EverestNews.com will
feature full dispatches from Jagged Globe in Spring 2000. This year's expedition
will be lead by Australian guide, Andrew Lock (having been on two previous
Everest expeditions and reached the Summit
of K2), supported by Tim Bird. Tim has led expeditions for Jagged
Globe for many years including successful trips to Elbrus, Stok Kangri, Mera and
Island Peak, Aconcagua and Gasherbrum II. A highly regarded professional
instructor (MIC), Tim directs their Scottish Winter Courses, and provides their
UK technical support for training and advice to all their group expeditions
licensed through the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority. They are using
the same Sherpa team as last year. This is another
international team, comprising: Jack Culley (UK), Joe Wolf (USA), Jeff
Magee (UK), David Spencer (UK), Timothy Gregg (USA), Paul
Giorgio (USA).
Dispatch: The
Jagged Globe team is now back from its second foray onto the mountain. Most
members were able to complete the load carry to the site of camp two and drop a
small amount of equipment to be used later on the climb. It
is with sadness that we have had to say goodbye to Curt Peterson,
an expedition member from the USA who retired from the climb yesterday the 17
April due to an ankle injury. After
taking advice from the base camp doctor and
the expedition leadership, Curt decided that his injury would not have time to
heal during the expedition. If all goes well, he should be home with his family
in approximately one week from leaving BC.
The rest of the crew
is now resting and recuperating in BC for three days (17 19) before our
next and final acclimatisation climb. We plan to leave BC early on the 20 April
for camp one, then two nights at Advanced Base Camp (camp two ABC) where we have
a simple mess / cook tent facility at 6400m. Then onto the Lhotse face and up to
camp three at 7300m, a precarious camp cut out of the ice face! This is not a
camp to hang around in, and our next visit here will be on the summit attempt in
May. On this trip we will spend one night at camp three, getting up early to
descend to BC for breakfast at ABC / camp two.
This last planed phase
of acclimatisation will lead us into a longer period of rest at BC and most
probably at lower elevations before our summit bid in May. The team is preparing
for the next stage of the climb and sends love and best wishes to our family and
friends. Our next report will be during the next rest at BC, on approximately
the 27 April.
Tim Bird Deputy
Expedition Leader
A lone climber from
Canada is attempting the Summit from the South Side. His name is Jeffrey Warden, and he is from
Winnipeg Canada. Below is a picture of him:
| The signs on the one
read: CONGRATULATIONS YOU ARE NOW AT UHURU PEAK, TANZANIA, 5895M. AMSL AFRICA'S HIGHEST
POINT WORLD'S HIGHEST FREE-STANDING MOUNTAIN ONE OF WORLD'S LARGEST VOLCANOES WELCOME |
 |
Click on the his picture for a much
larger size...
Update:
Jeff is presently at Camp
2 and in good health. His team is excellent and all are very experienced
climbers. The weather is great and his summit attempt day will be either May 05
or 06. He does have a website now, so please have a look at it and
encourage others to do the same. The web address is: www.pangeaextreme.homestead.com.
Sarah Winnipeg, MB
Dispatch:
Everest
Base Camp Sunday 16th April 2000
Last night the team
had a fantastic meal - Sherpa Stew - and spent the evening listening to the
Corrs, drinking whisky and chatting. Lots of time is spent just doing nothing,
acclimatizing and resting. It can get a bit boring, but obviously our minds are
on going up to Camp 2 in the next few days and hopefully up to Camp 3. Now that
the Lhotse Face has more or less been fixed with rope, we can make the move. We
have heard that the Face is quite icy - not what we want ! What we want is about
a foot of snow in which we can make nice big bucket steps ! There has been a lot
of snowfall recently, which may or may not play in our favor. The last thing we
want is to be breaking trail through thigh deep snow at 20,000'+ !!
To recap
our position - we've got most of our personal gear (North Face sleeping bags and
down suits, one-piece wind suits, mitts and clothing for up high, Thermarests)
all in one tent at Camp One.
At Camp
Two we now have all of our tents for the rest of the mountain, the North Face 2
meter Dome 2 which will be our main living quarters, all of the fresh food and
Wayfarer mountain boil-in-the-bag food, all of the gas, stoves, radios,
batteries and hardware for the rest of the mountain. All of it is buried under
rocks at the moment to protect it from the elements and the birds; from Tuesday,
the Camp will start to become habitable ( tents up and so on ).
The 400
meters of polyprop rope which I bought has been added to a few other teams
donations, and the Lhotse Face has been fixed to within 200 meters of Camp 3 at
around 23,500'. Bad weather has prevented the last bit being fixed but we are
expecting it to be ready by Wednesday.
A word
about our communication system on the mountain - it is a critical part of our movements on the
hill. Noel Bristow is well-known in the mountaineering/expedition world as one
of the best in the business (Makalu '92, Everest '93). He has linked our two
Base Camp 32W solar panels to a bank of gel batteries which power all our
laptops, sat phones, VHF radios and the music system ! We then have our handheld
radios for each person and these are powered by flexible solar panels and gel
batteries at each of the high camps. Sounds simple but Noel has hand-built all
the control boxes himself.
A little
bit about our equipment - for trips up to Camp 2 we are wearing full thermals, polartec
midlayer, North Face fleeces, gloves and mitts, fleece hats, Rab one-piece wind
suits if necessary, woolen socks and Everest One Sport boots. We all wear a
harness with a jumar and a cows tail for clipping on when crossing crevasses and
going through the Icefall. We use a combination of sticks for balance and a
standard ice axe for some of the steeper sections. Our specialist high altitude
kit is The North Face and Rab (tents - VE25's and Evolution 45's, one-piece down
suits, wind suits). Plus of course the oxygen from Zvesda in Moscow.
So
everyone is really looking forward to making a move next week, since it can get
a bit wearing just sitting here. It basically takes a month before our bodies
are ready in terms of acclimatisation, so we are nearing our optimum time for
making a summit bid.
Thanks to
everyone for their support and best greetings from Everest. We'll keep you
posted on our progress.
Best
regards
Dispatch:
Everest Base Camp 17th April 2000
It is
very cold tonight and we are preparing to leave Base Camp tomorrow morning very
early to go to Camp One, then onto Camp 2 and hopefully up to Camp 3 over the
following 5 days. Radios have been charged, films changed in cameras, kit
checked, boots tried on again and loads of liquid imbibed (not whisky this time
! ).
There is
a lot of movement on the mountain now with teams making their first forays up to
Camp One. Yesterday unfortunately one of the ladders spanning a crevasse
collapsed with one of our Sherpas on it. He was clipped into a safety line but
was still left dangling some 25' down into the crevasse. Thankfully he was not
hurt, but it shows the fragility of the Icefall route. Later that day one of the
ice cliffs with a number of vertical ladders attached to it actually moved and
all the ladders came away. A number of avalanches in the Icefall last night have
rendered some of the crossings a bit delicate - we'll find out tomorrow !
We're
still doing fine. The Lhotse Face has now been fixed to above Camp 3 and we are
hoping to take a trip up there on Thursday. Wish us luck and thank you for all
your support.
EverestNews.com will
follow the attempt on Annapurna of the "International Annapurna 2000
Expedition": We think
you will find these daily reports very interesting. Go to their site for the
pictures and dispatches in Spanish. Their
web site: www.interofer.es/annapurna2000
with reports in Spanish, Pictures and more !
Update:
4/17/2000
Title:
Everyone
in very high spirits
Weather:
Snowy and Clear
Location
of Expedition: At base camp with hopes for favorable conditions to climb
until camp II at 6000 meters.
Next
Objective: Patience, much patience.
Dispatch:
"Patience, much
patience is what we must have." Is what Dr Josep Pujante Antoni explained
from base camp at 4180 meters of altitude via sat phone. The intense snow
and cold has forced a gathering of all the expedition members in their tents
at base camp. This includes the last of the Sherpa climbers who finally
arrived today. The third
and final expedition attempting Annapurna this spring is supposed to arrive
tomorrow at base camp. It is a French-Nepali military expedition.
The camp will then be abuzz with discussions of the weather and the climb to
the summit. During the day, the expedition member's
relaxation is only broken when it is necessary to remove snow from the
tents. Additionally, the expedition anxiously awaits chairs, which are
supposed to arrive tomorrow. Letters, music, reading, games, and
talking to fellow travelers in the long hours is what is happening to
pass the slow time.
EverestNews.com has added
a Spring 2000 Annapurna Page where EverestNews.com
will report News on this
expedition and other
Annapurna News.
I receive a call from
Franηois on morning April 17. The cook Bam Badour is going much better. During
the day, April 17, he had started to slowly work again. I will have more details
when Jean-Pierre Danvoye and trekkers will be back in Montreal on April
23.
Dominic Danvoye,
Everest Millenium electronic's communication responsible and Montreal's based
contact. Prιsident AZUR Informatique Inc.
Check
them out at http://www.everestmillenium.qc.ca/jdb.asp
for reports in French, video and more.
Everest North Side:
- German Austrian
Scientific Expedition: Chomolungma by
fair means without oxygen.
In the German/Austrian
tradition these climbers will attempt Everest from the North without oxygen and
by fair means. The climbers are Bastel Haller, Gustav Weinberger, Dr, Jurgen
Zapf, Barbara Hirschbichler, Rudi Roozen, Georg Simair, and Mag. Thomas Lammie.
Bastel has arranged communications to send some limited reports from Everest to
EverestNews.com.
Update: After
having spent the last week in March at 4000 m in the Valais Alps skiing and acclimatizing,
we flew to Nepal on March 29. After two days here we flew to Lukla, trekking to Everest
Base Camp climbing and Kala Patar and three days later Island Peak for further acclimatization.
The Scientific Part of our trip was to check the blood saturation ( O2)
during our climb under stress and at rest, we compared ours to "regular
trekkers" and obviously our blood gases were well adapted to the height, profiting
from our stay at the altitude back home in the Alps, although is was more than a
week to be back at altitude again.
The other research
part is done by our doctor Juergen Zapf who is watching (and weighing) our nutrition
food and beverages have to be weighed because he wants to find our whether you eat
more (how much more) or less at attitude, more fat or carbos, and or whether
this has any effect on our acclimatization.
So far so good, everybody
is fine and we are looking forward to experiencing Everest.
Let's keep in
touch
Bastel
Haller
- Everest Spring 2000:
Adventure Consultants Featured Expedition on EverestNews.com
EverestNews.com will
feature full dispatches from Adventure
Consultants in Spring 2000.
Adventure Consultants
is a world renowned expedition climbing company with a legacy of ascents to the
more remote and wild peaks on our planet. Quality service, complete commitment
and success are the hallmarks of Adventure Consultants, as are Guy
Cotter and the qualified
guides and staff who are the driving force behind Adventure Consultants
expeditions. http://www.adventure.co.nz
Dispatch:
4/17/2000 Movement of the AC Team
