"First Light"
A year after the Annapurna trek I went back to Nepal. This time I wanted to climb two peaks in the Hinku and Khumbu area.
"Approaching Basecamp"
Hm. That's me walking along the Hinku Valley to the base of Mera Peak.
"Sherpa"
Without their company, their support and their sense of humor a trip to Nepal would be unthinkable.
"Troubles at Highcamp"
As we reached Mera La (5400m) all the high porters dropped our equipment on the ice and we (with the help of our 4 sherpas) had to carry everything up to the highcamp (5800m) by ourselves. The black spots in the lower right corner are members of our team carrying the equipment over the ice. In the background three very (and I mean very) high mountains are visible (from left to right): Mt.Everest (almost in clouds); Lhotse; and the typical red Pyramid of Makalu (at the right edge of the picture). Can't tell the names of the prominent peaks (6000-7000m) in the middle.
"Chomolungma"
The sun was already setting when we established highcamp on the Mera-glacier. This picture was taken with my tele-lens showing Sagarmatha (as the Nepali call it), Chomolungma (as the Tibetan people call it) or Mt.Everest (as we call it), at 8848m the highest mountain of the world, behind Lothse and its immense southface.
"Rising Sun - Rising Man"
After a freezing night, where I really froze my ass off (someone said later that his thermometer read -27 degrees Celcius) and the fact that we had no kerosine left at the high camp to melt some snow to drink, everybody decided to stay at the camp. After an hour I heard some voices in the tent next to mine and realized they were preparing to go up. I decided to follow them....
"Altitude 6000"
Dehydration and inexperience at high altitude forced me to turn back above 6000m. This picture was shot on my way down exactly at that height and shows in the background: (from left to right) far to the north, right at the left edge is Cho Oyu (8201m), above my head is Ama Dablam, followed by the dark Nupste wall, Everest in the middle and Lothse. Don't know the peaks to the right.
"Panch Pokary Valley and Amphu Laptsa"
Following the valley of the five lakes (panch pokary) we were preparing to cross the tough pass Amphu Laptsa (5800m). This pass was really hard and we were lucky that nobody got hurt or even killed. Some of our equipment was lost in crevasses and the whole team got split up. Some stayed at the pass for the night, others bivouacked somewhere in the middle and some made their way down. Fortunately none of the poorly equipped porters got hurt.
"Ama Dablam"
After crossing Amphu Laptsa we decided to skip Island Peak altogether. We weren't in good shape when we reached Namche Bazar and we gave all 'fresh' trekkers coming up from Lukla a terrible impression. I took this picture of the impressive Ama Dablam, giving us a wonderful good-bye, from just outside of town.
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