We are all well at ABC waiting in anticipation for tomorrow's departure for the first summit attempt. We will climb to Camp 1, Camp 2 and Camp 3, respectively, before departing early morning, October 1, hopefully weather permitting, for the 8201-meter summit of this Himalayan giant. We now have all camps stocked and most of the team are now well acclimatized and in excellent health, ready for their dreams to become reality over the next couple of weeks.

The expedition has not been without some exciting moments. Cho Oyu, the world's sixth highest mountain, is not one of the most technically difficult mountains, but its altitude alone makes it quite an undertaking. It has a technical ice headwall section between Camp 1 (6400m) and Camp 2 (7000m) which consists of a snow ice wall up to 80 degrees for a length of about 50 meters. Other teams had fixed this section with static line but, due to the amount of members of our expedition and for safety reasons, we fixed our own line to avoid a large line of climbers converging at the foot of the wall waiting to ascend this section.

On my second sortie carrying loads up to Camp 2, this simple section of fixed line became more of a 10-minute drama and I'm not describing the documentary that Tim Boelter is making about the ascent of the mountain. Dan was leading the section, followed by Tim, myself, and John Arnold. We were well-spaced from each other, allowing us to not put too much pressure on the line and its anchors.

The temperature had dropped considerably since our first trip up the wall and the ice had became more impregnable to place an ice tool into. The footholds were still in place from previous climbers, but these were becoming harder to recognize and locate. Dan had scaled this section in record time, like Spiderman, showing his years of experience and skill. I'm not sure if he even used the fixed line provided.

Tim followed at a more human pace and was placing his ice tool like a craftsman until the latter section where the ice was a deep blue color and as hard as concrete. Calls of "ice" were shouted down to John and myself as we covered our heads in anticipation of being hit by small fragments of ice.

We had decided not to wear helmets, as on previous days the route was a delightful climb with very little ice traceable, and placement of tools and feet as easy as opening a bottle of beer. Tim shouted another call of "ice." John and myself again covered our heads, expecting small quarter-sized fragments of ice to come tumbling by us, when suddenly I felt a huge blow to the back of my head and I was knocked off my stance by a brick-sized chunk of ice.

My feet lost their position as gravity started to pull me to the foot of the ice wall. As I began to fall, my left crampon became dislodged from my overboot, which aggravated my attempt to arrest my fall. Luckily my jumar was well attached to the line and I had made a good placement of my ice tool before the fall, so I was left hanging by the wrist loop of my tool and the webbing from my jumar to my harness.

I can definitely say that I was pleased that we had decided to fix this section with our own line and protection that we could trust. The next 10 minutes were pretty hard going, what with trying to ascend the last 20 meters with one crampon attached and the other waving like a Nepal prayer flag. But after some terrific assistance from John, describing the hard-to-locate footholds, I made it to the top to join Dan and Tim, who were unaware of the events that had just happened. We all took refreshment in the form of water, although I can assure you that I could have done with something stronger than H₂O.

— Phil Crampton, MountainZone.com Correspondent