Friday, October 22, 2010

Labuche Climb blog

The weather here has been unseasonably bad with lots of snow and
cloud. Despite this we had an amazing evening at Lobuche base camp
(5,300m) when the cloud cleared just on dusk to reveal an amazing
vista.  It was a view that was well worth the climb and the cold
night.

 During the night we were woken several times with hard snow hitting
the tent.  At 4am it was misty and snowing but we prepared to climb
and ate breakfast in anticipation.  At 6:20 it cleared and we started
off, but the snow covered rocks were slippery and progress was very
slow and slightly uncomfortable.  The cloud came and went revealing
tremendous glimpses of the peaks and we made the glacier about 10am.
Steep and prone to avalanches, the snow climb required good visibility
and the weather was changing for the worse. Our collective pace was
also too slow to reach the top and return to base.  Colin was very
keen to go on and Tshering our guide was willing, so they went on and
made a very fast free ascent and descent without belays while the rest
of us descended slowly, abseiling the steepest rocky bit.

We packed up base camp very quickly in heavy snow fall and raced down
to join the main EBC track.  From there it was another few hours back
to Dingboche,

 This morning has dawned fine and clear for only the second time in
what seems like weeks.

1 comment:

  1. Well done Colin!! It sounds like you are having a great adventure. Regards Alana

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