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Adventure
Consultants Cho Oyu Expedition 2001
Wednesday
3 Oct - Summit Attempt on Cho Oyu
The
Adventure Consultants climbers have returned to Cho
Oyu Base Camp without the summit being reached, but
not for lack of trying! By Sunday 30 Sept they had
moved up to Camp III (7500m) in preparation for their
summit attempt the following day. They set out very
early in the morning on Oct 1 in windy and snowy
conditions, and climbed until they reached the rock
band at 7700m. The weather began to deteriorate
further so a decision was made to turn around and
retreat to Camp III.
After
waiting most of the day at 7500m on Oct 1 for the
weather to improve they made a collective decision to
descend, since by all reports the weather was getting
worse and it was now snowing at Base Camp also, and
snowing heavily on the upper mountain. Camp III was
broken down and they retreated off the mountain
arriving back at BC on Oct 2. All up they spent over
24 hours at Camp III height, using oxygen for
sleeping, so physical reserves have been sapped and
another attempt is not possible. This season on Cho
Oyu the weather had been reasonably good up until this
point. The AC climbers have accepted the fact that the
weather has not been on their side on this occasion,
even with a very flexible itinerary, and they are now
packing up BC to prepare for the overland journey back
to Kathmandu. The yaks have been ordered for Oct 4th
and hope to be back in Kathmandu by Oct 6th.
