Trip Reports

Kyajo Ri - 13 Oct to 8 Nov '18

Written by Leader Ed Chard, November 2018

“Ed, I’ve dropped my abseil device”

These words, shared with an Expedition Leader or mountain guide, have the potential to toll like a church bell in one’s head. It’s all about where you hear them, in this instance it was at Base Camp at 4200m on a grassy benign slope where we all were practicing for our ascent of Kyajo Ri (6189m) in a few days’ time. A good place to blow it!

“Don’t do that again” I said, “especially on summit day when you have 600m of abseiling to ahead of you” It seemed like the right thing to say. Sheepish looks followed with a perfect display of controlled sliding down a rope.

We were in a beautiful valley surrounded by 700m high cliffs on a well-earned rest day. Lunch was being prepared as we “played climbers” for a few hours. Ahead of us laid 3 days of hard graft, we had to stock camp 1 with food and equipment (500m above us) return to base camp in the same day and then go back the following day to sleep. The route then took us to camp 2 before a summit attempt the following morning. Resting was going to be important!

The ground around Kyajo Ri is undisturbed, rarely visited and barren. Loose scree and boulders lay in the valleys whilst granite bedrock slabs line the route and make for some exciting scrambling between camps. Sun is a brief visitor with sub zero temperatures every night. We shared our basecamp with Alpine Choughs and Ravens that danced around the cook tent hoping for the odd crust that was thrown out. Glacial streams ran past the tents into a wide bottomed valley that eventually led down to Namche Bazaar (home of coffee, cakes and other humans)

Over lunch we discussed our ascent plan. Two groups of 5 climbers would ascend through the camps and have separate summit days from each other. High Altitude Sherpa’s were already fixing the route, a mix of steep snow, ice and granite walls. Good weather was forecast, and everyone was well acclimatised after 10 days of walking in. The air of summit excitement was building.

The carries to Camp 1 went well, although the walk back was a little like a scene from ‘Heat and Dust’. Luckily our packs were empty as we descended the last slopes to base camp in the approaching darkness.

The following day we re-ascended the familiar Jenga block slope to camp. At the head of a hanging valley, Camp 1 is in a fantastic position. The rocky outcrop perched above a glacial lake and Kyajo Glacier is awesome. With stoves whistling away, High Altitude rations were soon prepared in each tent as everyone snuck away for an early night.

The route to camp 2 is complex and steep involving both steep rock, boulder field and glacier. 30m of fixed rope barred the last section to a snowy col camp below the imposing South West Face. Snow was melted, crampons laid out and sleeping bags filled up with bodies before it was dark. Sleeping at 5700m isn’t always easy so by 4am folk were ready to emerge from their down caterpillar cocoons.

Oats and dried strawberries or jam rice pudding high altitude meals were inhaled rather than eaten politely, this is no place to hang about!! The warming suns rays hit the mountain after about 200m of climbing. The difficult rock section led to snow and onto steep and hard ice. This section has been soft and welcoming before but not today; blue ice took extra effort and fortitude to climb efficiently. Slowly the summit came ever closer and eventually a view to remember. 360-degree views of the Khumbu from over 6000m. Ama Dablam, Cholatse and Everest all within touching distance. Nearly. Time to abseil off.

“Ed, I’ve dropped………….no only joking”

Well done Kyajo Ri Team 2018, experiences hard won and memories that will last a lifetime.

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