November 11, 2010
Next objective – Pico de Orizaba
La cumbre!! Just as we knew, the team summited yesterday morning early. Everyone who went to high camp went to the summit. Pretty sweet. Speaking of sweet, the showers much have been, too. A quick hotel night in Puebla was well earned, but today it’s off to the town of Tlachichuca and up to the Piedre Grande hut on Orizaba.
No rest for the wicked. This team has another mountain to climb.
Phil Ershler
November 10, 2010
Mexico SPOT trail to Ixta Summit!
We’ve been following their progress on the SPOT Tracker that George is carrying and it looks like our Mexico Team summitted this morning around 5:30am (PST). It’s not official until everybody is down safely but everything seems to be going as smoothly as George anticipated.
We’ll have a full recap after they get down to Puebla and have had a shower and a beer!
Tye Chapman
November 10, 2010
Photo by Miles Heritage
We heard again last evening from IMG partner, George Dunn, leading the November Mexico expedition. Keep that good news coming, George. High camp was established, weather remained perfect and the team was doing well. One member decided he wasn’t quite up for the summit attempt and remained at the Altimoni Hut. Nice part is that logistics on this trip make it easy for an individual without a health issue to remain at the Hut and not impact other team members.
The summit team should be nearing the summit even as we make this post. And, we should be receiving confirmation of their success soon. But the summit will be only the first milestone this day. Then, the crew has to get down, break high camp, hiking back to the vehicle and then push to the city of Puebla for those much-anticipated showers. Not many groups who aren’t excited about heading for the hotel after a climb, even if it means a long day. Like many things, the pleasure is worth the pain.
Hope to be reporting on George’s team’s success at our next post.
Phil
November 9, 2010
Another Mexico expedition is well underway. IMG partner, George Dunn, has broken away from our Ashford office to lead another expedition to the fun and sun of Mexico. Assisting him are Austin Shannon and Fernando Posadas. The guides were down in Mexico City late last week doing a bit of last minute shopping and prepping for the team’s arrival on Saturday. For the last couple of days, they’ve been out acclimatizing near Paseo de Cortes. As many times as some of our customers, and guides, have been to altitude, it’s still necessary to log some acclimatization time. Just no way to short cut this process. They headed to the Altzomoni Hut near the Cortes Pass yesterday, carried a load to high camp on Ixta and are heading to high camp this morning. George called in yesterday to confirm that everyone’s in good health, strong and appear quite ready for these climbs. As usual for this time of year, weather is simply perfect.
Tomorrow’s summit day. It’s a long one.  Up around midnight, climb, descend and pack camp and bolt for showers in the city of Puebla. The Ayoloco Glacier is calling first, however.
Ayoloco Glacier above high camp
Follow the team’s SPOT progress here.
Phil Ershler
November 9, 2010
IMG guide Greg Vernovage reports that he had a nice visit to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca, with a ferry ride out to the Isla del Sol (Sun Island) and a hike to nearly 14000 ft. Today they headed up to Zongo Pass, where they hired some porters, and then hiked up to the Huayna Potosi Base Camp. So far everything is going well. Tomorrow the plan is to head up to high camp and then to the and he will be heading up to (almost) 20,000 foot summit the next day!
Follow Greg’s SPOT progress here.
Eric Simonson
Huayna Potosi from Charquini, Bolivia
November 9, 2010
Ang Jangbu reports good news: Ang Passang called just now to inform that everyone is safely down at base camp. Ang Passang and Panuru managed to clear all camps and brought everything down today–they had 3 yaks meet them at the Yak camp below Camp 1. The plan is to pack up base camp in the morning and head down to Pangboche after lunch tomorrow the 10th. Members will then trek to Namche on the 11th and Lukla on the 12th, then fly from Lukla to Kathmandu on the 13th.
Eric Simonson
The view down the valley from near Camp 1: you can see the trail linking Pangboche (foreground), the Tengboche ridge (middle), and on to the large village of Khumjung. (photo: Justin Merle)
November 8, 2010
Icy summit slopes of the Dablam Glacier (photo: Justin Merle)
Mark Allen reports that team members are back down to Camp 2, and some members have descended back down to Camp 1 after the summit day. The weather was good and everyone is safe and sound. The plan is tomorrow for everyone to make it down to Base Camp.  We won’t celebrate until everyone is off the mountain, but so far so good.
Summit Panorama (photo: Justin Merle)
Eric Simonson
November 7, 2010
The shores of Lake Titicaca.
We sent IMG guide Greg Vernovage to Bolivia, on his way down to Ecuador (where he will be leading our November Ecuador climbs). Greg is doing an on-site review of our Bolivia program with our outfitters in La Paz.  Right now, though, Greg is acclimatizing at a resort in Copacabana, on the shore of Lake Titicaca, right on the border with Peru. Not a bad place to hang out waiting to build up those red blood cells!
This next week Greg will be taking a run up Huayna Potosi (20 miles N of La Paz)  and  Illimani (30 miles ESE of La Paz) with our Bolivian guides to check it out, with our goal being to restart the IMG  Bolivia program for 2011.  We’ll look forward to tracking Greg’s climbs on these beautiful and accessible 6000m peaks.
Eric Simonson
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Check out where some of our other climbs are via the SPOT Trackers they’re carrying. We’ve got Mark Allen on Ama Dablam along with George Dunn & Austin Shannon in Mexico.
November 7, 2010
Looking down the route from near the old Camp 3 site (not used much anymore). The tents at Camp 2 are visable lower on the ridge. (Photo by Justin Merle)
IMG guide Mark Allen reports that the climbers successfully reached Camp 2 and they are on track for their summit bid. They said that they did not see the helicopter crash today that has been reported. Apparently the Fishtail Air AS350B3 crashed somewhere on the mountain today, while doing a rescue, but it was nowhere near our team.
Marks says everyone is doing well and they are looking forward to the climb tomorrow. We’ll keep you posted!
Eric Simonson
November 5, 2010
The ridge from C2 to the summit. (Photo by Justin Merle)
IMG leader Mark Allen reports form Base Camp at 15000 feet (4600m) that the team had a couple good rest days after their practice run up to Camp 1 at 18860 feet (5750m). Now they are set to head up for the summit.  The weather report is good, the team is ready, and our sherpa team has done a great job preparing the route and camps. Several other teams went to the summit in the past few days and they report that all the monsoon snow has slid off the Dablam Glacier (above Camp 3) leaving the slopes to the summit icy and firm, just the way we want it to be (no snow avalanche hazard).
The plan is for the team is to go back up to Camp 1 today, then tomorrow to push on up to “Camp 2.7†on the Mushroom Ridge, at about 20,500 feet (6250m).   Camp 2.7 is between the historic Camp 2 and Camp 3 sites, and provides an intermediate location. From there the plan would be to go to the summit on the 8th and back to Camp 2, and back to Base Camp on the 9th.
Hopefully the mountain says “yes†to this plan. We’ll keep you posted!
Eric Simonson
