Pumori Expedition 2004

Pumori Expedition 2004

Team Leader: Dave Kenyon

Team:

Oddvar Njaa,

Kjell Haugvaldstad,

Paul Donohue,

Peter Huskins,

Nicholas Clarke

Pumori Update received 24/10/04: Congratulations to Oddvar Njaa and Kjell Haugvaldstad who, along with our climbing Sherpas reached the summit of Pumori on Sunday 24th October. The rest of the team turned round at around 7000m. All are now safely back in Base Camp and hope to start their trek out this morning.

Pumori Update received 21/10/04: We’ve been at base camp for 9 days now. Most people have been managing fine with the altitude, Nick wasn’t feeling too good for the first couple of days and went down to Gorak Shep for a night, came back feeling much better. Everybody has been up to ABC and spent the night there at about 5800, a couple of us (myself, Pete, Oddvar and Paul) have been to the to of the ridge at about 6300 which was the end of the fixed ropes at the time, Nick and kjell have been almost as high. Yesterday the climbing Sherpas got almost to the ridge at just over 6400 fixing the rope. They think it’s best to do away with camp 1 and go a little bit higher to just over 6400 on the ridge. We’ve just had 2 rest days at the Sherpas insistence and tomorrow (Thur 21st) we will go up to ABC and spend the night there then on to camp 1 at 6400 on the ridge, spend the night there with the Sherpas and hopefully onto the summit the next day, 24th and down as far as people feel able to go the next day. Hopefully taking things down as we go or maybe over the next two days, leaving on the 26/27th.

We left Loboche on the 13th and it had been snowing overnight and was very cloudy, so we didn’t get very good views on the way in. The following day (14th) was bad snowing on and off, I went for a walk up to ABC as did Oddvar, later myself and Paul went over to Kangri Shar Base camp to see Tim.

On the 15th we had the and then did a load carry up to ABC and back to Base camp. The following day (16th) we did another carry to ABC and spent the night there, going a couple of hundred meters up the ropes in the morning that the Sherpas had fixed the day before, back to base camp.

18th was a rest day, the following day (19th) we carried loads to the top of the ridge at about 6300 and back to Base camp.

20th and 21st we had a rest.

Every single day apart from the first 2 days have been clear blue skies with amazing views of Everest, Nuptse and Lotse, hopefully this will continue for another couple of days.

The Liason officer was here very briefly today, said he had a sore throat and went down again.

Cheers Dave Kenyon (Pumori)