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Posts for Cho Oyu from 10/2010

RMI Team back in Kathmandu

Posted by: | October 05, 2010
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Cho Oyu

The team has safely returned to Kathmandu.

We left base camp early on the morning of Oct. 3rd and walked about 10 miles to get to our ride out. It was a cold and windy day, but we made good time. Once in our vehicle we drove for many hours across the beautiful Tibetan plateau. After several hours we reached the valley that leads to the border between Tibet and Nepal. It was a amazing to drive through this huge valley that descends over 10,000’. It had been a month since we had seen anything green and it overwhelmed our senses. We spent the night in Zhangmu and crossed the border in the morning and headed for Kathmandu. It was another long day but everyone was happy to be back to Kathmandu and it was quite the culture shock. After getting checked into our hotel we headed out for dinner where we ran into many of the climbers who were also on Cho Oyu and a few friends from other expeditions. It sounded like everyone had a tough climbing season.

It was a great trip and certainly the summit would have made it better, but it’s nice to be healthy and headed home after such tough weather and climbing conditions.

Should be home soon.

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Team Decides to Forego Upper Mountain Climb on Cho Oyu

Posted by: | October 01, 2010
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Cho Oyu
Elevation: 18,500 ft.

Hey RMI and everybody back home. This is Casey checking in from the Cho Oyu Expedition.

Just wanted to let everyone know that today we officially decided to pull the plug and not continue to climb on the upper mountain. The snow conditions continue to exist. It’s a relatively high level of avalanche hazard as well as no one has been on the upper mountain in the last few days. We are certainly not going to be the first team to be up there and stick our necks out. Add that to the forecast that we have, which is some high winds and cold temperatures as the jet stream approaches and we are actually even seeing that today with some winds and some clouds building. The majority of the expeditions here have all packed up and are heading home currently. There are a few individuals left that may stick their necks out and give it a shot, but again, we think that it is foolish for our team to take that risk.

Everyone’s doing great. Today we actually hiked up to Camp 1 and picked up most of our gear that we had left there. We got the majority of that stuff back to Advanced Basecamp here. Our plan is to relax here for the next day and then our yaks come in on the 3rd to pick up all of our loads to carry that stuff back to the main road, which is about a day-and-a-half trek. Our plan is to leave on the 3rd and try to get to the road and hopefully catch a ride on the 4th. Then we’ll drive from Basecamp to Zangmu, on the border of Tibet and Nepal. Our plan then on the 5th is to possibly arrive in Kathmandu if everything goes well.

I’m happy that everyone feels good with our decision and we look forward to coming home and seeing everybody and telling you all about our adventure. Thanks a lot you guys.

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