We’re getting various reports from around the Interwebs today on events taking place on Everest and in the Himalaya as a whole. Early word is that the Chinese team left BC for the summit, but may have called off their summit attempt, but first news from Dhaulagiri.
ExWeb is reporting that conditions on Dhaulagiri are good and that more than 25 climbers are approaching C3 today as they move into position to make a mass attempt on the summit by the end of the week. Camp 3 is just 850m from the summit, but not all the lines above that point are fixed yet, so there is still some work to be done.
Over on Annapurna they’re playing the waiting game as Inaki Ochoa has posted in his latest dispatches. The weather has not been favorable in the past few days, but everyone is hopeful that things will changes soon. Inaki’s team is climbing the massive South Face, which he claims to have found a safe route up.
The big news of the day is the continuing reports on what’s happening on Everest. Yesterday I reported that Everest News had spread the word that the Chinese summit push had begun and that they may already have been high on the mountain. But today they are saying that they have only just left Base Camp, which would put the summit a few days off yet at best, but on the schedule of May 3rd, which has been forecasted to be the start of a weather window.
However, the ExWeb article indicates that Reuters journalist Nick Mulvenney has indicated to them that the summit bid has been postponed due to high winds and that “It’s certainly not possible in the next three days because there is wind above 30 m/s (108 km/h) “. If true, that means they won’t start up the mountain until after May 2nd, making a May 3rd summit out of the question. Furthermore, if there are any delays beyond that, the May 10th deadline begins to look less and less likely of being reached as well. The Adventurist put it best when he said: “May 10th lingers on the horizon”.
May 10th doesn’t indeed begin to loom large. There is no reason to panic just yet, as it is still ten days away, and a lot can happen in that time. But if the May 3rd and 6th weather windows fail to materialize, than things are going to get really hairy. South Side climbers try to wait (not-so?) patiently for their turn, but how long can they be expected to bide their time? This whole thing is a fiasco waiting to happen, just so the Chinese can get some P.R. from standing on top of Everest with and overblown Bic lighter.
Stay tuned!
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There actually were reports that a few on the Chinese Expedition had reached 8,300 meters. I think the idea was to get a team up high–then the torch left basecamp. Somewhere along the route, I think the torch (torches, as I will be posting on in a second)would be handed off to the more experienced climbers for the final summit push. I still think they are going to have problems with that flame, especially if the winds continue at 50 knots or more as they have over the past weeks. China is prepared for that as well..
I was thinking the exact same thing about the Torch. That it was going to be tough as hell to keep it lit in those winds.
They’d better top out before May 10th though, or it’s going to get really interesting in a bad kind of way.