Monday, November 14, 2011

Kathmandu: post guiding and Nuptse


Sorry it has been a while since I have updated here, it seems to be easier to update my Facebook athlete page (fabrizio zangrilli climbing) while away in the mountains.

Guiding for the month of October was great, it was a trip based on alpine skills and while conditions were really not great after the two major snow events (first in mid Sept and then again early Oct) we managed to be flexible and found better conditions on a mountain we had not planned on climbing originally. My goal was to teach skills that would create an alpinist - for sure a solid start.
November gave me an opportunity to try something that I have been looking at for 15 years. I knew going into it that conditions were less than ideal, but it was worth giving it a go anyway. I learned a lot about the wall, a lot - and cant believe how big everything was, the adventure, the seracs, the avis, how much sugar snow can cling to steepish blue ice - everything. There are more photos here on my Facebook athlete page (there are a few hard earned secrets I will not be sharing about the first crux though) . More photos to come.....

First photo is Nuptse's west face with Everest behind, Second is my bivy/base camp - clearly not a well funded nor big expedition. I am eating everything in sight, and trying my best to get out of here which is harder than I would like so might be here for a while.

Thanks so much to Marmot, CAMP, SCARPA, Ames Adventure Outfitters and CHUCS Dive and Mountain Shop for the continued support!