Posted: Sep 24, 2009 04:45 am EST
(MountEverest.net/Madrid) It’s summit day on Cho Oyu! Teams are topping-out in great weather, following the trail opened by four Spanish climbers on Tuesday.

“We received confirmation that Tuesday four Spanish climbers broke the trail to the summit in a marathon 15-hour ascent that involved ploughing through waist-deep snow,” Adventure Consultants team reported live over Contact 4.0 yesterday, at arrival in ABC. “Tomorrow (today) looks destined to be a big summit day as lots of folks could be seen moving up the fixed ropes to camp 3.”

AC’s guess was confirmed in the morning today with a number of climbers summiting the “Turquoise Goddess”, while Spanish media reported details on the Spanish front-line summiteers.

Spanish trail-breakers

First on top Tuesday were Estitxu Salinas (on her first 8000m+ experience) and her mate Roberto Rojo “Gorri” (on his fourth 8000er), from the Spanish Basque Country, after the team’s third member Jon Fernandez, eventually turned back due to acclimatization problems. A fellow Basque and a female climber from Asturias joined Estitxu and Gorri on the top.

“We originally planned to attempt the summit on Wednesday, and thus we set off from BC last Sunday, expecting to set up three higher camps on the way,” Gorri told Noticias de Alava paper. “While in C2, we got a weather forecast announcing the weather would turn for the worse on Sep 23rd though. Therefore, we tried our luck and went for the top all the way from C2.”

“Weather conditions were good, but we had to break trail, so we reached the summit plateau rather late – finally we reached the top at 4.30pm. The we returned to C2, which we reached, utterly exhausted, t 10:00pm, after 22 hours non-stop.”

The team is safely back in BC, celebrating the summit success and “trying to find out which part of our bodies doesn’t ache,” according to Gorri.

Malta’s first 8000er

“All the three members of the challenge8000 team, Robert Gatt, Gregory Attard and Marco Cremona, have successfully climbed to the summit of Mount Cho Oyu at an elevation of 8,201metres,” the Maltese home team reported earlier today. “This is the first time ever that any Maltese climber has taken the Maltese flag on a mountain peak at that altitude.”

“The Maltese team is being led by 4xEverest summiteer Victor Saunders, from the UK. The 18-hour trek towards the summit started late on Wednesday night from camp 2 at 7,100 metres, and they reached the summit early on Thursday morning. The team are now back in camp one to rest.”

The Maltese team will attempt Everest In spring 2010, again guided by Saunders.

Jagged-Globe and IMG

“We've just had a text msg from expedition leader, Tim Calder, to confirm that 10 members of our Cho Oyu expedition, plus leaders, Chris Groves and Andy Chapman, summited Cho Oyu 8,201m this morning between 5:00am and 09:00am with our Sherpa team,” UK-based Jagged-Globe team reported earlier today.

Summit news is also expected today from IMG’s team, guided by Greg Vernovage. The team reached C2 healthy and on schedule.

More teams to follow next weekend

SummitClimb leader Arnold Coster has also made up his mind. “After the final check with the weather forecast today, we decided to go for the summit push,” he reported from ABC earlier today. “The weather looks good up until the 27th of September. All of our members left for camp 1 after lunch.”

The team plans to stay a night on each higher camp, aiming for Sunday as summit day.

Norwegian Hvitserk team members, right back from C2, are reportedly ready to launch a summit push on Sunday as well.

Links to Cho Oyu teams, fall 2009

Simone Moro - Cho Oyu SW face
Cho Oyu SW face Czech team
Mario Merelli
Argentinean team
Malta's Challenge8000
Alpine Ascents
Hvitserk
Adventure Consultants
IMG
Jagged-Globe
Reto Everest

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