Nepal Triple Crown 2016 Team

Triple Crown Team 2016' - Kathmandu - Nepal

Here is our team minus one who arrived later from India, and also minus our Sherpa staff that they'll join with in the Khumbu tomorrow.  This years team consists of professional athletes, beginner/novice climbers and the rest come with impressive climbing bios.  Members are from Canada, Australia, USA, UK and India, and most are close to the same age. 

Kathmandu is quiet. Tim met with a couple longtime Nepalese expedition agents the past couple of days and learned that tourist visits are definitely down which contradicts what local news has been reporting. Agents are however still keeping busy with administration due to more individual bookings compared to the groups they used to get. 

The past day or two the team has been busy purchasing required equipment, going out for meals together, bonding, and doing reviews of emergency equipment like the Gammow Bag (hyperbaric chamber). 

Tomorrow the team is up at 5:00am and off to Lukla if weather permits. Ive been watching high winds in my weather reports that has the potential to thwart tomorrows flights. We'll keep followers updated on the situation here on this blog.

Becky Rippel

• OCTOBER 2016 http://peakfreaks.com/everest_mountaineering_course.htm
• NOVEMBER 2016  Rippel Effect Earth Bag Build Nepal
• TO LEARN MORE AND TO DONATE TO THE EARTH BUILD First Steps Himalaya

Everest 2016 - safety evaluation continues

Everest 2016 - Cancelled once again.

We cancelled Everest in 2015 and as a result our staff were spared, and not involved in the tragic avalanche at base camp created by the April 25th earth quake last spring. Amen!

Everest 2016 season is now getting underway, however our concerns for cancelling in 2015 are still present, (see announcement below). Our biggest concern is the affects of global warming in the Himalayas and other mountains around the world. We are not prepared to put our climbers and Sherpa guide staff in harms way climbing through the crumbling ice-fall, and passing under fast melting seracs and dodging rock fall on the Lhotse face. Mountaineering has always been risky, but educated risk taking is key when taking clients money offering them your guidance in safety.

We are also very much concerned about the environmental protection implementations that we worked so hard towards the past 20+ years, we fear it will be compromised as the industry becomes more desperate with new competitors using price cutting as their edge and not investing in the costs of leaving footprints only and how corruption will prevail when bottom-lines are too low.

The Nepalese government has yet to restrict the number of climbers allowed to climb nor have they made any attempts to regulate who can operate there. Low ball operators are taking novice climbers up the mountain on a one-way ticket. We saw this coming and don't want any part of it.

More important than ever before, we continue to prepare aspiring climbers for Everest and other mountain objectives on our TRAINING CLIMB offering extensive instructional ascents on 6000m peaks in the Everest region. Helping participants be climbers NOT just a client as they should be.

We will also continue with our work helping REBUILD NEPAL with First Steps Himalaya and organize private base camp and Annapurna treks, and our annual group BASECAMP STAY TREK in October each year. We will do our best with the help of our customers to bring tourism back to the beautiful people of Nepal.

"PEAK FREAKS CANCELS EVEREST IN 2015 ANNOUNCEMENT"

Since beginning our operations over 24 years ago, it has always been a challenge to navigate through the complex and ever-changing political, social, and environmental aspects inherent in running a climbing and trekking operation in the Himalayas. The pay-off nonetheless has always been worth it – to our clients, to our Sherpa’s and their families, and to us. And as much as last year’s tragic events highlighted both the need for better safety regulations and a reassessment of the business which climbing Everest has become, our present concerns and consequent conclusions come from a much larger set of worrying circumstances.

The local government’s fickle posturing and vague statements relating to mountaineering policies, the drastic alterations to the weather both traditional ENSO and ENSO Modoki have and will continue to cause, the growing list of socio-political events which has a cumulative effect of compromising regional security, present us with only one responsible and rational course of action. We at Peak Freaks are cancelling our commercial Everest 2015 summit climb. As clear as this decision has become it is still far from an easy one for us to have come to. The financial impact on our partners, our Sherpa’s, will be severe.

The patience and loyalty of our clients will be taxed. Even so, our love for the region and what we do remains intact. Our determination to continue expeditions and our commitment to those who welcomed us to the Himalayas almost a quarter century ago and who continue to work by our side has inspired us. It has inspired us to widen our offerings. To provide adventures free from thorny politics, crumbling glaciers, and looming ice-falls. After all, the majesty of the Himalayas should never be locked away.

So on the eve of our sad Everest news we hope solace can be found knowing that Peak Freaks will not close its doors. Instead it will open paths for adventurers to climb other challenging and awe-inspiring peaks, to take cultural tours through the highest lands of Nepal and Tibet, and to experience unconditionally this magical kingdom we now call our second home.

Winter Is Here! Climb update!

Well, we got skunked by the weather. The good news is that the mountains got some much needed snow - 12cm and building this weekend. The bad news is it's melting almost just as fast as it piled up,

except for the higher elevations it's sticking.

We made the call to go for Lobuche summit as soon as we got to base camp for our best shot before we are turned back by high winds. Wind this time of year is the indicator that winter has arrived come Tuesday. Wind and snow combined is the deadly mix for avalanches. Wind forms slabs on fresh snow and when a climber cuts/breaks through the slab, chances are you will have created an avalanche and we avoid this scenario at all costs.

We got pretty high, almost the summit before the snow got too deep to continue, there were a couple other small teams on the route who turned back yesterday and today so no one has been up for a few days now.

We gave it our best shot, we had a good work out and a good time while doing it. That's climbing, we climb and test the routes -  sometimes we are lucky to stand on top and sometimes we aren't.

Great group, good fun, staff got to work, we climbed!

**More photos to follow in a few days of the climbing in action.

Yak Tales 

We got a note from Herman who was in Pheriche that's worth repeating. He went to bed very tired at 8pm and was woken at 1:00am when a yak who somehow got on the roof of the lodge fell through. This doesn't happen everyday. Hope the yak is ok!

I remember when we used to sleep in the yak barn in Pangboche before the new lodges were built. It was common practice to move the yaks outside to hang about to accommodate climbers. If someone went out at night to relieve themselves and didn't latch the door well enough when coming back in, we'd often wake up with some welcomed added heat next to us, but with pretty smelly breath.

The good ole' days.

Tim
www.peakfreaks.com
http://peakfreaks.com/everest_mountaineering_course.htm
http://peakfreaks.com/lobuche.htm

Psst! We Love our Job!

As we walk the lonely trails of the Khumbu today we are among only a very small number of

trekkers and next to no climbers during what is normally the busiest tourism season for Himalayan routes. Some lodge and homeowners qualified for government loans ranging from $20,000US to $40,000US to rebuild after the earth quake are now left in a situation of considerable loss paying 15%

Will Goodon photo: Dry peaks, empty lodges. 

interest on these loans.

Budgets were extended to bring in enough food and fuel to accommodate what they had hoped would be a healthy come back of tourists. Sadly this is not the case. I've never seen it so quiet and everyone is starting to get very concerned what will become of their businesses and livelihood.

Many Sherpa families educate their children in private schools in Kathmandu or abroad,  and some are fortunate to afford sending them to universities.  Many men in the city and remote villages are leaving the country to work in place like Dubai and may never have the means to return again as they have to pay back their airfare,  or worse yet, die.

Excerpt: Asianews.it

Many Nepali migrant workers dying in Saudi Arabia, but Riyadh blames "natural causes"
by Christopher Sharma 
Since 2000, more than 7,500 Nepalis working in Arab countries have died under suspicious circumstances: 3,500 in Saudi Arabia alone, 65 since October 2013. Kathmandu launches an investigation to shed light on the deaths. Doctors and human rights groups blame torture and violence against foreign workers.

In Qatar-One Nepalese migrant worker dies every two days.  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/23/qatar-nepal-workers-world-cup-2022-death-toll-doha

As a guide myself working the mountains alongside my Sherpa staff,  I get really miffed at the press who portray outfitters as "forcing" our staff to work in their beautiful homeland sharing it with the world while being at arms length to their families allowing them to go home for rest days and play with their children, hug their wives and go back to work in a day or two. They are working with their brothers and friends. Each season the excitement builds for them as they prepare for the season, just like guides at home. They love it! I love it! all guides love this work. The rewards are incredible and yes there is risk but not as much as industrial hazards. There! I said it!  I don't know any guide that doesn't love his job. My wife doesn't like me being at risk climbing just like my friends wives don't like it, but it's what I do, it's what they do, and we all love it. We share the beauty- the experience and  offer safe approaches to the sport and teach respect of the environment while doing it.

Mountaineering and heli-skiing have preserved mountains for sometime.  In Canada there was an

Will Goodon receiving Lama Geshe's blessing for safe passage.
Lama Geshe is second to the Dali Lama. 

area I guided in that was slated to be logged. Those forest stands were spared because our operator was able to prove that more tax dollars could be created for the Canadian government in tourism dollars than if if they logged it and cashed out the idilic skiable terrain.

I see the same situation here whereas the Khumbu's mountains could easily be ripped open and mined

in the future because of the thirst of the two super powers on each of it's borders. Or perhaps power plants being built alongside streams of what was once famed trekking routes. I fear this, I fear this a lot.  It will be a very sad day not hearing the yak bells strolling, or the Sherpa men and woman singing as they work the trails. Sad, sad day!

Ok, that's my rant!  We are all doing good up here. Visited Lama Geshi today in Pangboche and everyone is now peacefully sleeping in Pheriche. Pangboche took a beating from the earth quake, many of the homes here are very very old and not built very well. Lots of reconstruction has gone on here.

We're all together and looking forward to our outing tomorrow to acclimatize before moving up to camp and in a few days make a summit bid on Lobuche East at 6145m.

On ward and upward!

Tim

Nepalese Airline Stepping Up Safety

Tara Air, the airline Peak Freaks uses for flights to Lukla has added a faculty new Viking  DHC6 400  Twin Otter aircraft to its fleet. The second aircraft is due to arrive in September increases safety. 

"Roshan Regmi, marketing manager of Tara Air, said the Twin Otter Series 400 aircraft boasts cutting edge avionics technology with an integrated full glass cockpit that features the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS), Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) to prevent from crashes, and full-color weather radar to show weather conditions.

Canada-based Viking Air had purchased type certificate of the legendary DHC6-300 Twin Otter aircraft from De Havilland in 2005. “It is the most versatile and successful STOL aircraft ever built and it was brought back into production in 2008 as the new Viking Series 400 Twin Otter,” Tara Air said in a statement on Wednesday. “The Series 400 Twin Otter picks up where the original de Havilland Series 300 Twin Otter left off, introducing upgraded Pratt & Whitney PT6A-34 engines, fully integrated Honeywell Primus Apex digital avionics suite, use of composite materials and approximately 800 other modifications incorporated to improve on the original series 300 aircraft.”

According to the statement, the Series 400 retains its ability to safely operate in the most remote and rugged environments in the world, from the sub-zero Antarctica, the hottest deserts in North Africa, the open waters of the Indian Ocean to the mountainous region of the Himalayas. No other Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) aircraft in the world has proven to be as versatile, the statement claimed.

Regmi said that the aircraft will be brought into operation within two weeks, fulfilling all required procedures. He said the new aircraft will be operated in remote STOL airfields of the country like Lukla, Phaplu, Jomsom, Dolpo and Simikot. “The new aircraft will play a vital role in transporting trekkers, local inhabitants and foodstuffs to and from these remote regions,” he added.

Tara Air plans to gradually replace its entire fleet of Series 300 and Dornier Do 228-212 aircraft with the new Viking Series 400 aircraft.

“Our second Viking 400 Series aircraft will arrive in September,” said Regmi.

Tara Air has brought the aircraft on lease for 12 months with an option to purchase after that. The aircraft costs US$ 6.9 million."

Source: Myrepublica     Peak Freaks Expeditions  peakfreaks@me.com