On 23rd May’ 08, Explore Himalaya’s in-house writer met with Bo Belvedere Christensen, leader of the Kipling Travels Baruntse Expedition at Hotel Marshyangdi. Mr. Christensen, back in Kathmandu after a successful expedition, looked a bit exhausted but nonetheless happy, as he recounted his team’s wonderful acclimatization climb to both the Mera peaks as well as the arduous climb to Baruntse. Mr. Christensen disclosed that Baruntse was more technical then he had expected. He as well the members had to contend with bad weather conditions and difficult technical climbing on the last leg of the climb, before reaching their goal. Here we reproduce Mr. Christensen’s account of his team’s expedition.

Acclimatization in Mera Peak
We did Mera Peak as an acclimatization climb. We made it to both the summits of the Mera peak, all the members. We had a great climb and got good views from the summit. That was quite successful. But we regarded it as an acclimatization climb. Although Mera regarded as a trekking peak, I don’t think we should undermine it. Climbing Mera peak is an achievement in itself, and though it was not our goal, we had a great climb. All the members summitted and we had very good views from the summit, which we did not get while climbing Baruntse as the weather had turned bad.

Baruntse Challenge
Climbing on Baruntse was a little more technical then we had expected. We actually had to go around 5400-4,400m before the real climbing started. We passed the so called West Col before we got to climb. We had some fixed ropes, ropes our Sherpas had fixed. The first came just about the West Col, at 6100m.We went once there to acclimatize and went down again. A few days later, after a little rest we came up to the camp again and stayed up there till we proceeded somewhat up the slope and again we reached camp 2 after which we came down to the base camp to have some more rest. After this we made the first summit attempt.

First Summit Attempt
Our first attempt ended at around 6,900 m. Well, we climbed to reach the summit but it got very unstable and we decided not to continue because we thought it would be dangerous to go on with the little equipment that we had with us. Before we started for our expedition I had a talk with a Sherpa who had climbed Baruntse some years ago. I guess it was in the year 2000. He had found a pretty easy slope going up against the summit. He said it was a pretty easy slope. We tried to climb up from this slope in our first summit attempt, but we realized that the mountain had changed during the last few years. The slope was not an easy one, it was awkward and we had to abandon our summit attempt .It was an awkward climb.

Final summit attempt 15th of May 11am
But as it turned out we could return later and make a new summit attempt and proceed from the point we had got to in the first attempt and in that attempt to reach the summit. but from the start it’s a long way up from the base camp to the summit. During the real summit attempt our camp 2 was near a camp was established by some English climbers, somewhat higher then our Camp 2, at around 6,500m, in a small col between Baruntse 2 and Baruntse itself. Baruntse 2 is also called Baruntse south-east. The camp lies between the two summits in a saddle like slope. We made this our camp. On the night we before the day we were to summit we didn’t sleep so long .
The very next morning we started for the actual climbing on Baruntse’s south ridge, from where we had made our first summit attempt. We climbed for around 3 hrs.Until we reached the high point of our first summit attempt 6900m. From there we proceeded. There were some steep sections. We could see the summit at the distance. This spurred us to on to make the climb, although we were tired. But it was hard at the end. The two other guys , Martin and Jens , who made it to the summit along with me and the Sherpas , were extremely tired at the end when we got up to the summit plateau. The plateau is sort of a big steep slope, sloping against the summit. So around 11o’clock, on the 15th of May we all three together with 3 Sherpas stood on the summit. We were very happy to have reached our goal.
All the time the weather was very bad. Around the day we came to high camp it was snowing heavily and the weather had turned stormy. It was not good at all. We had a pretty strenuous climb and we were tired when we reached the high camp. When we went to the summit on the summit day we had hoped for clear weather but there were clouds coming in all the time but we were so lucky, it did not really break for the bad weather when we had the summit attempt. When we stood on the summit, there were lots of clouds, but not really bad. But half and hour we had turned down it was a little whiteout at the summit. It was pretty bad. But we were happy to have reached our goal.
There was another female member from Norway, but she turned back around pretty early in the attempt. She was tired on the day when we started the final summit attempt and she did not make it to the high camp from where we went up.

Advise to climbers keen on climbing Baruntse
I would say that they have to prepare themselves for technical climbing. On the last 250- 300 meters of altitude, the climbing gets rather technical. They have to take a large amount of ropes to fix the way. I wasn’t completely prepared for that, one reason to have given up on the first summit attempt.
I don’t think Baruntse is for novices. You need to have some experience at least. The people that were on this trip had climbed peaks previously both in the alps and in the Himalayas. Some of them have been climbing in South American peaks. If you have some experience it is a good experience to climb Baruntse because you gain a lot of knowledge.

On Future Expeditions
Next year I would like to go to Cho Oyu. For long term plan, I am hoping to have a go at Everest sometimes. I have tried before twice, but I haven’t succeeded. Most probably, we will try to arrange a commercial expedition sometimes for Cho Oyu next year and if that succeeds we hope to do Everest after 2 years.

On the climbing Sherpas , Porters & Explore Himalaya’s logistic
All the people who have been involved in the expedition, both porters and especially the climbing Sherpas has been very good people and have done a great job. I must say our sirdar Lhakpa is really a good guy .He did things the way it should be done and if there were problems we didn’t feel them. We did not see it because he solved everything before it came to our knowledge.
Explore Himalaya has arranged our expedition very professionally. It has been one of the best experiences I have had. There was nothing to complain about .Everything was running smoothly.

The names of the climbers are
1 Mr.BO BELVEDERE CHRISTENSEN –Leader (Denmark) (Summitted)
2. Mr.JENS CHRISTIAN TROLLE NIELSEN (Denmark) (Summited)
3. Mr.MARTIN CEDERKRANTZ (Denmark) (summitted)
4. Ms.ANNY KVITHYLL (Norway)
5. Mr.STEEN ULRIK ULRIKSEN (Denmark)
6. Mr.JESPER JOHANNESEN (Denmark)

They expedition members were supported by:
1.Lhakpa Dorje Sherpa (Sirdar) (Summitted)
2.Dachhemba Sherpa (climbing sherpa)
3.Pem Chhiri Sherpa (climbing sherpa) (Summitted)
4.Megh Bahadur Sherpa (cook)
5.Bal Bahadur Lopchen(kitchen boy) (summitted)
6.Mingmar Tamang(kitchen boy) and 12 local porters.

The itinerary followed by the team
17th April: Lukla
18th April:Pankongma
19th April:Narjing Kharka
20th April :Chilim Kharka
22nd April : Rest
23rd April: Kothe
24th April: Tagnak
25th April: Rest
26th April: Khare
27th April: Mera base camp
28th April:Mera high camp
29th April: Mera summit
30th April: Seto pokhari
1st May: Basecamp
2nd May: Rest
3 -4th May: Camp 1
5-9th May: Camp 2
10th May: First summit attempt
11-13th May :Base camp
14th May :Camp 2
15th May: Summit 10:45- return to base camp
16th May: Rest
17th May :Amphu Lapcha
18th May: Amphu Lapcha
19th May: Chukkum - Dingboche
20th May: Thengboche
21st May :Namche
22nd May: Lukla
24th May :Kathmandu

Reconnaissance on the Drop Zone at Shyangboche by the High & Wild Everest Skydiving Managing Team – A Success

The first ever skydiving program in the Everest Himalaya took place on the 14th & 15th of May, 2008. Four skydivers Ben Ian Wood, Andy Montriou, Nigel Gifford and David Ian Wood successfully skydived from a height of 16,000ft and 17,500ft at Shyanboche. All four divers belong to the management team of High and Wild, which is a  UK based adventure company. This was the test jump for the first ever program of skydiving in the Everest Himalaya to take place this Autumn.

Explore Himalaya, the local partner of High & Wild has received the permit to hold the first ever Skydiving program in front of Mt Everest (29,035ft.) this Autumn(Oct- Nov).
 6th May ‘08 – Everest SkydiveManagement Team Arrives in Kathmandu
On 6th May the management team of the High & Wild Everest Skydive arrived in Kathmandu. Nigel Gifford, the Managing Director of High and Wild, had arrived a few days earlier.

8th-13th May- The team Leaves for Shyangboche
After spending a day in Kathmandu, they flew to Lukla to make the final reconnaissance on the drop zone at Shyangboche. From Lukla the team trekked to Jorsale. On 10th May the team reached Namche bazaar. On the 11th the team walked to Shyangboche to inspect the landing area and returned to Namche.The team returned to Shyangboche again .But this time they stayed at Phinju Lodge.The next day, May 13th the team made a thorough aerial survey by Fishtail air helicopter.

14th -15th May – Test Skydive Over Everest 
On 14th May, two members Ben Ian Wood and Andy Montriou were ready for the test dive. They tried to do it at 6:30 a.m. but since it was too cloudy they had to give it up. At around 8a.m again they flew over by army helicopter piloted by Col.Pramod Lama and his assistant Major Subash Thapa waiting for the weather to clear. Now it had turned windy. At 9:15 a.m., the weather finally cleared. Flying to a height of 16,000 ft, Ben and Andy jumped. Though it was windy, the divers were successful in landing safely at  Shyangboche airport. The feat was again repeated the following day (15th May) at 8:30 a.m.by Nigel Gifford and David Ian Wood when they skydived after being flown by a helicopter belonging to Fishtail Air. Nigel Gifford, Managing Director of High & Wild, who is 62 years old, was delighted with the jump.  He opened the parachute after free falling for about 8-10 seconds. David followed closely. After a successful jump they tried for a tandem jump (skydiving carrying a passenger) but since the weather turned foul, they had to abort their plan. The team left for UK on the 16th.
This was the first ever program of skydiving in the Everest Himalaya to take place. After a successful dropzone test, the upcoming Everest Skydive mission (Autumn 2008) sure looks like a winner!
Nigel is confident about running this operation as a commercial activity. Explore Himalaya too is proud to be associated as a local partner of High & Wild in introducing the Everest Skydive as a new product.

Looking Back – GKN Everest Mission 2007
Explore Himalaya had an opportunity to organize a high profile aviation event over the Everest in May 2007 .The project named GKN Everest Mission 2007 teamed up with the explorer Bear Grylls for a breathtaking Himalayan adventure: to fly a powered paraglider higher than Mount Everest. This daring feat – successfully completed on 14 May – acted as the focal point of a global challenge for GKN employees to help raise an extra $1 million for charity. This unique aerial adventure, which was documented and shot on location by Planet Earth has been aired on the Discovery Channel and Channel Four.

Explore Himalaya was appointed as a logistic partner in conjunction with High and Wild (UK) for the prestigious project. The specially designated team from Explore Himalaya spent over six months on the various assignments required for the mission, such as getting several different permits from Government’s offices, handling entire arrangement during their stay in Nepal, getting whole team and their equipments to and from take off point, arranging sets of crew to cater to the mission team including their film shooting unit etc.
In the morning of 14th May (Monday), 2007, Bear Grylls and fellow pilot Gilo Cardozo took off from Pheriche situated at 4240 meter (13910 ft) in the Everest .
They flew to a height of 8,535 meter (28,000 feet) when, unfortunately a fault in Gilo’s machine forced him to abort his flight, when only 300 meter below the summit. He had to glide back to safety but Bear continued to ascend until, at 09:33 local time, he reached 8,990 meter (29,500 feet). Bear was able to look down on Everest as he circled above some of the most famous peaks in the Himalayas. Then his own engine developed problems and he too had to glide back to safety but he had achieved his goal. He had successfully flown over the Everest on his paramotor!
Bear Grylls, host of Discovery Channel adventure show Man Vs. Wild, author and seasoned adventurer added another feather in his cap, when he became the first person to fly over Mount Everest powered by paramotor.

Besides Bear and Giles, there were over 20 GKN employees supported by a team from Explore Himalaya, who trekked on foot to the take off point to witness the flight over world’s highest mountain in presence of liaison officers appointed by the Government of Nepal.
 

Explore Himalaya – In Support of the Spirit of Adventure
As an adventure company, Explore Himalaya champions extreme sports and events that test the limit of human endurance. Thus, the company was thrilled to be a part of an historic project like the GKN Mission Everest 2007. We are glad that the mission was successful.

Everest Skydive 2008 – Once Again Explore Himalaya Becomes a Part of a Historic Event
This year too Explore Himalaya is to be a part of a historic event: the Everest Skydive. This Sept/ Oct the Everest region will set the stage for a record breaking event. High & Wild in partnership with Explore Himalaya will organize the world’s highest skydive in  over Mt.Everest for more then 20 jumpers. Explore Himalaya is once again all set to be a part of another extreme challenge and unique event!