Goodbye to Chamlang
SAFELY BACK IN KATHMANDU, nearing the end of the expedition. Kathmandu is filled with colored lights, music and firecrackers for the Dewali Hindu Festival, also known as the Festival of Lights.
We still have a few local formalities to complete with the Ministry of Tourism and with a representative of the Himalayan Database. We uneventfully trekked from BC to the Lukla airstrip, leaving our staff behind to sort out the porters and gear. Our equipment is still somewhere between BC and Kathmandu, and will hopefully arrive before our departure.
We have maintained our health (mostly) throughout the expedition, except for some minor frostbite on one of Theo’s fingers. The summit was not achieved. Even so, the expedition overall produced successes; especially in its exploration of the upper East Hongu Glacier, gaining the 6300m headwall and accessing Chamlang Glacier from the west.
This is all despite difficulties faced by the expedition. These included delays in equipment arriving in BC, time spent reconnoitring for a suitable BC, the descent face being out of condition (possibly seasonally), unseasonally heavy snow and increasingly severe gales as we gained altitude.
Trek to high camp, 5800 m
We look forward to sharing our stories in more detail on our return.
We would like to thank and acknowledge the support of the following;
* Sponsors – Australian Geographic Society, The North Face, W.L.Gore (Shipton/Tilman Grant), Dael Perlov of Lifestyle Communities.
* Staff – Nepal Sanctuary Treks, Dan Bahadur (cook/BC manager), Neema Tamang (assistant) and our team of porters
* Our trekking group that guided and joined us on the journey to BC.
Finally, we would like to respectfully acknowledge the sudden passing of porter Bhes Bahadur Rai while with the trekkers on their return from BC.
Stuart and Theo.
