 Ed Viesturs' Quest for the 8,000 meter peaks |
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Thursday, April 6, 2000
 Viesturs | |
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Hi, this is Ed Viesturs reporting on the Mountain Zone. It's about 4:30pm, Nepal time, April 6th, and we have entered the Annapurna Sanctuary. We left our fourth camp this morning at about 7 o'clock in the morning and we climbed rather steeply and quickly to a pass which was at about 14,500 feet. There was some snow covering the trail. In the past couple of days the Spanish Sherpa and some of their porters had worked on the trail. They kicked some steps and that definitely benefited everyone today so we thank them for their effort.
It was a hard, long day. It took some of us about six-and-a-half-hours to reach the camp which we are at now. Other people are still coming in after eight or nine hours, but we're here and we're in the Sanctuary.
We're still a day, and just a little bit more than part of a day, to get to Base Camp, so we should be at Base Camp on April 8th — some time early in the morning of April 8th. And after climbing up-over the pass, we then did a gradual descending traverse along grassy, rolling slopes and we're now camped on a grassy ridge looking up at some peaks, which are directly behind us and Annapurna looms in the distance. It's an amazingly large mountain. As we were cresting the final pass at 14,500 feet, we were suddenly rewarded with this amazing view of the north side of Annapurna — it was stunning.
Behind us, as we climbed today, we could see the full extent of the size of Dhaulagiri. It must have one of the largest reliefs in the world from the river valley at about 6,000 feet to the summit at 26,000 feet — 20,000-vertical feet within about seven miles horizontal distance. So, from bottom to top, a huge gain in altitude for Dhaulagiri and it was a stunning view to see that.
But we're here now. We're well on our way. Tomorrow will be probably not quite as difficult as today. More of a gradually rising traverse along the edge of this slope. We'll probably end up at about 14,000 feet, maybe a little bit higher tomorrow and the following day it's only a few more hours to get to Base Camp.
The weather's been great, afternoon cloud build up — no rain today, but for the most part it's been absolutely perfect weather to trek in with. No problems whatsoever. So, thanks for checking in. This is Ed Viesturs signing out for the Mountain Zone. We'll talk again tomorrow.
— Ed Viesturs, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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