Weather, Camp 2, and Waiting

We had a bad stretch of weather from the 20th through the 24th. Everyday we woke up to a cloud of white. Snow falling, clouds hanging all around us and we were forced to wait it out as it dumped snow on the mountain. Finally on the 25th we made the decision to head up to camp 1. We got up there in a little bit of snow, but nothing that was daunting. The next morning we woke up to clear skies and headed up to Camp 2 for our night of acclimatization. The winds were picking up and were making the use of down suits necessary for some. Everyone was feeling great though and we were happy that we were one step closer to making our summit bid. Throughout the night of the 25th the winds continued to pick up and when we woke in the morning, the windspeeds were gusting up to 60 knots. We made the decision to head down rather then try to fight the wind and touch camp 3. As we descended the winds kept at us and we kept huddling up like penguins in the antarctic to be able to speak to each other.

We are now resting comfortably at ABC, enjoying great food, a few movies, and we watched our last episode of The Office. Dunder Mifflin seems so out of our reality we just laugh at Michael Scott.

Chris Klinke
Cho Oyu ABC