Ama Dablam Expedition Dispatch

November 1, 2015 – A Winter Storm Created Challenges for the Teams Summit

We are back at the Sherpa Highland Lodge and will move up to our base camp at Ama Dablam for a rest day and puja to bless the expedition. The team has covered a tremendous amount of terrain over the last few days. From Pheriche, we trekked to Dhugla and then to our base camp to climb Lobuche East (19,800 feet). The base camp sits in a large grassy meadow at 16,000 feet and looks out over the peaks of Towache and Cholatse. There is a fresh spring close to the tents and the yaks grazing about complete one of the more picturesque spots in the Everest region. Our plan was to move the next day to a high camp at 17,000 feet and then make a bid for the summit, but sometime during the night, clear skies turned to snow. Only the yaks seemed pleased with the change in weather and snow of the morning. So instead of moving up to high camp, it was a day of coffee and waiting.

The next day the weather stabilized and we climbed to our high camp. The plan was early to bed with a half past two wake-up and a three AM departure. Again, the weather turned and it started snowing sometime in the night. Nobody has ever reached a summit sitting in their tent, so we kept to our plan with the belief that the weather would break at some point. The first 1,500 feet of the climb is typically easy walking and scrambling over rock, and this is difficult enough in the dark and cold, but the weather of the last 24 hours turned this into ice and snow covered rocks. The full Scottish winter mountaineering conditions made passage slow at best. What should take only a few hours to reach the snow slopes to the summit, took the team four hours and we moved well given the terrain and conditions. And still the weather did not break. Given the descent was going to be as involved as the ascent; the decision was made at 18,500 feet to turn back. It never sits well with any climber to turn around from a summit bid, but climbing in control and with the understanding that our true objective is Ama Dablam, made the decision easy.

Once down at our high camp, we packed up quickly and walked through the snow back to our Base camp. From Base camp it was a three hour walk to Pheriche for a quick lunch and then another couple of hours walk to Pangboche for the night. The day included 1,500 feet of elevation gain, 5,500 feet of descent, and close to 13 hours of movement. Three nights of sleeping at 16,000 feet and above, coupled with the experience of climbing over difficult terrain, has made the Lobuche climb invaluable. Given the strength the team exhibited, there is no reason that we won’t show well on AD as long as we stay healthy and have a stable window of weather.