Posted: May 13, 2007 10:45 pm EDT
A summit attempt on Dhaulagiri ended in tragedy Sunday: Spaniards Santiago Sagaste and Ricardo Valencia were lost in an avalanche which swept their tent in C2. On Everest, massive summit bids are on at both sides since Wednesday when 17 Chinese climbers reportedly topped-out and test lit the Olympic torches. Pushes are also expected on Manaslu and Annapurna. In polar news, the approaching summer is posing a serious problem for Alain and Dixie on their way between the Pole and Greenland. In Ocean news; the Mars 1000 day journey nearly ended after 19 days when Schooner Anne collided with a passing freighter in the middle of the night on May 5.

Avalanche on Dhaulagiri - Ricardo Valencia and Santiago Sagaste lost, Gerlinde and Javi Serrano close escape Spaniards Santiago and Ricardo perished on Dhaulagiri on Sunday, buried under an avalanche which swept C2, where the climbers were waiting out a storm. Fellow team members Javi Serrano and Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbruner escaped the avalanche but were left without climbing gear and warm clothes. They were helped down by other members in the Spanish team, who were in C1 at the time.

17 Chinese summit Everest “I was at the North Col on Wednesday, when at about lunchtime a large number of Tibetan/Chinese people came past with about half a dozen Olympic torches in cloth sacks attached to their packs,” Duncan told ExplorersWeb. “They said they burnt well on the summit and that 17 members summited from the team. Difficult conditions with strong winds on descent but they all looked great.”

Everest north: Summit bids on despite bad weather Some climbers such as un-armed Cato Pedersen, Nives Meroi and Romano Benet (climbing without O2), and David Tait together with Phurba Sherpa, aiming for an Everest traverse, have set off from BC in order to be closer to the summit when the wind drops, expectedly early next week.

Everest’s south side: Pushes starting on Saturday On the Nepalese side of Everest several teams were setting off Saturday, hoping the currently uncertain weather will settle after the weekend.

Failed attempt on the south side "Today we had the first of the south side groups make an attempt for the top," Mike Haugen of Coleman expedition reported. "Unfortunately, they didn't reach the summit - reports are that there was too much wind to allow for a safe climb."

Jean-Noel Urban to attempt a ski descent down the Norton Couloir French extreme skier Jean-Noel Urban will try to summit Everest and ski down the Norton Couloir. “I'll only only try it if conditions are good enough,” he cautions though. Last year, Swedish Tomas Olsson met his death attempting a ski descent on this exact route.

Everest north side: Austrian Thomas Bubendorfer climbing without O2 — via a new variation While teams prepare for their definitive summit bids on both normal routes of Everest, Thomas Bubendorfer hopes to include a large chunk of unknown terrain on his lone no-O2 ascent.

Conrad Anker in Mallory’s shoes - and Leo Houlding in Irvine’s Conrad Anker is back tracing George Mallory and Sandy Irvine’s footprints on Everest - this time he'll climb in 1920s’ clothes, similar to the ones Mallory wore when Conrad found his body back in 1999. Brit rock climbing celebrity Leo Houlding will star as Irvine in the upcoming film.

Everest traversers – without permit? China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA) has only given two permits to traverse Everest,” a member in the Philippine Everest expedition told ExplorersWeb from BC. “One has been granted to an American climber, and the second permit is for the Philippine Women’s team. CTMA says there were other requests but they were all turned down, and that is the reason why they have set up an additional traverse fee.”

Maxut and Vassily refused O2 on descent, Abramov said “Arun’s owner Dawa immediately sent three Sherpas upwards from the Col, carrying water, medicine and oxygen. Meanwhile, at about 10 a.m. the Kazakhs had decided to resume the trip down toward their tent, pitched at 7,900m,” Abramov reported. “They reached that spot at lunchtime, and by the same time Sherpas showed up there. Maxut and Vassily accepted water and a stove, but refused supplementary O2 in order to keep their climb completely O2-free.”

Action moving from Dhaulagiri to Annapurna Iñaki Ochoa and Horia Colibasanu are in Annapurna BC, where they have joined Seguey Bogomolov, and Andrew Lock. Ochoa has eyed the German route for a possible ascent, thus separating from Edurne and Ivan Vallejo’s team, currently supplying C3 on the normal route.

Manaslu: Ralf’s team ready for a summit bid Ralf’s team is currently resting in BC after setting up C2. Dujmovits himself, together with Hirotaka, even spent two nights up there and, despite bad weather, they left a gear cache on the way to C3. The plan now is to climb all the way up to C3 and to pitch the tents there as soon as weather permits. The team may then launch a summit attempt right away.

Gerlinde’s Dhaulagiri: Gear robbed and teammate KO’d — “I’ll go for the summit alone” Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner is not having an easy time on Dhaulagiri. Last Thursday, she and teammate Lucie launched their first summit bid. But when they reached C1, they looked for the gear they had deposited there — and instead found a hole in the snow. Lucie got sick in C3, Gerlinde helped her down in storm conditions, before heading back up and narrowly escaping the avalanche.

Koreans summit Lhotse, teams report Several teams in Everest south side BC are reporting on a Korean team having reached the summit of Lhotse. Luis Benitez, guide with Adventure Consultants team has confirmed the news to ExplorersWeb.

Big fish expected on Nanga Parbat The list of Nanga climbing permits issued this year includes a number of well-known climbers and 8,000er baggers: Dodo Kopold, Peter Hamor, Piotr Morawski, Jean-Noel Urban, Oh Lee Joon, Serap Jangbu Sherpa, pls Chileans and Belarusians expeditions.

Carlos Pauner getting over Broad Peak — once and for all Spaniard Carlos Pauner is tired of Broad Peak, tired of not having summited any 8,000er in 2006, and fed-up of critics back home. Hat’s why he wants to get done with the Pakistani peak at all cost. Therefore, teaming up with a small team of friends, Carlos is flying to Pakistan on June 2, in order to reach Broad Peak's BC by June 12, hoping to acclimatize fast and get ready for the first weather window available.

Arctic Arc: Greenland too far away? "It's obvious, we're at a pivotal point in the expedition, because on the one hand, time is short and on the other, which is a little worrying, we know absolutely nothing about the conditions that we can expect,” Alain said. All going well, the team calculates they would finish their expedition by the beginning of July.

Frozen Five: Vagabond sweet home “Skiing down towards the east coast on the long glacier of Inglefieldbreen, I felt like coming home,” Lucas reported. “We were just a few kilometers away from our second resupply point — and the French polar yacht Vagabond... the only inhabited location on the wild east coast of Spitsbergen.”

Dutch Notice Greenland expedition – encounters On Sunday, the team had an unexpected sighting: “Small dots at the horizon showed up! It happened to be the other Dutch Expedition, Frozen Dreams,” they reported. “They had decided to turn back to their starting point due to damaged equipment and delay caused by bad weather.”

Team Geared Up: Echoes from the Cold War The British skiers have reached the highest point on their E/W Greenland crossing. Now they are heading downhill, one day away from Dye-2 radar station, a relic from the Cold War. The place was one of the 58 stations built by Americans between 1955 and 1957 across Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Iceland.

More Greenland teams tracked down Greenland Expeditions Specialists outfitting company provides logistics for a number of teams currently progressing across the island, east to west. Among them are two guided teams, and Russian adventurer Fedor Konyukhov, currently dog-sledging across the island.

Rosie in her second month on the ice Rosie is ahead of schedule, according to her home team, but in fact it was over two months ago when she set off from Ward Hunt Island. On her 65th day of expedition, she still has two and a half degrees to go in order to reach the North Pole.

Polar First: Almost back home “How quickly the stress moments lose much of their negativity and take on a positive adventure feel,” reflected Jennifer, back in Montreal. “Already my thoughts are more of the harsh beauty and glory of the Arctic and less of the stress.” Jennifer and Colin are virtually done with their flying voyage around the world. Their next stop will be in U.S. territory — at the final destination, which was also the starting point of the trip: Fort Worth, Texas.

Gabriel Warren - finding the muse on the ice In 1999, Gabriel became the first sculptor to ever be sent to Antarctica, courtesy of the National Science Foundation and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. His experience in Antarctica fueled his sculpting, in which he takes lightweight metal, glass and stone materials.

Reid and Soanya collide with freighter Reid Stowe and Soanya Ahmad are 19 days — or about 2 percent —into their 1,000 day voyage, but just a few days ago it was looking like they’d never see their world record-breaking goal come to fruition when the Schooner Anne collided with a passing freighter in the middle of the night on May 5.

Bhavik Gandhi: Same problems, different day Rudder, leak, rudder, leak, throw a storm in there somewhere. The litany of impediments Bhavik Gandhi has faced since setting off from El Hierro has shrunk to a redundant mix of persistent ailments, as he continues to ping pong back and forth between resealing a leak in increasingly creative ways and watching the precarious rudder situation with fingers crossed.

Read these stories - and more! - at ExplorersWeb.com

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