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Tel: 01273 686811 (Brighton)
01273 461381 (Shoreham-by-Sea)
HUGO HUNT'S HIMALAYAN EXPEDITION
Senior partner, Hugo Hunt returned from an expedition to climb Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth highest mountain, in October. Here he tells of the frustrations that mountaineering can bring, and the successes that can overcome a failure to summit due to excessive snow and avalanche risk.
If all had gone according to plan this report would have been written in triumph – triumph at having made the summit of Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain in the world. But mountaineering is not like that.
It all started quite well. The drive in, through the spectacularly huge landscape of the Tibetan Plateau, was uneventful and in promising conditions. The walk in from Chinese Base Camp too, was in warm sun, and the mountain looked in good condition for an early assault. But during the second week at Advance Base Camp (5,700 metres) unseasonal snow started to fall, and continued, on and off, for eight days. We woke every morning, dreading the darkness in the tent that would signify more overnight snow, but always seeing it. We saw it accumulating on the mountain above us, and we saw the avalanche ravaged NW face, when the clouds permitted it. We also heard of the difficulties the Sherpa’s were having fixing ropes above Camp 2 – a vital exercise if we were to summit in relative safety.
I, and my five team mates and two climbing Sherpas, trudged several times up to Camp 1 to acclimatise and to supply the upper camps. Later, we got to Camp 2 and overnighted there at 7,100 meters, eleven hundred metres short of the summit. But essentially we waited. And waited.
Then the wind came. Huge plumes of spindrift dominated the mountain for three days. So we waited some more.
There had been two attempts to fix the ropes higher up, both of which had ended in avalanche injuring four Sherpas. The next was to be made on 27 September, so, on the 26th, we started our summit push. We got to Camp 1 at 6,400 meters in the early afternoon, and were busy melting snow for drinks and food when the news came in of another avalanche above Camp 3, and another injured Sherpa. Later that evening, he came into camp, walking but supported, with cuts, abrasions and broken ribs.
The snow was said to be chest deep above Camp 3, despite the ravages of the avalanches which we could see across the entire face. A decision was made by the Sherpas next morning that it was too dangerous to carry on fixing. It was the only thing they could do. And that was that. We had a long and hard discussion about the risks of proceeding, but it was never going to be. It would clearly have been foolhardy to continue with the avalanche risk as it was, especially if the safety that fixed ropes provide was absent. It was not an easy decision to make (although had we had any real sense it should have been!), but I have no doubt now it was the right one. All the other teams made the same one (and there were 34 of them) – everyone left. Even Silvio Mondinelli, one of only 21 people who have climbed all fourteen 8000ers without supplementary oxygen, withdrew. Deeply disappointing though it was to have to withdraw after a year of planning, six months of physical training and a tremendous effort to get as far as we did, I have to say that those two facts did make us feel rather better about it.
It was not all disappointment, however, not by a long margin. We did sleep at 7,100 metres, and we did supply camps on the mountain ready for our summit attempt. We also did some ice climbing on the glacier at ABC, and over a serac at 6,700 metres between Camps 1 and 2. We made one or two forays into Nepal (just in) over the Nangpa La – the pass on which the fleeing Tibetans were shot by Chinese soldiers in 2006. And as a team we had a lot of laughter and fun. Physically it was hard - very hard - simply because of the altitude. One gets bored with the sound of one’s own heavy breathing...
Climbing the mountain was not the only goal: a second – equally important – was to raise funds for Future For Nepal, (www.futurefornepal.com), a British Charity that educates and cares for poor Nepali children who would not otherwise get an education. The success of that objective was consolation enough for the disappointment of failing to summit. When all pledges are collected my target of £7,000 will have been exceeded. The generosity of the donors means that one or maybe two children’s education, from six to sixteen, is assured.
When in Kathmandu I visited the two who are now educated from the funds raised by my 2007 Baruntse expedition. Now 12, they are delightful, enthusiastic children, doing well academically in their city boarding school, far from the primitive lives they lead at home in their remote rural villages.
We may not have made the summit. There are never any guarantees in mountaineering, where luck – and bad luck – play major roles in success or failure. But we can be comforted by the fact that it was not as a result of our own failings, and by the fact that we have returned with all our fingers and toes intact, ready to fight another day.
Hugo Hunt
FitzHugh Gates
Senior partner, Hugo Hunt returned from an expedition to climb Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth highest mountain, in October. Here he tells of the frustrations that mountaineering can bring, and the successes that can overcome a failure to summit due to excessive snow and avalanche risk.
If all had gone according to plan this report would have been written in triumph – triumph at having made the summit of Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain in the world. But mountaineering is not like that.
It all started quite well. The drive in, through the spectacularly huge landscape of the Tibetan Plateau, was uneventful and in promising conditions. The walk in from Chinese Base Camp too, was in warm sun, and the mountain looked in good condition for an early assault. But during the second week at Advance Base Camp (5,700 metres) unseasonal snow started to fall, and continued, on and off, for eight days. We woke every morning, dreading the darkness in the tent that would signify more overnight snow, but always seeing it. We saw it accumulating on the mountain above us, and we saw the avalanche ravaged NW face, when the clouds permitted it. We also heard of the difficulties the Sherpa’s were having fixing ropes above Camp 2 – a vital exercise if we were to summit in relative safety.
I, and my five team mates and two climbing Sherpas, trudged several times up to Camp 1 to acclimatise and to supply the upper camps. Later, we got to Camp 2 and overnighted there at 7,100 meters, eleven hundred metres short of the summit. But essentially we waited. And waited.
Then the wind came. Huge plumes of spindrift dominated the mountain for three days. So we waited some more.
There had been two attempts to fix the ropes higher up, both of which had ended in avalanche injuring four Sherpas. The next was to be made on 27 September, so, on the 26th, we started our summit push. We got to Camp 1 at 6,400 meters in the early afternoon, and were busy melting snow for drinks and food when the news came in of another avalanche above Camp 3, and another injured Sherpa. Later that evening, he came into camp, walking but supported, with cuts, abrasions and broken ribs.
The snow was said to be chest deep above Camp 3, despite the ravages of the avalanches which we could see across the entire face. A decision was made by the Sherpas next morning that it was too dangerous to carry on fixing. It was the only thing they could do. And that was that. We had a long and hard discussion about the risks of proceeding, but it was never going to be. It would clearly have been foolhardy to continue with the avalanche risk as it was, especially if the safety that fixed ropes provide was absent. It was not an easy decision to make (although had we had any real sense it should have been!), but I have no doubt now it was the right one. All the other teams made the same one (and there were 34 of them) – everyone left. Even Silvio Mondinelli, one of only 21 people who have climbed all fourteen 8000ers without supplementary oxygen, withdrew. Deeply disappointing though it was to have to withdraw after a year of planning, six months of physical training and a tremendous effort to get as far as we did, I have to say that those two facts did make us feel rather better about it.
It was not all disappointment, however, not by a long margin. We did sleep at 7,100 metres, and we did supply camps on the mountain ready for our summit attempt. We also did some ice climbing on the glacier at ABC, and over a serac at 6,700 metres between Camps 1 and 2. We made one or two forays into Nepal (just in) over the Nangpa La – the pass on which the fleeing Tibetans were shot by Chinese soldiers in 2006. And as a team we had a lot of laughter and fun. Physically it was hard - very hard - simply because of the altitude. One gets bored with the sound of one’s own heavy breathing...
Climbing the mountain was not the only goal: a second – equally important – was to raise funds for Future For Nepal, (www.futurefornepal.com), a British Charity that educates and cares for poor Nepali children who would not otherwise get an education. The success of that objective was consolation enough for the disappointment of failing to summit. When all pledges are collected my target of £7,000 will have been exceeded. The generosity of the donors means that one or maybe two children’s education, from six to sixteen, is assured.
When in Kathmandu I visited the two who are now educated from the funds raised by my 2007 Baruntse expedition. Now 12, they are delightful, enthusiastic children, doing well academically in their city boarding school, far from the primitive lives they lead at home in their remote rural villages.
We may not have made the summit. There are never any guarantees in mountaineering, where luck – and bad luck – play major roles in success or failure. But we can be comforted by the fact that it was not as a result of our own failings, and by the fact that we have returned with all our fingers and toes intact, ready to fight another day.
Hugo Hunt
FitzHugh Gates