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
Himalayan news and updates from The Mountain Company
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.
On August 7th, I was at Islamabad airport with The Mountain Company’s K2 & Gondogoro La group waiting for our flight to Skardu. By
Baltistan has suffered from floods and landslides in the past however according to Felix Baltistan Foundation this is the first time has turned into a severe catastrophic situation. Monsoon rains do not usually affect this area in northern
The Felix Baltistan Foundation is a non govermental organisation ("NGO") set up by a group of Basque mountaineers in memory of Felix Iñurrategi who died in 2000 while climbing on Gasherbrum II. The Foundation's aim is to help villages in the Hushe valley by improving their living conditions with projects directed towards the basic aspects of life such as education, agriculture and infrastructure.
Shortly after the floods on August 7th several members of Felix Baltistan Foundation provided emergency relief to people of Talis village. They gave out hot meals to families that had been left homeless and in coordination with local authorities and the Red Cross tents were distributed to affected families.
Going forward the Foundation’s objective is to continue their support by helping the villagers face the upcoming winter. The three basic areas in which they will be working on are: food support for next six months; recovery of agricultural lands; and reconstruction of their houses to help protect people against the elements (temperatures can drop to -20 Celsius during the winter).
This year Alan Ward led The Mountain Company’s expedition to Stok Kangri (6,123m) in Ladakh northern India, he was helped by our Ladakhi guide Angchok and also our Nepalese climbing guide Shera. Overall the expedition went well with two members of the group summiting and the rest successfully reaching high up on the mountain.
After flying to Leh at 3,505m the team spent three days acclimatising to this high altitude while spending time to explore Leh and the surrounding area. On their second day they visited
Our Stok Kangri itinerary starts from the
On arrival to Base Camp, Alan was informed by the Indian Mountaineering Federation (IMF) representative that it was no longer possible to use the High Camp on the mountain. The reason given was that villagers from Stok were unhappy with the rubbish left at this camp and were worried about pollution of their water supply. While I respect their view on this matter the issue is without using High Camp makes climbing Stok Kangri far more difficult and risky in terms of lack of acclimatisation and forcing a very long summit day. Hopefully in the future a solution will be found to satisfy everyone involved, perhaps by more stringent monitoring of expeditions on the mountain?
Luckily after much discussion IMF granted our group approval to use High Camp due to the fact we had a blind climber in our group however as it turned out the pack animals were unable to proceed to the “higher” High Camp due to snow on the trail.
The team set off for the summit at
Congratulations to the whole team it was a great effort given the conditions, I think everyone succeeded in making their own personal altitude records on this mountain.
The Mountain Company is organising an expedition to Stok Kangri in July 2011, please get in touch with us if you would like to join this group.
I arrived back to
The group arrived to
When the group arrived to
On arrival to Skardu we heard that bad weather from 7th caused a number of landslides in the region and near to Skardu sadly killed 45 people and in Talis village 13 people perished in further landslides.
The group stayed at K2 Motel in Skardu, this is located in a safe area however we could clearly see that the
The next day we left early in jeeps for the drive to Askole however shortly after Shigar village we encountered a new block on the road where overnight a mudslide had destroyed the road. Everyone in our team as well as several other trekking groups helped by collecting rocks to build the road through the mud slide area. After several hours the jeeps were able to clear the block (with some impressive driving!) and then the group crossed over the river. Further along the road there was one further landslide where we had to swap jeeps then continued our drive to Thongol where we camped for the night.
The next morning we started the trek and after an hour we arrived to Askole, this is the last village on the trek until Hushe on the other side of Gondogoro La. The weather was sunny and very hot so everyone was hopeful the monsoon rains were retreating back south again. We experienced mixed cloud and sun for the next few days and in fact this made the walking very pleasant as otherwise can be very hot at this altitude.
The trek progressed as planned and after our rest day at Urdukas the weather starting to improve further and we enjoyed a memorable lunch at Goro 1 as the clouds dissipated over
After arrival to Concordia on 19th we discussed the options for the next day, five people decided to make the long walk to K2 Base Camp and Gilkey memorial while the others opted for the shorter walk to Broad Base Camp. As ever it was an emotional visit to Gilkey especially seeing the new memorial and a broken ski from Fredrik Ericsson who died earlier this summer.
On 21st the group enjoyed a rest day at Concordia and were blessed with perfect weather and incredibly views of
Shortly after Monin and I got back to Ali Camp the group arrived after their walk up from Concordia, everyone enjoyed this trek as is one of the best days with superb views back to
We decided to leave Ali Camp at
At The Mountain Company we believe strongly in looking after our porters, we are the only trekking company operating on the Baltoro that provides waterproof jackets and trousers plus walking shoes to our porters. We follow International Porter Protection Group five guidelines in
Our wonderful cooks and kitchen crew crossed Gondogoro La arrived to our campsite at Khuspang early and then kindly sent up a cooked lunch for us at High Camp, this food was very welcome and gave everyone renewed energy in order to carry on down to Khuspang. The next day we opted to continue our trek down to Shaisho rather than take a rest day. We heard that the bridge below Shaisho had been washed out by the recent rains and instead an enterprising ex High Altitude Porter had rigged a “jhola” or bucket bridge, after carefully inspecting the anchors and the set up we felt confident the group could cross safely and everyone in the group seemed to enjoy this experience of crossing the raging river below!
The next day we walked to Hushe village and then after handing out tips to our fantastic crew we drove to Skardu. The next morning on 26th we tried to fly to Skardu although this flight was cancelled luckily on next day we fly back to
Overall we had a great trip with perfect weather at Concordia and for crossing Gondogoro La, as ever
The Mountain Company plans to run our K2 & Gondogoro La trek again in August 2011 so please get in touch soon if you would like to join this group. We also plan to operate our Snow Lake Biafo Hispar trek in July 2011.
Our May 2010 Dolpo recce group arrived back to Kathmandu last week after a superb trek. The
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If this is one of the best treks in the
While in
Organising the logistics for this trek are challenging, the
There is no doubt that the difficulties and challenges of trekking in
Our group saw a lot of wildlife during our trek in
In terms of time of year my view is that the best time to do this trek is during the month of May, this gives one the best chance of crossing the high passes out to Jomsom. September is probably more popular with trekking groups however often the passes are icey making travel impossible for the pack animals. This year we started the trek from Juphal on April 28th and finished in Jomsom on May 19th. We experienced dry conditions over all passes apart from a few residual winter snow patches on Kang La to Shey however our mules still managed to cross this pass with their loads.
The Mountain Company is planning on organising another Upper Dolpo to Jomsom trek in May 2011, this group will be led by Gary Pfisterer for further information please see our website please get in touch with us soon if you are interested in joining the group.
Roland Hunter