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United Russian-Georgian expedition "Lhotse-2000"
(April-May, 2000, Nepal)
It was the next attempt to find the way to the top of the Lhotse Middle...
view to lhotse

Reports

May 23-24th
The expedition climbed Lhotse Main and is successful. Conditions in this year are very hard: bad weather, wild winds, a lot of snow, avalanche danger. So now we do not plan to traverse Lhotse Midlle. All we are very tired. Tomorrow we plan to go to find the route up to Lhotse Middle for our future expedition. Then we will put off our camps. The most part of expeditions already going down from base camp. Guys from MAI-2000 expedition climbed up to their Camp 3 and found out that the big ice fall destroyed their tent with all equipment and oxygen. They refused attempts to go up and went down to Kathmandu. Soon they will be in Moscow. We confirmed our tickets for June 9, so in 2 weeks we will meet. Drama on descend. Reported by Lhotse Slovenian expedition "Viki went first later followed him Matko and Bo tjan. In thick mist came to rope fixed from south saddle with path to Camp 3. There was a crush of climbers descending reasoned by bad weather condition so they didn't secure them to safety rope but continued with descend freely climbing down a slope..."

May, 22
Today we all successfully reached the base camp.
May 21 (12:00 local time), the first climber was on the top. Till 12:30 all the participants reached the top as well. We places on the top hardly too small area, after we made pictures and video records, it took us around 1 hour.
9 our climbers (100 percent of the expedition) reached the top of Mt.Lhotse. Tthis is the best result and good luck for this year in Himalayas.
The ascent was going on in the hard weather conditions, wild wind (40 m/sec), which blow up toward the slope, that was the reason why we had the way down almost blinded.
We could not find the body of Vladimir Bashkirov on the place, where it was left last year. Maybe the reason is a big snow.
In two days we will make the decision about searching the route up to Lhotse Middle. Now it is clear that the traverse via Main summit is actually impossible. We wish all the best to our relatives and friends who think about us and cheers us up.

May, 21
Today at 1pm all the team of Russian-Georgian expedition summited to the top of Lhotse Main! Congratulations!
Today May 21st at 1pm in bad weather conditions all the team of Russian-Georgian expedition summited to the top of Lhotse Main.
The teammates are:

  • Evgeny Vinogradsky
  • Aphi Gigani
  • Gleb Sokolov
  • Alexander Foigt
  • Bidzina Gudjabidze
  • Valery Pershin
  • Yury Baikovsky
  • Gela Otarashvili
Nobody from other expeditions summited today. The futher plans will be defined on team return to the base camp. The weather is very complicate - the moosson is coming. The information reported by expedition leader Beno Kashakashvili. Beno Kashakashvili and Piotr Pustelnik are in good shape and descending to BC

May, 16
As reported by Slovenian site www.lhotse.siol.net:
Piotr and Benjamin descended to C-4 at 10.45 pm (Nepal time) and today at noon (Nepal time) came to C-2. They feels good. More details about their ascent follows after their return. This is last information about them.
Today at 6.30pm Beno Kashakashvili (Georgia, leader of Georgian-Russian expedition) and Piotr Pustelnik (Poland) reached the summit of Lhotse!
But they are in big troubles because they didn't find needed equipment and food left by sherpas before. So they were probably very dehydrated and exhausted case they didn't drink and eat from yesterday. And they have to return back...
We are wishing them successful descent and return to their camp. Good luck!

April, 1
The summit-permit for 5 Russian and 4 Georgian climbers has been issued and the expedition works according to the plan. There has been a briefing on the 31st of March in the Ministry of Tourism, all the expedition's equipment, weighing about two tons, has been bought and packed and the whole team is leaving Kathmandu for Luglha on the 1st of April to arrive to Namche Bazar on the next day, the 2nd of April. Six sherpas and all the loads are to be brought there by helicopter on the 3rd, and the caravan of 50 porters will be formed. The 7-8th of April are the planned days for getting to the Khumbu glacier and pitching Base there.

(text from www.risk.ru)

Photo - Gleb Sokolov


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