Peak Mountain Guides Blog

Summit Success on Ama Dablam!  Here is the update we just received from Guide Chad Peele:

“After several days of resting in preparation for our summit attempt it was “go” time!  We were all anxious to go for the summit as we had spent several days watching the first teams of climbers move onto the summit and now it was finally our turn.  After a casual breakfast of coffee with two fried eggs and toast, we packed up and started our final push on Ama Dablam. We quickly bypassed Yak camp and moved onto the start of the fixed lines to our tents at Camp 1 where we would spend the night.  The move from Camp 1 to our next camp was a going to be a big day, so after dinner and hot tea we buried ourselves into our sleeping bags for an early bedtime.

This was an amazing camp we had on the upper mountain

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We just received another update from Chad and Dan on Ama Dablam.  It sounds like they are progressing smoothly up the route!  Here’s what we received from Chad:

“After settling into our luxurious Base Camp we rested and participated in a Puja ceremony. Puja is a rite that is performed on an auspicious day (determined by the Sherpas) once basecamp has been established and before any climbing on the mountain occurs. This is a very important ceremony for the Sherpa and we were very excited to help and participate.

Puja Ceremony on Ama Dablam

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Peak Mountain Guides staff member Chad Peele is currently guiding an expedition to Ama Dablam with client Dan Ewen.  They are making good progress and we’re so excited for them!  Here is an update we just received from Chad:

Hello from Nepal!

The weather was a little “shifty” in Kathmandu so we decided to hire a helicopter to fly us to Lukla where we started our trek into Ama Dablam Basecamp.  The weather improved in Lukla and Dan and I have been enjoying the autumn scenary and sunny weather with cool temperatures.  All in all, it has been beautiful and the trekking has been great!  Yesterday we arrived in base camp which sits at 15,000′ish feet and it felt really good to finally arrive under this incredible mountain!  This morning we celebrated our Puja Ceremony with our climbing Sherpas and after lunch we practiced fixed line travel in preparation for our summit push which we will embark on next week.

Tomorrow, we will climb up and touch “Yak” camp which sits at 17,000 ft in order to further our acclimatization, and then we’ll return to basecamp for the night.  The following day, we will camp at Yak camp and then make a push to camp one and camp two before descending back to basecamp.   Then, after several days of rest in basecamp we should be ready for the summit climb.  Stay tuned, more updates coming!

Dan on the way to Ama Dablam Basecamp