2010 Expeditions
Everest - Another successful Everest expedition saw most of the group summit on May 23 after deciding the first weather window a week earlier was too short and too cold for our liking. Most of the expeditions contributed to the fixed rope expenses and the Sherpas did a great job of placing the ropes to the summit. The 23rd was a busy day and sometimes slow going because of the crowds but none of our climbers or staff suffered any injuries although Mike had an interesting descent.
Read the dispatches from the expedition 2010 Everest Dispatches
Gasherbrum - Despite what the media reports about Pakistan we are going back to the Gasherbrums. We will once again be using dome of the best HAP's available to assist us fix the route. We will have a maximum team size of eight climbers with a 1:2 HAP to climber ratio. We have professional weather forecasts and some of the best Hunza cooks available at base camp. This will be Phil's 4th expedition to the Gasherbrums.
Read the dispatches from the expedition 2010 Gasherbrum Dispatches
Manaslu - After two previous successful expeditions to Manaslu we will return once again to our "new" Cho Oyu. We know the mountain and the logistics and this climb is a great alternative to the crowded and more expensive Cho Oyu. As usual we will have a maximum team size of eight climbers with a 1:2 Sherpa to climber ratio. We have professional weather forecasts and some of the best cooks on the mountain and our climbing Sherpas will be coming from our Everest and Gasherbrum expeditions. This will be Phil's 3rd expedition to Manaslu.
2009 Expeditions
Everest - After deciding to run all our Everest expeditions from Nepal in the future we returned to the Khumbu for our 2009 expedition. The mountain was less crowded than expected but the weather threw us off guard sometimes but we prevailed and had team members and Sherpas reach the summit on May 19, May 20 and May 21.
Read the dispatches from the expedition 2009 Everest Dispatches
Gasherbrum - Pakistan was all over the media as an unsafe place to visit but as usual we found it friendly and very hospitable to foreigners. We took four of our Everest Sherpas straight from the Khumbu to the Karakoram and the expedition made quick progress with glorious weather but then the snow came and the jet stream appeared and wouldn't leave the proximity of the mountain. There were some more dubious claims of summits and only one climber supposedly made the true summit of Gasherbrum II. The Junkies team members had a great time together and several of the members plan to go back in 2010.
Read the dispatches from the expedition 2009 Gasherbrum Dispatches
Manaslu - After our Manaslu 2008 success we decided to go back and stop operating all of our expeditions to Tibet because of the Chinese government's whims at closing Tibet unannounced at the drop of a hat. There were very few teams as many decided to go to Cho Oyu allowing us to have an amazing experience on this rarely climbed 8,000-meter peak. We had team members and Sherpas reaching the summit, actually after reviewing Samuli's summit photos, our guys were around 5 linear meters short of the final summit cornice on September 27.
Read the dispatches from the expedition 2009 Manaslu Dispatches
2008 Expeditions
Everest - We had planned on climbing the mountain from the northern Tibet side of the mountain but the Chinese had different ideas. We were fortunate enough to switch our expedition to the more exclusive Nepal side of the mountain and we loved it. There were many teams on the route as other of planned the north side expedition teams came over to the south side with some of those teams having in excess of 40 members. We had team members and Sherpas reach the summit on May 21 and May 24 respectively.
Read the dispatches from the expedition 2008 Everest Dispatches
Manaslu - With entry into Tibet still uncertain we decided to switch our Cho Oyu expedition to Manaslu. The mountain had never been offered extensively as a commercial peak so along with several other commercial operators we gave it a try and summitted. There were some dubious claims of summits with teams stopping considerably short of the true summit but we went for it and reached the true summit putting the first British woman there and without using supplementary oxygen on October 5th.
Read the dispatches from the expedition 2008 Manaslu Dispatches
Kang Guru - We decided to give Kang Guru a try and believe we were the first expedition to attempt this peak since the infamous 2005 disaster where fifteen people lost their lives in an avalanche. We had beautiful weather until reaching the high camp in anticipation of our summit attempt. Unfortunately we did not reach the summit but were close with some of the members reaching 6,700 meters before being turned around by bad snow conditions.
Read the dispatches from the expedition 2008 Kang Guru Dispatches
Photo credit: Martin Barnett - Everest Northeast Ridge from above the Second Step.
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