At Base Camp

We arrived at Cho Oyu Base Camp yesterday morning. Everything is going great. Tents are up, food has been amazing, and everyone on the team is healthy and acclimatizing well.

This morning we went for a hike up to Palung which is the intermediate camp between the Chinese Basecamp and Advanced Base Camp, BC is at about 4855m and Palung is at about 5400m so it did our bodies some good to get the exercise after sitting in a car for the past 4 days.

Our trip to BC was relatively uneventful. We got stopped by one landslide on the Nepal side of the border and then missed the cutoff time to cross the border. Because of that we stayed in Kodari, Nepal instead of Zhangmu, Tibet. We spent two days in Nylam and I have to say how I am amazed at the new road that was put in on the Tibet side. What used to take 4 hours only took 45 minutes. While in Nylam we hiked up to about 5100m and enjoyed ourselves people watching. Then we moved to Tingri and I found it exactly as I remembered it, dogs outnumbering people 3 to 1, dusty and, a bit trying. We were all happy to depart Tingri and head to BC.

Our plan now is to spend a rest day at BC tomorrow and then head up to Palung on the 9th where we load our 4000lbs of food and gear onto yaks for the hike to ABC, and spend 1 night. We should arrive at ABC on the 10th of October and we will spend a day or two setting up camp and getting ready to start moving up the mountain.

Chris Klinke
Cho Oyu BC