Peak Lenin expedition. Departed July 14

22nd July – Summit Success

Rob has called from Camp 3 to say the team reached the summit today. It was a tiring day and the team are happy to be back at camp. They will clear down to ABC tomorrow and have a well earned rest before heading back to BC & Osh.

Camp 2 21/07/14  1400GMT

The group are now at camp 2 and with a good forecast and lighter winds they will be making their summit bid tomorrow morning.

Camp ABC 19/07/14 1500GMT

Rob called in for a weather forecast and to give us an update on the team’s progress.

Rob is with Napoleon, Marcus, Andrew and Michael at ABC. They plan to move all the way up the mountain now over the next 3 days, hoping to reach the summit on Tuesday 23rd July. They will stop at camp 1 Sunday night, camp 2 Monday night and go for the top on Tuesday. The weather forecast is good with moderate to strong winds, no snow and temperatures rising to a more comfortable level (it is extremely cold there at the moment).

The rest of the group have retreated having found the demands of the altitude and the load carrying too much and we expect them to be back in Bishkek on Sunday.

Camp 1 15/07/14
We have had a very brief call from Rob at Camp 1 as the Sat phone was not getting good coverage.

The whole group are now at Camp 1 at 5300m. The plan for tomorrow is for the group to split into 2 to do a carry up to Camp 2 tomorrow and those group members will stay at Camp 2 tomorrow and then all of the group return back down to Base Camp for a rest. Those not doing the carry up to Camp 2 will stay at Camp 1 for a longer rest. Apart from tiredness the whole group are doing well.

Advanced Base Camp 10/07/14
We have had a pleasant walk up to ABC this morning. Some rain overnight but this cleared to give us a fine and warm day.

The group are all feeling fine and in good spirits. We are resting now after this mornings walk. Tomorrow we plan on doing some rope. We’ll practise roping up for glacial travel, using the fixed lines and crevasse rescue. The afternoon will be resting and acclimatisation.

Osh 07/07/14
We are now in Osh, Western Kyrgyzstan, following an early morning flight from Bishkek.  Nine of us had gathered in Bishkek the previous day from destinations as far apart as Sweden, Singapore and the U.K.

Marcus’s flight from Australia was delayed en route and he arrived at our check in desk this morning with 15 minutes to spare. I managed to win the ‘most excess luggage’ competition with my additional 4 sacks of food, 5 tents, rope and medical kits totalling 114 kg overweight! Fortunately the airline had very reasonable excess baggage charges.

We have another early start tomorrow leaving Osk at 0500 for the 6 hour drive to Peak Lenin Base Camp. There we will begin our acclimitisation period for 2 days before progressing to Advanced Base Camp, and higher up the mountain.

Future updates will be via Satellite phone and will get posted on the blog through the Adventure Peaks office. Everyone is in fine form and looking forward to the trip to come.