Ama Dablam success

[jaee]

A Mazama expedition to Ama Dablam has put 4 climbers on the summit. Monty Smith and Chris Cosgriff summitted on October 28th and David Byrne and Nancy Miller on October 30th. The full roster of the expedition can be seen here

 

Please join me in congratulating these folks on a great climb.

[Ducknut]

Congrats to the team. Is there a website with updates? I heard the weather has been marginal.

[jaee]

We've been receiving transcribed phone calls from Monty to his fiance. If anyone is interested I could post a digest of those.

[chelle]

Very cool. It sounds like they were an independent team.

[barkernews]

Dude!!! Let's see some pictures!

Nice work!

[jaee]

I just know most of the folks on the trip. I'll try to get some pictures up when they return. As far as I know they're on the way back to Lukla at this point. They didn't take any 'real-time' gadgetry so we'll have to wait for them to make it to at least an internet cafe to get any shots.

[jaee]

Enjoy a few pics from the trip. Appreciate that these were uploaded over a screaming 9600 baud modem from Namche. The crew passed thru on 11/5 on their way to Lukla.

 

Chris ascending

 

Chris at summit w/ Monty 10/28/04 Everest in the background

 

Chris descending

 

Nancy Miller on the way up. She summitted 10/30/04

[JoshK]

so is the climb actually technical or are the pictures misleading to the overall character of the climb?

[barkernews]

That is BAD ASS!!!

u guys rock!

Looking forward to the TR...

[Snafflehunter]

so is the climb actually technical or are the pictures misleading to the overall character of the climb?

 

Notice the ascenders.

 

The climb is technical, but most parties elect to ascend via fixed ropes which takes a lot of the technicality (and in my opinion, fun) out of it. Nevertheless, an awesome achievement.

[Chriznitch]

looks pretty technical to me, at least for whoever fixed the ropes

[jaee]

It's a pretty serious climb. However, it gets enough traffic that lines are usually fixed. The party elected to use existing fixed lines but were prepared to fix their own. I believe the hardest rock climbing is 5.6 or so and there's quite a bit of steep snow and ice. Of course, there's obviously huge exposure off of the ridge.

[Bug]

Take me next time! How many rupies does it cost?

[Snafflehunter]

looks pretty technical to me, at least for whoever fixed the ropes

 

The ropes are fixed by Sherpa or guides, but they use last year's ropes to fix the current year's ropes. In 2003, a German guide was climbing less than 500' above me while on the SE Ridge of Ama Dablam when one of the lines he was jugging on suddenly broke in half. The guy was trying to fix lines for the season (this was ~October 20th) when he fell. It turns out the line he was using was placed seasons prior, and it had been severely deteriorated by wind and blowing ice/snow.

 

As for the technicality part, I didn't find jugging up the fixed lines was very difficult, but after witnessing that accident it became more of a mental thing for me.

[Snafflehunter]

Take me next time! How many rupies does it cost?

 

It really depends on who you go through to get your permit. 1 permit allows 10 or so climbers (could be 12), so if you can find someone who hasn't filled the max, then you could get on for ~US$500 per person. Add to that the cost of a liaison officer (US$2000 per team) and a garbage deposit (US$2000 per team - refundable after your expedition), and you can do the math from there. I would encourage you to look at getting on someone else's permit to save money obviously, but it isn't always possible. Try Henry Todd, or Dan Mazur -- those guys have teams up there every year. Do a google search. I think my entire trip (as a member of an independent team) cost about US$5000, but that included RT airfare to KTM, hotel accomodations in KTM, the round trip to Lukla, nightly stays in tea houses, sherpas, and porters. I was in the Khumbu region for just over 5 weeks total.

 

If you need any more info, feel free to PM me.

[Snafflehunter]

It's a pretty serious climb. However, it gets enough traffic that lines are usually fixed. The party elected to use existing fixed lines but were prepared to fix their own. I believe the hardest rock climbing is 5.6 or so and there's quite a bit of steep snow and ice. Of course, there's obviously huge exposure off of the ridge.

 

Matt Anderson and co. climbed it free and they rated the crux rock at 5.9 (if I remember correctly). But I don't think they were wearing rock shoes and it's all above 20,000 ft. Yikes!

 

Something to add: Don't count on lines being fixed if you plan on summitting prior to ~October 28th. Sometimes they are fixed as early as October 15th, sometimes as late as November 1st. It's all going to depend on the weather and how motivated the Sherpas feel.