Autumn 2008 newsletter
| Autumn 2008 newsletter |
|
The Mountain Company Newsletter Welcome to The Mountain Company Autumn newsletter! Roland has just got back to the UK after leading our K2 & Gondogoro La trek in Pakistan. This year the Gondogoro La was in good condition and the whole group successfully crossed this challenging pass. The Mountain Company has an exciting program arranged for 2009, please get in touch if you are interested or require any further information for the following treks:
Manaslu Circuit (April '09)
If you are planning on visiting Nepal in March, April or May we
encourage you to book your flights soon in order to get reasonable prices for
your dates.
Roland will be in the UK until September 19th so please call
if you would like to chat about a trip to the Himalayas or Kilimanjaro. Our
office telephone number is 0207 4980953 . The Mountain Company team
Late availability Lunana Snowman trek Sept/Oct '08: Roland is leading this epic trek across northern Bhutan, for more information on the Lunana Snowman trek Manaslu Circuit October '08: Mike Farris has recently returned from an expedition to climb K2 and is looking forward to leading the Manaslu Circuit trek for more information on Manaslu Circuit Mera Peak November '08: Roland is returning to Mera Peak again with a group for more information on the Mera Peak expedition All of these trips are now guaranteed to run and there is still availability, please get in touch very soon if you are interested in joining any of these groups.
Pre monsoon treks in Nepal We have carefully selected our pre monsoon program to visit more remote and quieter areas of Nepal: Manaslu Circuit (April '09): Alan Ward is leading our Manaslu Circuit trek in April, please get in touch soon if you would like to join him for more information on the Manaslu Circuit Makalu Base Camp (April '09): This trek has been on Roland's wish list for a while and he is really looking forward to exploring this area for more information on Makalu BC Dhaulagiri Circuit via French Col (May '09): Roland led a group around the Dhaulagiri Circuit in May '08, he rates this trek as one of the best treks in Nepal! for more information on the Dhaulagiri Circuit The Mountain Company uses Mountain Hardwear Trango 3.1s for all of our camping treks in Nepal (pictured above). We also bring a Thuraya satellite phone as well as providing a full expedition medical kit.
The Mountain Blog
Summer 2009 in Pakistan We already have received enquiries for both of these treks and at this stage are confident they will run as planned. Please get in touch if you are interested in joining Roland on one of these treks. We received good feedback from our August '08 K2 & Gondogoro La group, see Luke's comments below: "Thanks for a brilliant trip, it exceeded all of my expectations both in terms of scenery and the organization. I can't find fault in your planning and running of the trip, you've clearly put a lot of effort into making sure your trips run smoothly and it's shown in the level of satisfaction afterwards" Luke Mather, K2 & Gondogoro La August 2008
Best dressed porters on the Baltoro! All of our porters crossing the Gondogoro La in August '08 were lent the following items: wind jackets and trousers, good quality walking boots, sunglasses, socks and gloves. We also paid the porters their equipment money as per government regulations. The handout of gear was captured on video by Alistair who has posted it onto YouTube, the link is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRBK-Yyjm2E
Mountaineering news from Karakoram The events leading up to this disaster on K2 have been widely reported in the press. We will not repeat the story in this newsletter but have copied links to various news sources below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/31/9 Expeditions blogs:
http://www.mfarris.net/blog/ On Nanga Parbat An Iranian expedition summitted Nanga Parbat on the normal route, however sadly one member died on the descent. Italian Karl Unterkircher died on Nanga Parbat's Rakhiot face when a snow ledge collapsed and he fell into a crevasse. His two climbing partners were unable to descend although finally skied down to 5,700m and were airlifted from there to BC. On Broad Peak of note Valery Babanov and Viktor Afanasyev summited Broad Peak on July 17th via a new route. On July 30th French climbers Stephane Portier and Claude Labatut, Italians Mario Panzeri and Daniele Nardi and Finnish Veikka Gustafsson also summited Broad Peak.
We hope you enjoyed reading our newsletter, please forward to any friends who you think might be interested. We are always happy to chat about our trips, so please give us a call!
Roland Hunter If you enjoyed reading this newsletter and are not currently signed up to receive the newsletters to your email address, you can register by clicking here |