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Recently in Richard Pattison Category

The culmination of my trek through the remote Rolwaling valley last year was this fulfilling climb of Yalung Ri with my climbing partner Liam. We were well acclimatised and climbed this snow peak in a day, offering wonderful views south across Nepal and the foothills of the Himalaya:

As part of my adventures in the Himalaya late last year, I trekked through the remote Rolwaling Valley with a friend and enjoyed a fulfilling climb of Parchermo. Such a different experience to the busy and commercial Khumbu valley that hosts the Everest Base Camp trek.

My video of our Parchermo climb is below:

I've been back from Nepal for a couple of months now and am fully rested and recuperated from my adventures, the highlight being the ascent of Ama Dablam.

I've been editing my climbing videos since Christmas and will post them online, hopefully giving a flavour of what life is like in the Himalaya. This video is Lobuche East in the Khumbu valley near Everest...

It was a much longer and harder day than we expected, we started from camp two so as to minimise the time we'd spend under the dangerous ice cliffs above camp three, however, most other groups are using camp three making a shorter summit day. I managed about 30 mins sleep due to the uncomfortable floor and nerves. We awoke at 1am and melted enough snow for a cup of tea and were ready to leave at 2am.

Near the summit of Ama Dablam

Richard Pattison

Ama Dablam: Summit!

By Richard Pattison on Dec 21, 11 07:36 AM

Just after 10am Nepali time, we reached the summit of Ama Dablam 6,814m. It took about 8 hours and was very cold around dawn with a cutting wind. We've been blessed with fantastic views all around, Everest is clearer visible behind me in the photo. I'll post more once I down safely.

Rich on Ama Dablam summit

This is our summit eve, the despatch is coming from camp two at 6,000m on Ama Dablam. Today we climbed from camp one and we're now in a position to make an attempt on the summit tomorrow, assuming the weather doesn't change significantly overnight, there is currently a light breeze and the temperature just below freezing, although it will drop further when the sun sets.

Melting snow at camp two on Ama Dablam

Having acclimatised over the last 3 weeks, we're now on our summit attempt.

We said our good byes to the base camp team and received their well wishes, then passed by the Buddhist stupa and prayer flags paying our regards and asking for safe passage on the mountain once more, then that was it, we set-off for camp one...

Ama Dablam

The weather forecast is favourable, so we're off on our summit push, leaving for camp one tomorrow, camp two the day after and then leave for the summit that night. Wish us luck...

Prayer flags & Ama Dablam

We've been back down in base camp for two days now which has allowed for some interesting passtimes like secretly eating a whole block of Toblerone in my tent so none of the other expedition members knew, and also doing my washing!

Ama Dablam base camp

Today has been the most exciting day of the expedition so far, with exhilarating rock climbing between camp one and camp, the photos are quite spectacular.

AD C2 ice ridge.JPG

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