Nepal

It's been a couple of whirlwind weeks since we left the Khumbu Valley for home, and it's taken a bit of work to sort through the more than 2000 images from the climb. But finally, here are a few from our summit push. We were fortunate to have incredible weather and almost no one else on the route. This meant we could move quickly on our climb and descent, and really enjoy each of the stages on the route, without hold-ups on the ropes or fear of falling rock and ice from above. The team, after plenty of acclimatization and then 4 days of rest, was ready to move. 

Four members and four Sherpa summited on November 6th under clear skies with cold temps. There was virtually no one else on the mountain, making for an excellent time on top. The group was feeling good and decided to push their descent all the way back to BC, rather than stopping for the night at Camp 1. The Sherpa cleaned the lines and everyone is down safely. The team will spend the next couple of days wrapping things up in BC. 

After a brief snowy interlude, perfect weather has returned to Ama Dablam and the Khumbu Valley and we are ready for our summit push! We are making a plan to leave base camp over the next 2 days for Camp 1, where some members will take a rest day while the rest of us put another cleaning day in on the route, this time focusing on Camp 2 trash and old ropes between Camp 2 and the Grey Tower. From there we'll move to our Camp "2.7", just below Camp 3 on the Mushroom Ridge. We choose to camp in 2.7 to avoid the risk of serac fall from the Dablam onto the camp.

The team moved up to Yak Camp yesterday and then made a move to Camp 1 this morning with plans of remaining there for the rest of the day to acclimatize. The goal for tomorrow is to have the entire group move up to Camp 2, drop some gear, and move back to Camp 1 for the night. All members will be heading back to Base Camp on the morning of the 31^st for a few days of rest before the summit push. Brian will leave Base Camp to join the the team tomorrow morning and he and Adrian will work on tearing down old lines between C1 and C2 through the 31^st.

Since leaving Dingboche three days ago, we've been non-stop and having a great time. The group was really excited to finish the trekking portion of our expedition and get into the climbing so our walk from Dingboche, which normally takes 5 hours, took only 3 1/2. I think that might be this season's trend. This team is fast, strong, and really motivated.

Packing Up

The Himex team is just packing up our base camp and getting ready to leave for Samagoan tomorrow morning. But before we shut everything down, we would like to share this beautiful poem with you that was written by one of our members, Alan Millard. The poem is based on Rudyard Kipling’s famous ‘IF’.

IF (Himex Version)

If you can keep your head when the Independents

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you

If you can trust yourself when others doubt you

Himex has done it again

I would like to start this Newsletter by saying how much we missed Aaron on our summit push on 1^st October. Unfortunately our great team member had to leave the expedition by helicopter after sustaining an injury to his shoulder during our descent from our final acclimatisation trips. Furthermore, I would also like to mention that we are very proud our esteemed leader, Russ, for completing his 14^th 8,000m peak. He has climbed Everest twice, Shisha Pangma twice, Cho Oyu 9x and now Manaslu.

Here's a brief update from the Manaslu team: