Dispatch Thirty-four: April 27th, 2010 |
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Annapurna Expedition 2010 |
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Day Thirty-four: Multiple Teammates Summit, CLIMBERS MISSING Addition to Dispatch: This evening, we received word via radio that Kinga, Horia, Piotr, and Peter are all safe in Camp IV. Jorge and Martin are in Camp II, and after some problems in the descent from the summit, Evgheny is in Camp IV with the others with cerebral edema (he is on oxygen and dexamethasone and is doing fine now). Serguey is also back in Camp IV after going missing for quite some time this evening. The other groups aren’t so lucky. None of the Korean expedition members are in Camp IV yet (as of 10pm local time) and none of the Spanish team is back in Camp IV either. Tolo is enroute to Camp IV from above exhausted and suffering from HACE and is sitting in the snow insisting that he needs help to descend the remaining distance to Camp IV. He is with Sonam (his Sherpa) but the pair seem to be making very little progress in descending to Camp IV. No contact has been made since the summit with Juanito, Carlos, or their Sherpa. Also, no contact has been made with the Korean team since everyone witnessed Ms. Oh’s arrival to the summit. We can only hope that the climbers will all arrive safely sometime during the night.
Today, Barbera (the Polish trekker) and I woke up quite early and headed to the mess tent. Base camp was uncharacteristically windy and we could see quite a bit of wind on the summit (it was forecast to be 50km/hr in the morning, and less in the afternoon). We had breakfast nervously waiting for the radio call from Piotr and Peter at 8am. It never came, and we assumed that the radio had either died or they were climbing and weren’t paying attention to the time. We kept ourselves busy for the majority of the morning, then headed up to the Korean camp to see, with our own eyes, the climbers’ progress to the summit via the live video feeds being transmitted to base camp via microwave. We saw two climbers significantly ahead of the others (these two turned out to be Peter and Piotr) making slow progress up the col to the summit. After them was Miss Oh and her Sherpas followed by a number of other climbers. We later received word from Jorge and Martin, who informed us that they had summitted at 10am and were now in Camp III. Piotr and Peter summitted at 2pm and Miss Oh arrived to the top around 3pm (making her the first woman to summit all 14 8000 meter peaks in the world). We know now that Peter, Piotr, and Kinga are safely back in Camp IV resting, and that Jorge and Martin plan on arriving to Camp II this afternoon. The Russians were said to still be heading up (Piotr passed them on his way down from the summit and told us over the radio that they were still heading up) around 3pm. As of now, we have no further information about summits or the location of climbers on other teams. We won’t be celebrating until everyone is safely back down in base camp as the forecast for tomorrow calls for a big snow storm in the afternoon, making avalanche conditions quite hazardous for the descent. I will publish further information as it becomes available in tomorrow’s dispatch. As for my condition, it remains more or less the same. My vision remains shaky, my equilibrium is still off, and I continue to have quite severe headaches throughout the day. Hopefully, descending to Kathmandu in a few days will help to resolve these issues.
Photos: Left: Panorama of the Annapurna Massif |
