Simonson

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Hello Mountain Zone, this is Eric Simonson with a dispatch for you. The climbing team is now back down at ABC. We retreated today from Camp II in the face of what we considered to be unreasonably high avalanche hazard. Snow on the upper mountain is still knee-to-thigh deep and we haven't had very much wind to scour it away and we consider there still to be a considerable avalanche problem.

We're not alone in our decision, we were joined by two of the other commercial groups - Himalayan Experience out of France and Himalayan Guides out of England - and they both have decided to retreat from the mountain as well. So we feel good about our decision and we hope that the teams that are going to continue to push into those conditions are successful and don't have any problem.

One of our big concerns was the welfare of our Sherpas who obviously we pay to help us carry loads and establish the route and the camps. But we don't pay them to take our risks for us and I wasn't going to have them up front breaking trail in marginal conditions. It was our decision that everybody's interests were best served by pulling back today and we've all made it now safely back to ABC after pushing up to 23,000ft, at Camp II.

It's our plan now to go ahead and start pulling some of our gear off the mountain over the next couple of days. Our feeling is that the conditions are quite bad right now and given the fact that this has been a very snowy monsoon season here in the Himalayas. The snow is greater right now in the mountains than any of us have seen before at this time of year. We don't think that the conditions are going to change rapidly over the next few days; we're going to go ahead and pull down our camps.

Sometimes you make it, sometimes you don't. Our goal is always to have a fun and safe expedition. Right now everybody's in good spirits; I think we're a little disappointed that we weren't able to make it six for six here on Cho Oyu but that's okay. It just reminds us that it's not always a slam dunk when you come and climb 8,000m peaks in the Himalayas.

So again, we're all safe and sound and we wish the best to the teams that are going to continue on the mountain, but we think that it's unsafe. That's it from Cho Oyu and we'll fill you in on some more details here in the next day or two. Thanks a lot, this is Eric Simonson signing off.

— Eric Simonson, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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