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Manaslu 2003 featuring Dan Mazur
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Manaslu, at 8163 meters, is the eighth highest
peak in the world. It is located in the
west-central part of Nepal, and our team will
climb it by the original route. We will be
climbing during the "spring" or " pre-monsoon"
season, when the hazards of weather and snow and
avalanche are traditionally at their lowest. Dan
Mazur Jeff
Justman will be co-leading this expedition, his
reports are here. |
Dispatch 4/21/2003: Well, today was an eventful day,
with quite a few weather changes throughout the day.
It started out snowing very hard in the morning, and
then became hot and was still snowing, then in the
late afternoon the weather cleared 90% and we were
able to see the mountain and surrounding environs
clearly for the first time since yesterday morning.
Repairs to our basecamp are complete and we faired
pretty well overall, only losing a few tents in two
night's ago's storm. Only a few tents and our
equipment storage tents were knocked down. A few of
the basecamp tents suffered from destroyed fly-sheets,
and we definitively are going to need some more tents
for next year's Spring Everest expedition.
Right
now, six members are perched in Camp 1, awaiting
tomorrow's weather outcome, in order to see if they
will be able to climb up to and establish camp 2.
Those six members are: Scott Darsney, Shane Edmonds,
Arnold Coster, Will Seelye, Jeff Justman, and Bruce
Gierszal.
4 of
our top class Sherpas were feeling at their limit with
the weather at about 2:00 pm and made their own
decision to come back to basecamp in order to conserve
cooking fuel and food. Of course, as soon as they
arrived, the weather began to clear. Those four very
strong Sherpas will be able to climb quickly to camp 1
in the morning and catch-up with the members. The
Sherpas
are:
Lakpa Sherpa, Galu Sherpa, Tenzing Sherpa, and Dorje
Tamang. They have been very strong and have worked
constantly to build camps and fix rope with the
members steadily through the expedition.
Four
of us are resting now in basecamp, after climbing to
camp 1 and staying two nights. On our full-day in camp
one, we broke trail through deep snow along the fixed
lines toward camp 2, and then turned around after five
hours of hard going. These four are: Clay Clarke,
Taylor Gordon, Bill Stevenson, and Daniel Mazur.
During our rest we have been eating drinking, and
playing cards and scrabble. Bill has been amusing us
all by doing lots of alpine-touring and ski-randonee
on the hills around basecamp. Several times he has
skied up to camp 1 and back down. Its a real
inspiration to watch him carving beautiful turns in
the powder snow on the rolling hills around here.
Our
basecamp staff have really been sterling, working hard
and giving there utmost in return for fair wages and
excellent working conditions provided by us:
Kaji
Tamang: Sirdar (basecamp manager). His 7th year with
us. We are putting Kaji's three children through
school. Krishna Lama: Chief Cook, the best in the
business. Dawa Ghale: all rounder, cook boy, camp 1
porter, always smiling. Lakpa Tamang: a new staff
member and cook boy, very strong and eager to make
progress. Jay Bahadur: an old hand in the kitchen and
solid as a rock. Dendi Sherpa. A buddhist Lama we met
last year, one of the most reliable people we have
ever met. Phurba Sherpa: Dendi's brother in law,
always helpful and poilte. Saila Tamang: An amazing
dessert cook, makes a very lite pastry. Karma Dhunche:
A local guy we hired in Sama to stay politically
correct with the local people. Lakpa from Sama:
Another local guy we hired to be nice to the locals.
We
are sharing basecamp with a few national teams,
including a Polish group, a Slovenian group, and a
Dutch group. They all seem to be very nice and
friendly, and its amazing to share our love of
mountains with other keen climbers from around the
world.
Well,
we hope the weather brings us some good news tomorrow,
as we are growing a bit weary of the steady snow fall
here. Thanks for following our expedition, and we look
forward to sharing further news of Manaslu. Yours
Sincerely, from the team and Daniel Mazur and all of
us at SummitClimb.com
PS.
And a special thanks to EverestNews.com for all of
their fantastic hard work in keeping us all informed
about mountain climbing!
Here
is a message from three of our team members, Bill
Stephensson, Clay Clarke, and Taylor Gordon.
Bill:
It snows everyday, which is great for skiing around
Base Camp.
Clay:
Yea, you were making some great turns up there above
Base Camp earlier. The Sherpas were fascinated and
really thought you were the man ;) -they were timing
your runs. It would be great if we could teach these
guys to ski. But then they would just be kicking our
asses in one more way in the mountains.
Taylor: I think skiing around Base Camp is freakin
cool -hello to all those back in Breckenridge.
Remember Bubba Gump Shrimp Company!!!!
Bill:
Things are so much better now that Selma Hayek has
joined the expedition in a support role -the cook
staff now has a picture of her in the Base Camp cook
tent! The food seems to have improved somewhat....
Clay:
She seems to be making the rounds around Base Camp.
Taylor: Selma's hot.
Clay:
This dispatch was suppose to be about Bill's high
altitude skiing -but Selma is a lot more interesting.
Hey
EverestNews.com, Thanks for letting us
"tell-it-how-it-is" here in basecamp!
Dispatch 4/22/2003: Arnold Coster wants to tell a
little story in Dutch. Hope that is ok.... Here it is:
Hier een bericht van Arnold, voordat we naar kamp 1
gingen om een toppoging te wagen is de hel losgebroken
in het basiskamp. Het heeft als een gek gewaaid, wij
hebben 4 tenten verloren die nacht en bij een het
Sloveense team zijn mensen met tent en al weggewaaid.
Bij alle expedities zijn de eettenten en kooktenten
wegewaaid. De volgende dag zijn we toch naar kamp 1
gegaan, voor de toppoging. We dachten dat het weer
niet slechter kon worden. We hebben twee dagen in kamp
1 gezeten ,maar het heeft alleen maar gesneeuwd. Er
liggen nu meters sneeuw op de berg, dus we zijn weer
terug naar het bassiskamp gegaan. We blijven hier nu
een paar dagen totdat het lawine gevaar weer wat
minder is en dan gaan we het nog een keer proberen.
Alles gaat prima met mij, ik voel me goed
geaclimatiseerd. Als het weer einderlijk mee gaat
zitten is er een goede kans dat ik de top haal denk ik
! Ik heb trouwens concurentie gekregen van een
Nederlands team, die de eerste ned. beklimming willen
doen. Er is dus wat spanning tussen onze exp. en die
van hun. We zien wel wat er gebeurd. Ik ben in het
voordeel, want ik ben al 3 weken langer op de berg.
Maar als het weer zo slecht blijft is er een kans dat
ze met hun aclimatiesatie schema inlopen op mij, omdat
ik op het juiste weer moet wachten om hoger de berg op
te gaan. Tot het volgende bericht !
Now
Will Seelye and Bruce Gierszal want to speak up:
First of all, We love Arnold. All is well, we received
a meter of snow at camp one over the last 24 hrs. We
just came back from there....Our team (Jeff, Shane,
Arnold, Bruce, Scott, and Wilber) decided to return to
basecamp and let conditions settle. In a few days we
will return to camp one and continue to the higher
camps. Spirits are high and we are looking forward to
getting past camp two. The Sherpas did a fine job
putting basecamp back together after the storms during
the past 48 hrs, lots of sewing and plenty of duct
tape. During the storm one of the Slovenian tents
(occupied) slid down the hill and ended up in our
camp. Also during the storm Bruce had a "Disneyland"
ride in his tent, we were not sure if the screams were
excitement or terror, but Bruce now has a new tent. It
took the Polish team half the day to find their cook
tent. Thanks to the Dutch Expedition, they replaced
some of the fixed line to camp one. Zoot-Zoot for now,
Wilber and Bruce
Thanks EverestNews.com, for putting up with us, and
letting us tell our story how it is. Thanks for all of
your hard work from SummitClimb.com !!!
 Dispatches
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