Dan Mazur's Kangchenjunga Spring 2002

21 May Dispatch: The weather blew hard through the night and covered camp 2, lying in a protected spot, with spindrift. By morning the tough Ozark tents were nearly covered, except for the last 20 centimeters. Galu and Dan and Jangbu awoke at 7:00 am and descended to basecamp, the others, tired from the yesterday's rescue, decided to take a rest day. Galu was fine upon reaching basecamp, four hours before Dan and Jangbu. The glacier had greatly changed below camp 2, with massive new crevasse opening, especially on the 6000 meter plateau.

22 May Dispatch: Mike and Paul and Chris and Stu climbed through the rockband, to camp at camp 4. Malte rested at camp 2, deciding he would wait for Ivan and Julio and Felix's next attempt on the summit. The rest of the team rested in basecamp. 

23 May Dispatch: Chris and Stu climbed up to camp 5 and then picked up a tent and kept going to the base of the croissant, just below 8000 meters, they shoveled a small platform, put up the tent and got in it, waiting for their early morning summit bid. They called it "camp 6". Mike and Paul walked up to and went to sleep at camp 5. Felix and Julio and Ivan left basecamp early in the morning and made it to camp 2 to sleep for the night. Malte waited for them at camp 2. Everyone else rested in base. The weather was mixed: wind, clouds, snow, and sun.

May 24: Mr. Christopher Hugh Grasswick (1962), climber from Cold Lake, Canada, one of the members of American Kanchenjunga Expedition, slipped from 8400 meter & died while he was descending with Mr. Stuart Alexander Findlay (1961) Ropes Access Technician from Edinburgh Seq., UK., after their successful ascent of 8586 meter high Mt. Kanchenjunga Main on 24th May at around 4 PM. 

Mr. Christopher Hugh Grasswick was one of the members of 12 member American Kanchenjunga Expedition team, which was permitted to climb 8586 - meter high Mt. Kanchenjunga from North Face under the leadership of Mr. Daniel Mazur (1960), Doctor from Seattle, Washington, USA during the Spring Season of 2002. 

Compiled by office of Bikrum Pandey for EverestNews.com    5/27/02

NOTE: We have not received an UPDATE from Dan since May 23rd.

PS. We are presently in east Nepal, climbing the world's third highest peak, "Kangchenjunga". The name means "The Five Treasures of the Snow God" and the mountain is indeed a treasure in itself. You may wish to follow the daily progress of our expedition at: http://www.everestnews.com/kang2002.htm  We try to update this website each week, with reports of what happened to each member, on a particular day. 

Thank you very much. Cheers for now. Yours
Sincerely, Daniel Mazur from http://www.SummitClimb.com

Please join us in watching the "live-update" status of 2002 climbing expeditions to Nepal and Tibet on: http://www.everestnews.com/kang2002.htm