Lhotse Daily News: May 14th 2011 - Time to Go

Message From Ryan 
Summit Push On!
14 May, 11 - 11:30     
We plan to leave for camp 2 on the morning of the 15th. The weather report is not necessarily the best but sometimes you got to go climbing and see! We feel there will be a lull in the winds up at the Lhotse summit on the 18th and 19th, the downside is there will be a good chance of late afternoon snows on these days. 
Nous prévoyons de partir pour le camp 2 le 15 au matin. Les prévisions météo ne sont pas idéales mais parfois il faut mieux y aller et aviser sur place! Nous présetons une accalmie les 18 et 19 avec une baisse du vent mais d'un autre coté il risque d'y avoir des chutes de neiges en fin de journée.
So we will try and sneak up to the top the morning of the 18th. Exciting time to be planning for the summit now. I have been up through the Icefall 4 times already this year on load carries and acclimatization, so am anxious to make this the final time!
Nous allons donc essayer de se faufiler vers le sommet à partir du 18 au matin. Et rien de plus excitant que de prévoir son jour d'ascension. Cette année, j'ai déjà traversé 4 fois la cascade de glace entre le camp de base et le camp 1 , pour transporter du matériel ou pour l'acclimatation. Aussi je suis impatient de le faire pour la dernière fois!
Each time up in the Western Cwm it has been blazing hot and very strong reflection of sun off the snow. I have been using my ZEAL Optics Flyers and the lenses cannot be beat! These are the lenses I used during 70 days of sunlight across Antarctica as well. For summit day I have my ZEAL goggles with SPX lenses to protect from wind and sun.
All the Sierra Designs down clothing has been awesome, the Gnar Jacket is the ultimate mid warmth layer and I will wear that along with wool long underwear bottoms under my SD down Top and Bottom, for total warmth on the predicted -24 degree C summit elevation.
 Anxious and excited are how we feel now, all the books are worn out, tea and coffee with friends... check, pouring over weather reports... they all blend into one now, lets go climbing! 
Nous nous sentons anxieux et excités, tous les livres sont usés, et prenons du thé et du café avec des amis ... à éplucher les différents bulletins météo ... mais nous avons fait notre choix maintenant et désormais le temps est venu de grimper !

Lhoste News: May 12th 2011 in Everest Base Camp

From Here
Sophie and Ryan plan to wait a few days to pick a good summit day according to upcoming weather reports. Sophie has arrived in the valley fresh off an ascent of Cho Oyu in Tibet, so the plan will be to climb straight up to camp 2, then camp 3, with a stop at camp 4 at the base of the Lhotse route to the summit. So stay tuned in as we pray to the weather gods and pick a date very soon to launch off into that summit push world and out of the base camp weather talk bubble!
Sophie et Ryan prévoient d'attendre quelques jours pour tenter l'ascension en fonction des bulletins météorologiques à venir. Sophie est arrivée au camp de base tout juste descendue de l'ascension du Cho Oyu au Tibet, si bien que Sophie et Ryan prévoient de monter directement au camp 2, puis le camp 3, avec un arrêt au camp 4 là ou la route vers le sommet du Lhotse se différencie de celle de l'Everest. Alors restez à l'écoute et souhaitez leur du beau temps pour qu'ils puissent enfin s'élancer à l'assaut du sommet (en plus cela permettra de parler d'autre chose que de la météo...).

 

And the Weather here 

 

Sophie SUMMIT CHO OYU on 05/05/11 without oxygen

Sophie jumping at the top of Cho Oyu, 6th highest peak in the world

Summit day : 05/05/11 at 1pm

"best Summit day ever"

Despite an awful night at camp 3 : The wind almost crushed our tent and the snow kept being blown into our tent. Moreover, we did not have any sleeping bags. The night was extremely cold, so Mama and I, had to wake up every 2h to boil water to refill with hot water our small water bottles to keep us warm.

Sophie in the tent - freezing cold

The climbing plan was starting at 3am. We should have share the "breaking the trail" effort among 4 teams : Bolivian, Spanish, French and us. That was initially the plan, but due to the wind storm, we were all kind of down, and decide to start around 5:30am.

View from the Yellow Band - Start climbing at 5:30am

The summit climb starts by climbing the "yellow band" or about 200meters of blue ice and rock more or less vertical. this year is particularly difficult because it is a fairly dry year.

As we are the first for the summit push, we climbed this section alpine style (without/limited access to rope). I do feel very comfortable with such terrain, but I would not call it an easy climbing section.

Yellow band

The rest of the climb was a dream. Once we were half way, and because we start climbing so late, the question of turning around popped. But I checked myself, and I am thinking, "well! My toes are ok. My fingers are not cold. So let's do it!

Here we go, the last steps  ... which took us a long time, as the summit is a long, infinite plateau .... We finally summit on May 5th, 2011 at 1pm. I am the First Woman in 2011 to summit Cho Oyu !

Sophie at the Summit. I dedicate my Cho Oyu Summit to Raphael my godson

The views are stunning! Cho Oyu climb with or without summit is a MUST. the views are just breath taking !



View on the way down from the Summit

We were pretty tired. Fully aware that most of the accidents happen on the way down, we did not rush and take the way down easy. 



We went down to Camp 2 everybody was exhausted. People could not even walk down. They just sat down and let themselves slide down ....

for the little story Ulie Stek and Don Bowy summit the same day than us :p

05/08/11 - Day #28 Cho Oyu - Zanbu to Kathmandu

05/07/11 - Day #27 Cho Oyu - ABC to Zanbu

Cho Oyu Daly News: May 5th 2011 SUMMITS for Sophie

SUMMITS
Ben has called in to let us know that Siddhi and Sophie has made a great effort to reach the summit of Cho Oyu in just over 22 days from Kathmandu! They had planned only to do a carry to C3 but instead felt strong, saw a good weather window and had some other teams to help push the route through. They topped out at 1:45pm Kathmandu time on the 5th and had great weather. They are making their way to ABC where they will be greeted with Lhasa Beer and a summit cake by Ratna!


Ben vient de nous informer que Siddhi et Sophie viennent d'atteindre le sommet de Cho Oyu au prix d'un bel effort et en à peine 22 jours depuis leurs départs de Katmandou! Ils avaient simplement prévu de monter du matériel au camp 3 mais se sentant en grande forme et profitant d'une fenêtre de beau temps, ils ont continué leur route jusqu'au sommet avec l'aide d'autres équipes qui tentaient le somme au même moment. Ils ont atteint le sommet le 5 mai à 13h45 (heure de Katmandou) et ont pu profiter de beau temps au cours de l'ascension. Ils sont en train de redescendre au camp de base avancé ou ils seront fétés avec de la bière Lhasa et un gateau spécialement préparé par Ratna !



NEXT UP!
Ben and Keith are feeling strong themselves after a good night at C2 and they will make a bid in the next weather window which looks to be around the 9th or 10th. They still have nearly two weeks left before they need to leave ABC so they do have plenty of time for good window.
Ben et Keith se sentent également très bien après un bonne nuit de repos au camp 2 et feront un tentative pour le sommet vers le 9 ou le 10, c'est à dire dès que la météo le premettra. Il leur reste encore environ 2 semaines avant qu'ils ne doivent rebrousser chemin et quitter le camp de base avancé, ce qui ne devrait pas poser de problème pour trouver des conditions météo favorables.
Enjoy listening in to Ben's hoarse voice as he shares the news! (here)


As a reminder the following program is described in a previous message: LHOTSE! 
Pour rappel voici le program qui est suivi au jour près!!! LHOTSE!

05/06/11 - Day #26 Cho Oyu - C2 to ABC

05/04/11 - Day #24 Cho Oyu - C2 to C3

05/03/11 - Day #23 Cho Oyu - C2 low to C2

05/01/11 - Day #21 Cho Oyu - ABC to C1