Ed Viesturs' Quest for the 8,000 meter peaks

Viesturs

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We're in a nice spot. We're on a lateral bench of a moraine covered with flat areas of sand and grass — very nice place to camp — a lot of sunlight, relatively calm and a beautiful view of the north Annapurna glacier.

The bulk of the mountain itself is being blocked by an intervening ridge. We can just see the summit poking up above and from here our route makes a large T-shaped approach, skirting the icefall of the Annapurna glacier along some rocky ledges and that will put us higher up above most of the icefall and onto the glacier itself. From there we should get a lot better view of most of the route itself but from here we can't see most of the route which lies ahead of us.

But we're happy to be here. We're all healthy. We had a long walk in. It was beautiful, the weather's been great and we don't have a solid plan as of yet for tomorrow. We may take a break tomorrow, organize our gear and just try to relax for a day or we may take a wander up along the edge of the glacier to see what lies ahead.

I'll call in again tomorrow night — fill you in on what we did over the next day or so. But for now everything is going well. We're here at Base Camp and we're very happy to be here. So, thanks for listening. It's Ed Viesturs signing out for the Mountain Zone from Base Camp of Annapurna.

— Ed Viesturs, MountainZone.com Correspondent


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