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6th highest peak in the world, 8.201m, Tibet/Népal
| The team : |
5 Climbers : Jan Anderson (Australia), Kevin Cubitt (UK), Scott Curtis (Australia),
Philip Varcas (UK), Sébastien Glorie (Belgium);
2 guides : Luis Benitez (USA), Paul Rogers (NZ);
6 sherpas : Ang tshering, Chuldim Sankay Dorje, Pasang Bhote, Sangay, Lhakpa
and Chongba.
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| Climbed with : |
Adventure Consultants.
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| Duration, period : |
5 weeks, September 2006
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Summiters :
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1 climber, 1 guide and 4 sherpas
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| Route : |
Tibet |
| Advice : |
Go with Adventure Consultants ! |
Should I stay or should I go?
I could not summit Aconcagua nor Denali. Perhaps I was not fit for this extreme sport. Should I stop climbing, should I quit the extreme cold, should I retire from the most beautiful places on earth? Climbing is like a drug that always brings you higher, abandoning was not a option, I just wanted to keep walking up. I decided to keep faith in my passion and left for the sixth summit of the world: Cho Oyu, "Turquoise Goddess" in Tibetan.
On september 1st 2007, the team met in Kathmandu and the next day we flew to Lhasa. It took us more than a week to reach Base Camp, called advanced base camp (ABC). At 5.600m it is the highest BC of all the 8K peaks.
Little by little, ABC became our comfortable home for the next 4 weeks. Above base camp, there are 3 altitude camps that we would have to reach one after the other with rest days at ABC between each advance.
Difficult climb betyween C1 & C2, two members resign.
During the long and tough walk between camp one (6.500m) and camp two (7.200m), two members of the expedition decided to go back to ABC. They were out of juice and didn't have enough strengh to keep walking. It's always hard to recognize that you are over. Going down means the end of the expedition for you. For the other members, seeing two friends going back was also a hard moment that we had to quickly brush aside if we wanted to be able to keep walking. There is no competition between us and the summit is big enough for all of us. On the mountain we form a kind of family where we try to help each other in the tough moments we have. The rest of the team (3 climbers and 1 guide) reached camp 2 around 6pm.
A heavy snow storm stuck the team at ABC:
Back at ABC, we were now fully acclimatized and ready for the summit push. The plan was to take two rest days in our luxury base camp and then head back to camp one, sleep one night; get through the difficult and exhausting walk to camp two to sleep there a night before going to camp 3 and wake up early morning to go for the summit. Unfortunaltely, it didn't happen as easily as foreseen. A snow storm hit Cho Oyu for 2 days and left 1m snow at base camp and much more above us. Many expeditions decided to abandon and returned home. Our Sherpas told us that this had never happened in 14 years and the chances to have access to the summit were around 0,1%.
Now started the lonely and long waiting to know if we could at least get our equipment back from the mountain. I was desperate, knowing that this would be, for me, the third expedition without achieving a summit. Without any Cho Oyu peak, my entire Everest dream would quickly vanish. But we tried to keep some hope for a summit bid and waited during 8 long days at ABC.
Nangpa La shootings: shooting Tibetans at Base Camp!
Then suddenly we got the green light, it's time to go up again! The weather improved and we waited 1 extra day to let the snow settle. That morning, when we were ready to move up, the Chinese army was also in Base Camp. A line of 60 Tibetans was trying to escape from China to reach Dharamsala in India and join the Dalai Lama. Two of them were killed by the army. A Romanian team from Base Camp videotaped the scene and was shown on most international tv channels and You Tube.
The atmosphere at ABC was chaotic and confusion was all around. My guide, Luis Benitez, was among the first to make a dispatch on expolrersweb. His action created a lot of tension with other teams that believed that he should not have told the world
about what was happening. Some guides from other companies threathened him to give his name to the Chinese army.
The distance between ABC and the Tibetans was quite big (more than 700 meters) and did not help understanding the situation. I only fully understood what happened up there when I came back to Belgium and got more info about the shootings. With the co-operation of several climbers and guides, Jonathan Green (International journalist) published an atricle about the shootings: Murder at 19.000 feet and later wrote a book retracing the journey of these Tibetans: Murder in the high Himalaya.
We left ABC, complety moved by what had happened to reach C1. By the time we reached camp 2, the 2 other climbers of the team had to give up due to strong headaches and tiredness.
Private Summit push, one climber, one guide, four sherpas.
Finally, I was the only one who would be ready to go to camp 3 the next day. We changed the plan and decided to sleep on oxygen at camp two (7.200m) and started at 11pm our summit push without sleeping at camp 3. I left at night with one guide and four Sherpas (which was more than usual). We were on 2 liters per minute of oxygen until we reached 8.000m. At this altitude we celebrated our first steps in the 8.000m zone by increasing the flow to 3 liters. The Sherpas on their side (who are climbing without ox!!!) are smoking a cigarette. We reached the summit around 8.30am. Now I'm ready for Everest...
Big Thanks to All the Sherpas involved in the Expedition and my 2 guides!!!
Nothing would have been possible without this strong team.
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"What can you say about such an
expedition? Good people, great Sherpas, and a beautiful mountain.
So often
the struggle that we face in the hills is simply a battle with our own
mortality. Striving to step outside our own boundaries and go and push harder
than we ever thought possible. The challenge is as much mental as it is physical
up here. Leaving loved ones, and travelling around the globe to attempt to climb
one of the highest mountains in the world. What purpose does it serve? Does
it make us better people? Does it show us the way to lead better lives? Perhaps
not. But maybe, just maybe, it gives us a glimpse of who we hope to be, that
magical moment when we become everything we ever wanted, strong, confident, and
truly unafraid of the abyss that constantly surrounds us up here. So as we
journey onward back to Nepal, our thoughts go to all that we left behind, and
all that we are returning to. May that journey, constantly moving in a circle,
never stop. "
Luis Benitez, expedition leader
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