The Mountain Company's K2 & Gondogoro La trek in
This will be my seventh trek to K2 Base Camp and as usual I am looking forward to returning to
Please get in contact with us soon if you would like to join this group
When trekking to Everest Base Camp with a group in December 2010 I noticed a brand new lodge in Lobuche called Mother Earth. Construction of this building had just finished and after knocking on the door for a while we woke the security guard who agreed to show us around.
I was very impressed with this new lodge, there is a large dining room and bedrooms are well designed with carpets on the floors. Apparently the roof is made from special material (imported from
For those of you who have stayed in Lobuche you will be aware there is a lack of quality lodges in this location, up until now the best one was Eco Lodge however their service level and standards have dropped over the last few years. There is no doubt that the Mother Earth will be the best lodge in Lobuche when it opens at the end of February, however of course it is also far more expensive.
At The Mountain Company for our Everest Base Camp trek we use the best teahouse lodges in each location therefore we have decided from now on to put all of our groups in the Mother Earth lodge. You will be glad to hear this is a free upgrade as we have decided not to increase our selling price, for 2011 it is still £1,045 (or US$1,695) land only from
Please get in touch if you would like further information on our treks to Everest Base Camp, we organise six fixed date treks each year and also several private departures.
The Mountain Company has the following camping treks already guaranteed to run in 2011: Dhaulagiri Circuit in April, Makalu to Everest in April, Lunana Snowman in September/ October, Mera Peak in late October and Kanchenjunga Circuit in November.
Dhaulagiri Circuit trek starting on
Makalu to Everest starting on April 23rd will be led by Roland Hunter. This is a reconnaissance trek exploring this remote region of Nepal crossing three high Himalayan passes: Sherpani at 6,135m, West Col at 6,143m and Amphu Laptsa at 5,850m. We have a strong Sherpa team coming with us on this expedition who have completed this challenging trek many times before. There are currently only two places available in this group.
Lunana Snowman trek in
Kanchenjunga Circuit trek starting on November 2nd 2011 will be led by Gary Pfisterer, he knows Kanchenjunga very well after having led three expeditions to climb this mountain from both the North and South sides. His late wife Ginette Harrison was the first woman to successfully climb to the summit of
Mera Peak expedition starting on October 30th 2011 will be led by Roland Hunter, this is his sixth expedition to this mountain and is looking forward to his sixth summit! For more information on these previous expeditions please take a look at our trek report page on The Mountain Co website
We are also very close to getting enough people signed up for Stok Kangri in July, K2 & Gondogoro La in August, Dhaulagiri Circuit in October and
Our
Yesterday there was a back log of over two thousand people waiting in Lukla to fly out to
In spite of the cloudy conditions in Lukla towards the end of the trek we had good weather for the rest of the time and experienced no precipitation during eighteen days of trekking. In fact for most of the days when Lukla was cloudy we were walking high above this level with the poor visibility confined to the lower valleys. My view is that November is the best time to climb
Our summit day was November 15th, we were very lucky to have clear weather with great views from
Compared to last year the Mera glacier has clearly undergone a number of changes, firstly there are now more crevasses along the section to Mera La as well some large crevasses opening up before High Camp. However there is still an established trail on the glacier winding its way between these slots making the risk of glacial travel still quite low risk at this time of year. It will be interesting to see how the glacier changes over the next few years if these crevasses open up more then perhaps it might require ladders to cross over the snow bridges in the near future. The second change is the large amount of rock sitting on top of the ice on the entry ramp onto the glacier, there has been significant rockfall from the ridge above. The presence of these rocks on the ice makes it more challenging for climbers walking onto and off the glacier and of course especially awkward while wearing crampons.
This is the fifth year in row that I have led The Mountain Company’s
The Mountain Company is organising two expeditions to climb
Our Dhaulagiri Circuit group arrived back to
It was interesting to see the differences in the conditions and weather between my two treks around
However this year there was a heavy monsoon that extended into October, and as a result we had several rainy afternoons and evenings while walking up Myagdi valley. In fact this valley is known as being wet as the orientation is north to south with clouds travelling up from India then collide with Dhaulagiri at the top of the valley causing high levels of precipitation. The Myagdi valley is clearly a rainy place with sub tropical forest up to Sallighari camp.
Once crossing
The condition of
The other main difference I noticed compared to May 2008 was the improvement in the trail, in particular the path before Boghara village has now cut into the rock whereas before there was just a fixed rope to help climb over a rock slab! Beyond this village there are several other sections of the path that have been widened making the walk easier than before. The other challenging section is the descent down the lateral moraine from Italian Camp down onto the glacier, for the first time a trail has been cut into the moraine however we still felt a rope was necessary to secure the safe passage of the group and porters. Also several of the old log bridges have been replaced with well constructed cantilever bridges, in fact it is now possible to use mules to carry loads all of the way to Italian Base Camp.
I was surprised that most other groups on the Dhaulagiri Circuit were still ascending way too fast and breaking all of the rules of acclimatisation with most other people we met complaining of headaches and other symptoms of altitude sickness. Of course one has to consider the entire trekking team including the health of all of the porters and kitchen crew as they are the ones working hard at these altitudes! The main consideration on this trek is the risk of someone getting serious altitude sickness in
Our acclimatisation schedule seemed to well by spending two nights at Italian Camp (3,660m), two nights at Glacier Camp (4,200m) and two nights at Dhaulagiri Base Camp (4,700m) then we crossed
Our October 2010 group were very lucky as the weather cleared on the morning before we walked into
Congratulations and well done to everyone in our October group for completing this trek! My view is that in spite of the improvements in the trail and construction of new bridges Dhaulagiri Circuit is still one of the hardest treks in Nepal and careful planning and preparations are required to ensure the safety and well being of the group and trek crew.
The Mountain Company is organising two Dhaulagiri Circuit treks in 2011, one starting in late April and the second departure starting in mid October, please get in touch if you are interested in joining one of these groups.
Posts
All Comments
