Makalu 2011

Blog

Farewell Makalu24/May/11

From our home at Advanced Base Camp of over 35 days, we set off back down the trail to lower Base Camp. After all the climbing on Makalu, it should have been easier, but rock falls coming down from 100's of meters overhead, rocks underfoot balanced precariously, from bowling balls to car sized, and glacial rivulets tumbling down, it was a long 6 hours back down the glacial moraine to the flat sandiness of the valley.

But sleeping, sleeping was good again in the thick air of 4700 meters, and the next day gentle moraine and a real trail led along the rushing glacial river. Purple flowers, then grass, then scraggly bushes greeted us. Lunch was on the grassy terrace of a one Yak lodge, a table and chairs set out for our picnic.

Then we descended into a profusion of Rhododendruns: bright red, purple, yellow and white with green leaves dripping dark. Mists rose up from the valley, waterfalls thundered down, we dropped steeply into what James described as a Bonsai Garden, just much bigger, with dark rocks, misty trees and a muddy trail leading back again to the river. By three we were in the Yak pastures of Yangle Kharka and our Camp, a gentle rain and fog enveloping us.

It was our last night with the full Sherpa team, a goat was turned into curry and the bar was opened. Deadwood dragged down from above Camp created a 2 meter wide bonfire and it melted the mists away. Sometime around early the next morning, nameless members were seen dancing in the lodge, tunes dialed up by one of our resident porters and the DVD cabled to the speakers for a 'big sound.' Just not too big as we were cautioned the Gods on the other side of the valley didn't like loud noises.

The heli was scheduled for 8:15 AM. At 6 AM the pound of the engine and echo of the rotors reverberated us from the tents. The pilot dropped down amongst our Camp 'I'm a little early, don't worry, I'll have a coffee, it's a fine morning, and we will pack up and fly out of here.'

A heli at the best of times is fun - but after going little faster than walking and climbing at an 8,000 meter pace for 6 weeks, lifting off and accelerating down the valley and up over the cliffs at 110 knots, the first four of us perched atop the bags, which were perched atop the seats, with the mountains falling away below, was an ideal way to clear our heads from the midnight Sherpa dancing.

Makalu rose over our right shoulder, clear and piercing, then Kangchenjunga framed the horizon, and finally we crept past Everest [Possibly watching the second wave of the Jagged Globe summit team heading along the ridge to the top of the world - Ed?] and dropped into the airport at Lukla - having flown past 4 of the worlds 5 tallest mountain in our first hour of the day.

By 10 AM we were in the Lukla coffee shop eating cakes and having lattes, before repacking and with less weight restrictions and lower altitude, taking off down valley, picking up thermals from the dark cliffs before starting the long downward glide into the Kathmandu Valley, green rice paddy terraces scalloping the hills.

By 1 PM we are back at the Summit Hotel, cool beverages on order, ears still vibrating with a touch of left over rotor blast.

Robert Anderson

Team at lower base camp and down in the valley22/May/11

Robert Anderson just called in to say that he, Adele, Jeremy, James and Jim are at the lower base camp (4,700m) and Mark and Ron are lower down in Yak Kharka. They are flying back to Kathmandu via helicopter on Wednesday. They're all feeling well and enjoying being at a lower altitude.

Packing up21/May/11

Water flows down the glacier into lakes by night and by day, the spring season is now merging into summer.

Ron and Mark have taken off of Yangle Kharka to enjoy the Yak pastures below, the rest of us have just finished packing. After 35 plus days or so at 5700 meters, there is no more resting here and we are all eager to see some green grass and take a full breathe of air.

We have nearly finished the single malt, a final trifle has been consumed, the main dining tent has been packed and we sit Japanese style in the dome, consuming our last lamb shanks.

We have opted for a helicopter out, the thought of a week's walk up and down the hills of Nepal not being too appealing to any of us. With waist belts slipping over our non existent hips and a stone or more lighter in weight, the rough trail out may have been far less a motivator than what we experienced on the way in. With good weather we should be in Kathmandu for a late lunch on 25 May toasting the expedition success.

Robert Anderson

Summit report19/May/11

Summiters

Robert Anderson
Adele Pennington
James Nevile
Dawa Ongchu
Lakpa Sherpa
Nema Sherpa
Funuru Sherpa

To 8,170 meters:

Jim Griffiths
Lakpa Dorje Sherpa

Camp 2 and into the granite cliffs above, with Base Camp support for the summit bid.

Bunter Anson Ron Rutland Mark Campbell

Brutal and Beautiful

Juniper burning as we round the Stupa leaving Base Camp clears the last of the morning from our head and refills it with a pure clarity for the summit.

We have days ahead of us now, where we are not just going to Camp 2 or 3, but going as high as we can as fast as we can and then coming down, so the tension is much higher.

At 'crampon point' this feeling is reinforced as we put on our double boots, crampons, harnesses and sheath our ice axes. Ice screws and figure eights clank in the early morning light.

By 3 pm we are in our tents at Camp 2, eating, drinking, fighting alternating blasts of sun and clouds bringing drafts of cold air and spindrift. Bunter is holding the fort at Base Camp and updates on the weather, we either have more wind and less snow or more snow and less wind. I've been studying graphs for days - finally choose our summit day. The weatherman recommend otherwise, but after 15 seasons in the Himalayas, I look up at the sky, talk to the Sherpas about Lucky Lama days and we go anyway.

At dawn the next day light creeps slowly into the tent. It is 4:30 am and we have learned to adapt to the mountain - it certainly won't adapt to us and we have to suffer just a little if it will allow us to pass.

We put on our down suits, completing our armor, puffed out against the frozen air and wrap our hoods around us. Mark has now descended from Camp 2, and Ron from just above, while Adele, Jim, James and I continue higher.

The climb up the first rock band takes 4 1/2 hours - on Everest I would have been at Camp 3 already, but here we have another 3 hours to go. Makalu is not kind to anyone looking for well spaced camps, you very much sense it is a mountain unto its own.

At the Makalu La (pass) we cross into Tibet and the wind and snow that has been building blasts at our backs, pushing us across to Camp 3. We pitch a tent that flaps wildly, inverting like an umbrella before we flatten it back into shape and stomp it into the snow, tieing it down with rocks that hopefully will keep it from ballooning away with us inside. With the cross into Tibet, the radio goes silent, and soon even the sat phone is confused into silence. We are cutting our ties with the world below.

Morning three dawns slowly, sun on the tent warms it to a toasty, steaming hovel, ice melts and drips from the ceiling down the backs of our necks.

We step out into Tibet, bright sun and the hovering peaks of Makalu. James comments "This is the most amazing place I have seen." We are well above Tibet and Nepal has disappeared below, we have entered a space of higher earth; ice and rock and sky with clouds above and below us. To the east, only the towering granite towers of Makalu are all that exist rising in a huge wall.

Camp 4 is on a rocky promontory, orange boulders surround us, then drop off in a cliff to the blue ice, blasted smooth by the winds. The afternoon passes slowly, drinking, the tent flapping, spindrift building up. We check all the O2 bottles, have a final cup of tea, darkness settles in, the wind blasts, it always blasts this time of night. Be calm, wait, then it slowly settles. At 9 pm the moon is a bright halo casting shadows.

We are outside in down, oxygen masks, headlamps, isolated from the cold world which forces our thoughts inside. The crunch of crampons on ice, the whoosh of O2, we go up and cross into the ice seracs, creeping over crevasses and under ice cliffs that in our headlamps glow deep blue. The snow is being painful; crusty, ankle deep, knee deep, ice, sugar and then crusty again and repeat 1,000 times.

A thin line of blue signifies the beginning dawn. We sit on the ice below the French Couloir and watch the sky lighten, Everest glowing blue, a plume softening its ridges, little more than 20 km away. The Kangshung Face, so well-known from my ascent long ago falls away below in rolls of snow disappearing into the black rock below.

The French Couloir starts quickly, a natural left turn leading to the rocky ridge high above on the skyline. It is now full light, the Couloir quickly disappears into rocky cliffs. A few fixed lines, frayed to the size of shoestrings are followed, but we quit using them and just climb, trusting our crampons and solid granite under our fingers. There are so many fixed ropes on 8,000 meter peaks, it is good to grasp and climb up solid rock and ice without any other outside support, weaving our way up the ridge.

At 8,170 meters, Jim turns around, the way above looking long, the way down looking a better alternative. The mark of a good high-altitude climber is knowing when to go up or go down; it is not a forgiving environment.

Now we are still climbing the ridge, and climbing. It is fun, but long. Adele, James and I are together with Lakpa and Dawa. We weave left, climbing unroped up through rock bands and snow out onto another ridge, passing through 8,300 meters. There is no real earth below, only clouds and floating mist. Now we will only go up.

The final summit pinnacle rises up at the end of the icy ridge. We loop a few frayed fixed ropes together, I smash in a snow stake through the snow and into hard ice. It feels kind of solid.

We loop around a rock tower and straight up to what looks like the top, should be the top, but no, a last weaving curling ice fluted ridge curls higher and we sneak across snow falling away below our heels hanging back over the two and a half kilometers back to Base Camp.

The summit is a perfect triangular snow cone held up by white granite. It holds half a big boot, the other balanced below. The top is as good and spectacular as it had looked a year ago from Everest, a perfect granite tower with a tiny bit of snow closer to the heavens above than the earth below.

We are all squeezed up at the end of the summit ridge, touching the top. As I adjust my camera, it strips skin from my fingers like knife cuts; seems it is a bit colder than the blue sky indicates.

The summit happiness, the smiles bigger than oxygen masks are coupled with the thoughts of getting down, while standing seemingly at the edge of space.

But down goes quickly, the mind now accustomed to the steepness, tiredness balanced with the joy of the ridge leading down, rappeling into the French Couloir and dropping out the bottom onto the snow slopes and seracs below. We rope up and weave down through the crevasses, legs weary and minds happy.

We are back in the tents 19 hours after we left, 14 hours up and 5 hours down, climbing through the night, the morning, the day and into the afternoon. It is good to know there are still big relatively remote adventures in the high Himalayas to be had for the people with big hearts and spirit to undertake them .

Robert Mads Anderson, Expedition Leader Jagged Globe 2011 Makalu Expedition

Summit photos18/May/11

Here are some photos from the successful climb to the summit of Makalu on 17 May 2011.

This spring the weather has been very unsettled, with much discussion about forecasting. As Robert Anderson put it "I have to admit I got the weather perfect, even the weather guys said go a day later and it just didn't feel right so we went up the 17th and had 19 perfect hours to climb it in.". Could that be the intuition coming from 15+ times that Robert has been to 8,000m peaks (including leading Jagged Globe teams to the summits of Cho Oyu, Everest, Shishapangma and now Makalu)?

Over on Everest on the night of the 15th, 5 time Everest summiteer, David Hamilton reflects:

"Our summit bid had been planned on the basis of forecasted wind speed of 20 kts. As we emerged from the tents and began to prepare our equipment it was obvious that the actual wind speed was close to double this figure. A quick consultation with Mingma (our most experienced Sherpa with 16 Everest summits behind him) revealed that he considered the winds acceptable, so long as they did not increase further.".

So, you can have all the forecasting in the world at your finger tips, but ultimately, deciding when to go for the summit comes down to experience.

Makalu update17/May/11

Firstly, our apologies for the lack of recent information about our team on Makalu. There are few teams on Makalu and our team are very much self-sufficient on the mountain. This means they have needed to be careful to preserve batteries and to use their radios and satellite phone as little as possible. On top of that, there is no radio communication between Camp 4 and Base Camp. So, having spoken to Robert in Camp 4 on Monday (via satellite phone), he told us here in the UK that he would call again "when we are down". In the meantime, all other communication has been relayed to us via the team in Base Camp (thank you Jeremy). We understand that Robert, Adele and James, plus some of our Sherpas were leaving Camp 2 this morning on descent and we understand that Jim was already in ABC this morning with a Sherpa. We understand that some of the team reached the summit at around 11:00 on Tuesday 17 May, but this is unconfirmed. Please understand that the climbers will be 100% focussed on getting down safely off the mountain. The weather is reported to be OK with other teams moving up. That's all for now - we will post up more when we know it. Stay tuned.

Makalu summits!17/May/11

UPDATE 1530 GMT:

We can confirm that Robert Mads Anderson (USA), Adele Pennington (UK) and James Nevile (AUS) reached the summit of Makalu yesterday (17 May) at 11:25 local time with 4 of our Sherpas. Jim Griffiths reached 8,100m before turning around with a Sherpa. They had a 19 hour summit day (15 hours up and 4 down). We have just spoken to Robert who is back down in BC with the rest of the team. The line was pretty bad - Robert will post a longer despatch tomorrow and some photos - he said "we should have some pretty good photos". Congratulations to the Jagged Globe team!

In Camp 415/May/11

Robert Anderson called the office this morning to report that he, Adele, James and Jim are in Camp 4 on Makalu at 7,600m. They are there with 5 of our Sherpas, who have fixed part way to the summit today, together with a couple of Sherpas from a Korean team. The weather has been a little windy this afternoon, but they're all in good shape and plan to leave at 2130 this evening. They'll report back when they are back down. We wish them the best of luck!

On the move14/May/11

This morning the Puja Fire was lit as members of the Makalu expedition left Base Camp for Camp 2. There appears to be a narrow weather window before an expected dump of snow hits the Himalaya in the middle of next week. By moving to Camp 2 we can exploit this window if it remains intact, or retreat relatively easily if it closes.

One of the (many) attractive features about this route on Makalu is the ease with which descent can be made. The (westerner) record for descent from C2 to ABC is 3 hours. Our fantastic team of Sherpas can, of course, accomplish it much quicker!

Jeremy has decided to remain at ABC rather than join the summit push, but that means he will be writing the dispatches and hopefully giving you a members viewpoint on events.

Most of Friday 13th was spent huddled around the computer, looking at the weather predictions and wind speeds at different altitudes. From a confusing series of numbers, graphs and commentaries, we form an opinion as to how it will affect our plans, or rather how our plans should be formed around the predictions. Then we decide whether to move or not. But as with all weather forecasts, they don't always turn out as predicted and ultimately the decision on what to do has to be made on the mountain, using experience and common sense. Fortunately we have that in abundance on this expedition.

Jeremy Anson

Makalu La14/May/11

Yesterday afternoon Mark, having reached Camp 2, made the decision to return back to ABC immediately because his chest infection was not responding to treatment. He'd made a valiant attempt and it wasn't an easy decision as he was faced with a round trip of 12 hours, but it was the right thing to do.

The remaining members (Robert, Adele, Ron, James and Jim) left Camp 2 at 06:30 and set off up the snow slopes to the rock band below the Makalu La. Here Ron decided to turn back and return to ABC owing to a recurrence of a respiritory problem.

The other team members continued on the long difficult push through the rock band and upper snow slopes until they reached Camp 3 at the Makalu La in the late afternoon. Here they will rest, melt snow for water, eat as much as they can manage and then sleep.

The most difficult decision of the day will have been what clothing to wear. When leaving Camp 2 before the sun has hit the slopes it is bitterly cold and the temptation is to wear full down suits, which are certainly justified. But as soon as the sun rises the temperatures rocket and down is the last thing you want to be encased in! So you need to layer up with removeable clothing, which isn't easy when you've strapped yourself into your harness. Above Camp 3 it will be all Down Suits and below Camp 2 it isn't too cold.

We wish all our friends on Everest good luck with their summit bids tomorrow.

Jeremy Anson

Preparing for summit bid11/May/11

On the way to Camp 2, the rapidly warming temps were evident, frozen lakes we had walked over ice on a few weeks before now real watery lakes, the Korean interium camp at Crampon point turned into a floating house tent.

We started in the cold shade of Makalu, but by 11am are roasting on the ropes leading up past Camp 1, and then put the jackets back on as we traverse the high icy crevasses and arrive in Camp 2 in an afternoon snowstorm.

The next day we hoped to climb up towards Camp 3 at 7400 meters, but during the night the wind picked up and at 5 am our tents were being blasted and buffeted by wind and blowing snow. We hibernated, a challenge at 6,700 meters, brewing, trying to eat, telling stories. Lethargy and nausea preclude much interest, and discipline to eat and drink passes the time. We decided to wait one more day in the hopes of improvement on the next day.

At 5 am we were up again, light just reaching us, but sun still a few hours away. The walk up the snowfield to the ropes, our toes went numb, our fingers were wooden and breathe froze in icy tracks out over our hoods. After a few hours, the rocks loomed and we continued up the ropes, piton to piton. By 10 the rays of sun reached us and we climbed happily up the cliffs, weaving through the yellow, pink, white and speckled granite of Makalu's upper slopes. Climbing up though 7,000 meters, we had a quick snack and slid back down the ropes to Camp 2 for a final night before returning to Base.

We now wait and watch the weather, our daily Swiss weather reports and mix of 5 charts and commentary guiding our next steps. With all camps stocked, our Sherpas are down with us, watching movies, washing clothes and sharpening their ice axes as we prepare for our summit bid.

Robert Anderson

Poised for final acclimatisation climb05/May/11