Ed Viesturs' Quest for the 8,000 meter peaks

Viesturs

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Three days ago we climbed back up to Camp I in hopes of climbing higher to search for a new route, a different way of approaching a buttress to gain higher ground, so that we could reach the summit safely. We left Camp I two days ago in the morning in hopes of finding a way, a safe way, to approach the East Buttress that the route we were looking at. About an hour or two out of camp, after several minor ice cliff avalanches higher above, we all felt very apprehensive for our safety and we all, at the same time, made the call to go back down to Camp I and call it a day.

We spent one more night at Camp I to let everything settle in but we had made the decision to come down and during our second night at Camp I, there was a very, very large ice cliff avalanche that fell off just to the left of the Dutch Rib. One of the largest avalanches I've ever seen. We were quite safe at Camp I, we only got dusted by a little bit of snow, and some of the wind blast, but the rest of all of the approaches to the North Face were completely obliterated by huge amounts of ice and snow. We were just thankful that it happened during the middle of the night. I watched the avalanche occur under the full moon, and we were thankful that no one was anywhere near it when it occurred. It was very, very large.

Even though we had already made our decision not to climb anymore, that definitely sealed the deal for us, being such a large ice cliff avalanche. And these things are very unpredictable, you never know when they're going to occur and most of the routes approaching the north side, you spend hours approaching these buttresses, completely exposed to any of these ice cliff avalanches that may occur.

So we feel very good about our decision, although disappointed that we couldn't climb Annapurna. We knew it had a nasty reputation. It definitely lived up to its reputation. But, you know, that's the way it goes. Some of these mountains are built that way. They're very dangerous, they're very difficult, they have a lot of defenses and so be it. If we choose that the risks are too high, some of these mountains perhaps we feel perhaps should be left alone. But it's a personal decision as to how much risk you are willing to accept to climb some of these peaks. We felt the risks were too great so we decided to call it a day.

We're here at Base Camp and we should be leaving in a day or so for Kathmandu. I'll keep you up to date as far as our progress is concerned with returning to Kathmandu and the U.S., but, again, to recap, for us the expedition is over. The Spanish and the French team are still continuing on. Today, they're climbing up to Camp II to see how they feel about the route. We definitely know how we feel about the route.

So, thanks for following, thanks for checking in. We've had a great adventure, we've had a lot of fun here and again that's probably the gist of why we go on these expeditions, to have a lot of fun, to have an adventure, to share those adventures with friends and to come home safely. Ed Viesturs signing out from Annapurna Base Camp.

— Ed Viesturs, MountainZone.com Correspondent


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EXPEDITION DISPATCHES