The South Face of Nuptse Autumn 2003 Update 4

Valera Babanov reports from Nuptse base camp: Oct 11th, 2003 During our last break-out we completed work at the tower. However, dirty weather prevented us from realizing our plans and pitching the highest camp at 7000 m. Tomorrow (October 12) we’ll go off again and we still hope to fix the camp. Weather is fine now. We are safe and sound and if we do everything tomorrow, we’ll attempt a summit during our next getting out.

Americans are going out tomorrow too. They are still at 6000 m (British route). Our kindest regards to all who think of us!"

P.S. Just now a support team (friends of Valera and mine) from Switzerland is approaching the base camp. Valera asked them to `keep connection alive’ during the final bid. They’ll have radios and will keep us informed too. So we hope to get cool news after the team takes-off, but not to wait several days as it was last time.

Oct 6th, 2003 Greetings to all!

Yesterday we retuned to our base camp after a 4-day breakout. We’ve pitched an advanced camp at 6200 m and reached 6450 m altitude. Most of the tower is climbed already -– not so bad for the beginning.

All these days weather was merciful to us. Our next outgo is planned for October 8 and it should take about 4-5 days. We hope to complete our work at the tower and to climb up to 6900-7000 m. It is important for our acclimatization.  

Each day the sun changes shape of the South Face. Snow transforms from pasty to powder and both of the states are not very exciting. Our American colleagues Fabriccio and Billy face the similar problem on their British route now. 

Today I visited nearby Chukung village where I bought some more rope and snow stakes for belaying. Our base camp was examined by Namche Bazaar eco-inspectors today. It was Ok with environment so there were no claims to us. That’s how we live here.

Our best regards, Valera and Yura.
The South Face of Nuptse, base camp

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