to Namche arriving here by 3.30 pm or so. Hastily drank lemon tea and had showers at the Kwonde Lodge. Ed manging to send texts on his mobile so that's a advanced development from my lass visit two years ago. It's bit strange to see Yak herder with Mobile phones, but it great and cool really. They probably need them as much as we in the west do!

The walk in was ace but bit cool. Everyone is enjoying the fresh air after Lukla and the sherpa culture. Our plans: To spend two nights her as the altitude is around 3400 meters and we need to give our bodies a chance to acclimatise and also it gives us an opportunity to explore this sherpa capital and and check out the local villages of Khunde and Kumjung, the home villages of many famous Sherpa mountaineers. These sherap's like our own sirdar Lakpah ( who has summited Everest 3 times and Ama Dablam once) are the back bone of all our Team Ascent expeditions and if it were not for them we would never ever be able to guide these wonderful peaks. Consequently Sandy has very many freinds here and its great just to walk around the tiny streets with many market stalls selling everything from bars of dettol soap to Yak Bells and modern high altitude climbing equipment and meeting friendly smiling sherpa faces. We have internet here too so we can update the blog for a day or two yet, then it will be sat. phone reports without so many photos! For friends and family back home, everyone is doing well, zooming up the steep hill to Namche and no one is reporting any sore heads from the rarefied air!

Second attempt at flying to Lukla

Today we went to the airport hoping to fly to the mountain airstrip of Lukla but once again the flight was cancelled due to poor visibility. We had chartered a helecopter but even that could not fly up far enough to be of any good to us. So here we are back in Kathmandu. Apparently the weather is set to improve tomorrow and we have the option of flying by fixed wing or chartering a helecopter. We have reservations for both and hope to be able to fly tomorrow.

Interesting news from Kathmandu...Maoist: There is a speciol session of interim parlement on going with the Maoist's demanding elections based on all-out proportional representation and an early republic. The local press suggest that this motion will be defeated. The UN is involved and is commited in assisting to establish durable peace in Nepal.

Boudhanath Stupa Facelift: The 43 metre high imposing spherical-shaped structure (photographed above) is to get a face lift by replacing the 100 year old gilding of the Harmika (square structure at the top of the dome painted with a pair of eyes symbolising heaven and the 13 spiral steps symbolising phases to reach Nirvana) are being re-gilded with 14 kg of gold. The project is being sponsered by the Tibetan Nyingma Medetation Centre, Calafornia and the work will be completed by the best local craftsmen from Patang.

Also the Dasain festival commences any day now and celebrates new rice harvests and is the biggest Hindi festival and many people will have new Hindi Tikka's (red spots on forehead).

The other photo shows all the team taking part in some serious training by the pool in preperation for a hearty meal this evening! As you can see everybody is dealing well with the delays and staying positive.