monsoon

The monsoon has been in full effect!

After way longer than expected in Samagaon, the team has started to move out and establish themselves in basecamp. Having done as many day hikes out of Samagaon as possible through hammering rain and mud, the members tagged basecamp the other day. While Adrian, Phurba, and Woody remained at that high point to begin setting up camp and drying out their down, the others turned around for an adventurous trek back down through rivers that had swelled to chest deep water. It took until the next day for everyone to arrive safely back in Samagaon.

We just received a satellite call from Adrian, with the team in the village of Samagaon, at 11,500ft on the flanks of Mt Manaslu.  It sounds like they had an interesting helicopter ride in.  On the first day that the monsoon broke, the helicopter only managed a couple of flights, so instead of getting all the team and their gear in, the team arrived but the gear didn't!  It took another 24hrs for the weather to break enough to get another couple of flights and all the gear.  The Sherpa have also been late trekking in from their village, the swollen rivers making the trip

Hard to believe it has already been two weeks since our Manaslu team met for the first time in Kathmandu. The last two weeks has been a whirlwind of organizing gear and people, and progressively moving from Kathmandu to Pokhara to Samagaon to Manaslu Basecamp, and finally onto the mountain itself. Here are a few highlights from these last fourteen days that now find us poised to begin sleeping and climbing high on the hill.

Today, May 27th, was expected to see our climbers departing from Everest Base Camp, while the guides and Sherpa continued the cleanup process on the mountain. Unfortunately, the first big storm of the monsoon season has blown in, and it looks as if trekking to Lukla and subsequent flights to Kathmandu are all postponed. The biggest job now is constantly digging fresh snow off the tents, so the weight doesn’t cause them to collapse. So, if you’re expecting someone home soon they may be delayed a bit, but they’re still okay and enjoying all the offerings in the big white pod tent!