Himalaya Spring 2009 Update: News From All Over!

As we sit on the edge of May, you can feel that we’re also on the edge of lots of activity in the Himalaya. Teams are moving up and down Everest, making their last acclimatization runs, and the Sherpas are busy working on the final fixed lines, laying the ground work for plenty of action to come in just a few short weeks.

ExWeb starts the updates off today with the news that the Lhotse-Everest Traverse Team are on the move and expect to spend the night in C3 today before carrying the last of their supplies to C4 tomorrow. They’ll spend the night there, then descend one final time. From there, they’ll make a go at it on the next weather window, with the plan that they’ll summit Lhotse, then trek across the ridge to Everest, where they’ll top out one final time, before descending back down the mountain. This one should be fun to watch.

On Everest’s South Side there is poor weather in the forecast, with snow expected tomorrow, which may strand a few teams in BC before making their next rotation up the mountain. Most are on their way to Camp 3 for the acclimatization process, where they’ll spend the night before one final hike back down the South Col. From there, it’ll just be a matter of resting up, and watching the weather.

The North Side is facing it’s own set of issues, as more teams are arriving on the mountain, but suffering from acclimatization issues of their own. Thanks to the fancy new road that was built to base camp for the Olympic Torch Team last year, teams are arriving faster than ever, but are also finding themselves ill equipped to deal with the altitude and finding themselves out of breath when they do get there. At least one team has gone back down the mountain to regroup already as well.

In other parts of the Himalaya, teams are preparing to make their bids. On Kangchenjunga for instance, Edurne Pasaban has gone up to Camp 3 and cached supplies, while other teams have moved up as well. On Makalu, a large Korean team is building the high camps and fixing the lines, while a lone female team member stays in BC, and awaits her shot at going up. Over on Dhaulagiri there have been rumors of a summit push going on now, but there have been no confirmations of this or word of successful summits just yet, while the word from Cho Oyu is that BC is quiet with relatively few teams there this season.

Finally, our friends on Baruntse, who are attempting to climb a new route, then make the first descent on skis checked in with CNN again yesterday. Check out the video below.

Embedded video from CNN Video

Kraig Becker

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