Ed Viesturs' Quest for the 8,000 meter peaks

Viesturs

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Yesterday we had some snow up at Camp II so we weren't able to do anything but just kind of sit where we were. But Camp II is situated in a very, very safe place tucked underneath some seracs with many huge crevasses uphill from us that would have swallowed any other avalanche that might have occurred.

This morning we got up, it was a beautiful day. The weather had cleared. There was some new snow to contend with. We took a little climb higher up, perhaps another 500 feet to look at any possibilities of climbing higher. We looked at the Northeast Buttress, we looked at the Dutch Rib, we looked at the original French route and we simply couldn't justify climbing any of them. All of the routes are threatened by multiple ice cliffs, which you can't predict when they're going to collapse or fall, and we all four of us came to a rather simple decision and concluded that we would not be willing to go any further or try to climb those routes. We simply couldn't justify the risk. So we made a decision then to abort all attempts on that face. We took everything down that we had at Camp II, collapsed our tents and brought everything back down to Camp I, we left it there and we're now back at Base Camp.

We do have another option that we're going to look at after resting here at Base Camp for a couple days. We'll go back to Camp I and then look at a route possibility which is further to the left of all of the normal routes. It's not really threatened by any ice avalanches or ice cliffs but what you need to do if it's climbed, is to climb at a high altitude and climb over the east summit of Annapurna, which is over 8000 meters, and then from there traverse toward the main summit. So a lot of high altitude and traversing, which would be necessary.

So that's our other option, we're gonna take a look at it, we're gonna snoop around and then see how that possibility plays out. We're fairly content with the decision that we made, it was a logical decision, it was a safe decision and that's just the way things happen here in the mountains. Sometimes the mountains set themselves up and you can't justify climbing a route because of the danger.

So we're here at Base Camp, getting full again on all of the good food here, brewing up a lot of Starbucks and we're looking forward to a couple days of relaxation. We'll sleep good with our decision and we'll go from there.

So thanks for tuning in, I'll call again in a day or so to update you with our plans but for now we plan on just relaxing here at Base Camp and enjoying the warmth, the flat ground, the music and the books and the food.

This is Ed Viesturs signing out for the Mountain Zone.

— Ed Viesturs, MountainZone.com Correspondent


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