Entries from Expedition Dispatches
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Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mexico
Hola from the south! Today we left La Malinche and drove to the town of Amecameca where we picked up the last of our supplies for our attempt on Ixta. Leaving Amecameca we wound our way thousands of feet above the town, past Christmas tree farms and corn stalks with an eye on our mountain for the next few days. We rallied our bus up the road of fine moondust to the Altzimoni Hut, our launch pad for tomorrow. We spent the afternoon packing and topped it off with a big dinner. Now its off to bed to get some rest before our move to high camp.
Greetings from La Malintzi, the former Mexican Olympic Team training grounds and our first chance to taste a little altitude. Today we left Mexico City and arrived here, quickly getting ready for our hike up to 13,800 feet. We walked through dry forests before leaving the trees behind and gaining the ridge of La Malinche where we were able to see our future objectives, Ixta and Pico de Orizaba.
Tonight we will get some rest and start our journey to Ixta.
Today was another great day for the crew down here in Ecuador. After an early rise and quick breakfast we loaded up our van and headed out on the road from Quito into the countryside. The valleys and mountainsides around Quito are a gorgeous emerald green and the high peaks were all covered in fresh snow. We caught glimpses of our first mountaineering objective Cayambe, as clouds moved in and out. Needless to say the group was excited as we continued past Cayambe to a large volcanic caldera called Fuya Fuya. We spent the late morning and early afternoon summiting one of the twin peaks of Fuya Fuya at around 4,200 m. The views from the summit were spectacular. We looked down on a huge lake filling the crater and were surrounded by many beautiful peaks. After a quick descent the team headed to the Hacienda San Luis for dinner some R&R. Everybody is enjoying the beautiful grounds and rustic rooms (complete with fireplace) here. Tomorow's plans call for a trip to the open air market in Otovalo and then a move up to the climber refugio high on Cayambe!
I'll check in again as soon as I can, we hope everyone at home is doing well too!
Ciao from the Equator!
Thanks to Dawn Kim for the photos in this post!
Hi everybody, it's Billy checking in with another dispatch from Quito, Ecuador. Today's events brought us some of the first exertion of the trip. After a pleasant breakfast the crew geared up and headed out in taxis to the teleferico where we rode a gondola up to 13,600'. From there we began our first acclimitzation hike up on the volcano, Rucu Pichincha. We hiked up through bright green hillsides and skirted some large volcanic cliffs, moving in and out of the clouds, all the while with the sprawl of Quito far below. It was a pretty cool place to get things started with some amazing views when the clouds parted. After stretching our legs and working our lungs a bit we headed back down to Quito in the late afternoon. The day finished with a thorough gear check for the mountaineering to come and a team dinner on our last night here in Quito.
Tomorrow, an early rise and escape from Babylon will take us out to Cerra Fuya Fuya (13,986') for our next training hike. We'll check back as soon as we can!
Thanks to Dawn Kim for the photos in this post!
The team arrived late last night and met formally for the first time over breakfast this morning. We enjoyed a great buffet for breakfast at our hotel and set out for an all day tour of Quito which included a visit to the physical equator. The team enjoyed visiting many old churches, government buildings, and private homes some of which dated back to the 1500's! The Spaniards founded the colonial city in 1538, so lots of the architecture is original and impressive. So much so that the entire old town neighborhood in Quito is a UNESCO world heritage site. We visited one church in particular with huge vaulted ceilings that were completely covered in baroque woodworking and gold leaf. Apparently over 52 kg of pure gold were used to decorate the church and show the power and glory of Rome. It's kind of crazy to think about how young many of the cities in the United States really are compared to other places in the world.
After the city tour we enjoyed a fritada lunch. It was a traditional Ecuadorian meal consisting of maize, fried pork, avocado, tomatoes, plantains, and potato soup. Delicious!
Later in the afternoon we took a trip to the physical equator where we enjoyed some fun experiments. There is no coriolis effect directly on the equator so water will drain from a basin straight down when on the equator, spin counter-clockwise four feet north, and clockwise four feet south! I didn't believe it until I saw it. It was also possible to balance fresh eggs vertically on a nail. Cool stuff. And all the while we were beginning our acclimitization because Quito sits at nearly 10,000 ft. Tomorrow we will head out to the teleferique and the volcano Pichincha for our first acclimatization hike, hopefully the weather cooperates!
Thanks to Dawn Kim for the photos in this post!
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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.
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.
Hello everybody, this is Casey checking in from the Cho Oyu Expedition.
We wanted to let everybody know that the entire team has safely returned to Advanced Base Camp where we are now enjoying warm, wonderful meals from our cook Kumar.
Yesterday we made a valiant effort to try to reach Camp 2 but were turned around due to high winds and cold temperatures. There has also been a fair amount of exploration by some of the top Sherpa on the mountain to try to get a route kicked in to the summit. But it still looks like the avalanche danger is significantly higher than we would like it to be. Looks like a number of expeditions are all leaving and headed home.
We have a few more days here so we are going to wait it out and see if the weather or avalanche conditions can improve in the next few days before we make our decision as to head back up the mountain or head home a little bit early. We are going to take three rest days here and then most likely make our decision.
Stay tuned and we will let you know as the events unfold.
Hey RMI, this is Casey calling in from Camp 1 on Cho Oyu.
We woke today to some pretty blustery skies and some snow whirling around so we decided to drag our feet a little to see if the weather would change a bit in our favor. Unfortunately, it did not. It seems like the jet stream is still a bit close to us here. It has made for some pretty miserable climbing conditions. Pretty high winds and snow blowing off of the surface which would make it challenging to see while climbing.
The team has been hunkered down here at Camp 1, or as we like to call it, "Camp Fun." We have been stuck in our tents for basically the last 24 hours and trying not to go stir crazy.
Everybody's in good spirits and we have our fingers crossed hoping that tomorrow proves to be a little nicer and allows us to sneak up to Camp 2. Everything else is going great and we'll try to touch base again tomorrow.
Everything is going great, in fact, things couldn't really be better. The last two days have been incredibly sunny and warm, which was oh so needed. The whole team got showers yesterday, we did laundry, basked in the sun, and dried everything out. It was a nice finish to our rest days.
This morning we got up and had beautifully clear skies and a leisurely breakfast about 10 a.m. We then hiked about four hours to reach Camp 1 where we currently are. It sits about 21,000' and we have a great view of the upper mountain conditions and climbers. There is a bit of wind blowing off the summit and it's scouring some of the snow that has been deposited over the last ten days of snow we have gotten.
Everyone is doing great and feeling good. We are getting settled into our tents for the night. Firing up the stoves to make ourselves some dinner, then into our sleeping bags before the sun goes down. As soon as it does it gets chilly up here. We will be making ourselves as comfortable as can be. Things are going well. Tomorrow we are hoping to push all the way up to Camp 2 and spend the night there at around 23,000'.
We'll check in tomorrow if we can get ourselves up to Camp 2. All right everybody, hope everyone's doing well back home. We miss you.
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