Victor Saunders's Weblog

1 August 2007 Carstensz Pyramid. The Seventh Summit.

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:48:52 +0000

At 3am on 3 August Sam, Dave and Wim (the usual suspects) plus myself and Kees t Hooft arrived at our base camp at c.4200m, Papua.

17 May 2007... Summit Day!

Tue, 29 May 2007 15:58:48 +0000

On 13 May we had gained sufficient support from the conflicting weather reports to hope the weather would turn good. It was looking like the winds would drop by the 17th. But they were predicted to rise again on 19th. Willie Benegas was planning to fix the remaining ropes from the Balcony to the summit on the night of the 16th. We left base at 0430hrs

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

Tue, 08 May 2007 00:34:15 +0000

Fate is perverse. There is no doubt about that.

After Guy Cotter's letter about the ice fall (see previous blog), the Ministry of Tourism instructed the SPCC to employ more ice fall doctors.
The SPCC sent one more fairly soon after the instruction. People said it was still difficult to see where the accumulated ice fall fees were going. I think they suffered from a lack of imagination. So, the ice fall is going to be safer. A bit.

Khumbu Ice Fall

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 12:36:03 +0000

A few days ago Guy Cotter (Adventure Consultants) wrote a letter complaining about the state of the fixed ropes in the Khumbu Ice-Fall.
He used the word "dire" several times and most of the expedition leaders including this one agreed with him. To understand what the fuss is all about it is worth looking a little at the history of this part of the route.

Kathmandu; 31 April 2007

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 10:08:40 +0000

I am back in Kathmandu for the start of the 2007 Everest season. We will be the same team as for Cho Oyu last autumn, with the addition of James. Sam, Dave, Doug and Wim arrive tomorrow and the next day. We will be six in all, plus of course, our especially wonderful sherpas.

Cho Oyu 10 October 2006

Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:56:10 +0000

It has been a long time since the last blog, and a lot has happened in between. The last piece left us in Shigatse six weeks ago, en route to the road head camp for Cho Oyu. Our little team of five (including me) had joined up with friends for the shared base camp. I won't list them all here, we were fifteen in all, of which five were medics. Three of the medics were British 30-somethings, part of the "lost tribe". This is apparently the official term for those who have fallen through a strange gap in the NHS career scheme. They were educated in the old training scheme but cannot get further without the new scheme, which began after they had passed through the old sytem, and which of course they have now missed. I seem to remember in my day this was called 'catch 22'. There were also several teams led or guided by friends; Adventure Consultants with Luis, AAI and Vern, a team of 20 doctors with Johhny Morgan and many others.

Shigatse 2 september 2006

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 15:48:16 +0000

Shigatse Temple, our third Tibetan temple in two days, is a magnificent sprawling edifice with one huge Buddha. The man next to me whispered to himself "The bigger the Buddha the better" and caused a small ripple of chuckles. I guess the statue was twenty or thirty feet tall. It was cool and smelled of yak butter candles in the dimly lit great hall.

Trango 25 August 2006

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 04:01:03 +0000

The gathering of the clans has begun. One by one they will appear here in Kathmandu. Friends and familiar faces. First the Sherpas; in town I run into Zangmu and his family, then Ang Nuru, Thundu, Kame, and Gurmin all from the same village in Khumbu. There are Sherpas half recognized from other expeditions. They have all turned up in town to collect and pack expedition supplies. And now, after the work is done the members arrive, that’s us. This is the gathering of those who soon will be climbing in the 2006 post monsoon season.

30 May 2006 Kathmandu

Tue, 30 May 2006 16:39:21 +0000

We met them three times in all. The first time was on 7 May under the Lhotse Face during our third cyle of acclimatization.

Everest Basecamp

Mon, 22 May 2006 07:01:47 +0000

We reached the summit of Everest at 1100.hrs on 19 May 2006. Seven members and seven Sherpas of the AC team all stood on the summit.

Pheriche

Sat, 13 May 2006 06:10:53 +0000

Two days a go we completed our third cycle of acclimatization. The team (now nine of us) have slept at camp three on the Lhotse Face and have descended to Pheriche to rest.

29 April 2006. Return from Camp 2

Sat, 29 Apr 2006 17:26:10 +0000

Here in the Khumbu the last ten days have seen snow storms, tragedy and dogged progress. Above Base Camp, our route the so-called the 1953 route (all but the last 200m of which had been climbed in 1952) takes the alarming Khumbu Ice Fall directly, which is the gate way to the fabulous Western Cwm.

14 April 2006. Puja at Base camp.

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 14:59:15 +0000

We had Adventure Consultants team Puja today. This is a Buddhist prayer ceremony to ask the gods to look kindly on our attempt to clamber all over the holy mountain. Pujas take several hours to pass.

31 March 2006 Kathmandu...Lost in Translation.

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 10:30:02 +0000

It is quite a privilege to be working for Adventure Consultants, a small company operating out of New Zealand, and a world leader in the field of Adventure Mountaineering. (www.aventureconsultants.co.nz)

12 March 2006, Irony

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 15:24:57 +0000

"It's irony Baldrick, do you know what irony is?