Baruntse 7129M seen during autumn.
1st - 2nd October.
Team arrives in Kathmandu and are resting well in our hotel. Next day team briefing for our Baruntse fall expedition, gear check day and finally day ends with a welcome dinner with our lead guide and team members. Everyone is well and on high spirits.
3rd - 4th October
The expedition begins. We take a different approach via land to get into Makalu region as our team did not want to get stuck in Kathmandu with Lukla flight delays and cancellations. Our team departs via jeep to Patale village (6 - 7 hours) and has arrived well.
Kaushik (Team member) posts on his Instagram, arrival to Patale.
Road conditions are were rough from Patale village to Boong due to heavy monsoon rainfall, however slowly and steadily team arrives in Boong village. Porter and the assistant guide catches up with the rest of the team and around late afternoon team hiked to Khiraule village.
Images courtesy: Pega Sherpa (Lead guide)
October 5th - 6th
Arrive in Chalem Kharkha Village after trekking for 7 hours. The team is resting well.
(6th)The team arrives well at the village past Panch Pokhari.
Tomorrow they set out to Kothe village 3600M .
7th October
Enjoying a wilderness, sherpa heritage and remote trekking route our team has arrived well at Kothe village at 3600M. 2 days until everyone reached Khare 4800M. Some of the images from our client member of the journey so far.
October 8th
The team arrived well at Thagnang village. It has stopped raining and the weather is starting to get better with clear days. We are seeing a clear weather window for the next 7 days which is good news for our team as we push higher to the next village Khare 4800M then to Mera High Camp (11th October) and Mera Peak summit (scheduled on 12th October).
October 9th - 10th
All team members have arrived well at Khare 5045M. They will rest and acclimatize here for 1 day and do a rotation acclimatization hike gaining a further 200M - 300M and training.
October 11th
Our team has arrived in Mera high camp at around 1:00 PM. The weather was clear today and tomorrow they head to the summit of Mera Peak 6476M and then descend down to high camp.
October 12th
WOOHOOO 🙂 🏔✅Mera Summit was a success with clear visibility. Our team has safely descended back to high camp and then descended further down to Kongma Dingma 5000M.
Mera Peak 6476M Summit views
13th October
Our team has arrived well at Seto Pokhari 5035M today.
14th October
The team member has arrived well at Baruntse BC. We have a great weather window for the next 2 days 15th and 16th. Tomorrow our team will conduct Puja ceremony early in the morning and head to fix lines in west col and set up camp 1. Update follows.
October 15th
The team dropped supplies at camp 1 and returned back to BC. All our climbing team members will climb to camp 1 tomorrow and then decide again whether to move to camp 2 or return back (Depending on the weather window)
October 16th - 17th
Climbing team members headed to camp 1 stayed overnight. Beautiful day to climb on a clear open day with minimal wind. The next day (17th) our team made it to camp 2 as an acclimatization rotation and have headed back to base camp as we are seeing bad weather for 2-3 days. (18 - 20th) . An unusual post-monsoon storm forming on the bay of Bengal has will bring in the snow and wind for the next 2 days.
October 18 - 19th
Light to heavy snow shower weather is expected for the two days. We expect to see the weather improve from the 20th afternoon to the evening. Awaiting further assessments.
October 20-21
Heavy snowfall in the region has completely stalled the expedition. The team is seeing 3ft of snow even at Baruntse Base camp. Lead guide Pega has decided to let the snow settle and start climbing to camp 1 tomorrow to analyse snow conditions, gears, and avalanche risk tommorrow.
October 22nd - 23rd
After 3 days of heavy snowfall, guide members departed for route inspection to camp 1 (23rd October). There are 5ft of snow at 6000M level and our guides were able to break the trail up to camp 1 where all our gears were stored. Our lead guide reported that due to deep snow it took them a total of 6 hours trail blazing to camp 1 where normally it would take them 2-3 hours. Team members descended back to base camp with further reports.
October 24th
All our team member decided to move onto camp 1 with client member again to see how the client would feel about the situations. Snow conditions are still the same and wind speed has been picking up to 25-30mph at 6200M level. Weather situations does not seem to improve for another 4-5 days with wind speed picking upto 50mph at 7000M level. After reaching camp 1, sadly we have decided to call off the expeditio. Our client team members cannot extended the expedition days anymore and decide to descend back t camp 1 late.
October 25th
Rest day. Upon analysing situations at Amphu Lhabtsa pass 5800M, there is a substantial risk of snow and high wind at that altitude. Considering the risk our lead guide (Pega) have decided to descend back the same way to Lukla which is much safer given the condition of snow and wind situations.