Garret Madison (head field man for AAI and total rogue), Tseten Chamatsang Sherpa (all around queen pin and "fixer" for Sherpa Adventure Gear) Lakpa Rita Sherpa (premier high altitude bad ass guide)

I showed up this year with my own "burner" (Julie got me a cheap cell phone) and jumped right into getting things sorted for this expedition. First I had a meeting at the ministry of tourism to make an appointment to make further appointments. If I'm lucky I will have things sorted out by Tuesday before the next round of festivals. Also on order is visiting old friends and new.

Dawa Yangzum Sherpa (AKA Zum Zum for her incredible endurance in the mountains)

Welcome 

Another journey to the Nepal Himalaya has started well. This time I am honored to be joined by Chad Kellogg for the next two months of trekking and climbing.  My plan is to take a car to Singati and hike into the Rolwaling to acclimatize and do our puja .  After that we hope to hike over Tashilapsa pass and meet our friend and cook Dawa in Namche. From there it is off to the base of the mountain behind the small village of Chule  where I plan on setting up base camp. The mountain we hope to climb is called Pangbuk  Ri.                    

Pangbuk Ri is the center mountain, I believe the left summit is the highest.

Bivy in crevasse on summit ridge

This is a four minute unedited video that I took while waiting for the sun.

Pangbuk Ri Summit View

Awesome

This is a unedited movie I shot mid climb with my point and shoot camera. Enjoy

The route

This is the basic route, with are last high camp site as the black triangle. We descended to the left of the flag and down the basin behind the left sky line

Pangbuk Ri, climbed

2:00am wake up, 4:00am start

Its is time for me to get some pictures from are climb out, Chad wrote a nice peace at his site and I plan on giving it more with time, but for the moment I will give out the images and work on the story later when my batteries are recharged. Thanks to all who have waited. One other thing, we burned out on taking pictures as it got dark and on the nerve racking decent (see last shot in post for a idea), so you will see shots from the first day and the following morning on the summit. The rest will have to be shared in word.

Heading up to the up the day before to climb the waterfall and leave ropes set.

Chad climbing water ice to leave set up for following morning (the ropes got frozen in and I spent at least a hour re-climbing it and chopping out the ropes in the dark on the summit push).

We soloed above the waterfall for about 300m before roping up.

Many hanging (OK leaning) belays on this climb

Chad leading very typical terrain on the climb.

We mostly found Ice, but ran into some long run outs on the way.             Photo C Kellogg

Chad reaches a dead end and we rappel down the other side into another runnel.

The runnels just kept coming.

Ice fall in a shoot off to my left.    Photo C Kellogg

Sun setting on Everest.

My last picture before night fall.

This and the above shot are from the next morning on the summit.