More news from the Himalaya today, where things are developing rapidly at this point in the season. Now that the end of September is in sight, most of the larger commercial squads will be looking to wrap up their expeditions and get ready to go home. With that in mind, many of the teams are currently on the move, with summit bids set to take place over the next few days.
We’ll start with an update from Dhaulagiri, where yesterday Carlos Soria and his team set off for Camp 1 with the hope of making a summit bid over the next few days. But, unfortunately when they reached that point on the mountain they discovered heavy snow from the storm that hit the mountain last week. That fresh snow is very dangerous, as the team dodged several avalanches just on the climb up to C1 alone. It would also make it extremely difficult to break trail, and since they are still recovering form their previous attempt on the summit, they’ve made the choice to pull the plug on the expedition and go home. Carlos and company have already descended back to Base Camp and are now preparing to head home.
Over on Manaslu, the teams are crawling all over the mountain. There is a major summit push underway right now, with a number of teams heading up, including the Summit Climb squad. In their latest dispatch the indicate that at least some of their clients topped out this morning, and are on their way back to Camp 4 for a rest, with plans to descend back to BC tomorrow. No further news is available at this time.
The Adventure Consultants have also posted a new dispatch with word that their entire team is back in Base Camp after a successful acclimatization rotation. Most of the group went as high as Camp 2 and spent a couple of nights there, while a few went up to C3 for a night as well. Yesterday, they dropped back to BC and are now resting and preparing for a summit bid of their own. The forecast will dictate when that will happen, but given that they’ll need a few days to regain their strength, I wouldn’t expect them to set out for the top until this coming weekend at the earliest. By then, most of the other teams should have wrapped up their operations and will be preparing to depart for home, giving them a clear shot to the summit.
While the season does seem to be quickly winding down at this point, there will still be a few climbs to follow throughout the rest of the fall. While the big commercial teams always try to wrap things up early, there will no doubt be a few independent squads to follow along the way. We’ll keep our ears to the ground for those expeditions too, as they are often on the cutting edge in terms of pushing new routes and trying new things.
More to come soon.
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