NEWS: 2nd Oct 2006
 
9 team members summit Cho Oyu

Great news today. At 6.45 this morning, Monday, October 2nd, 9 team members and 6 sherpas summitted Cho Oyu. The team members were Mike Grocott, Hugh Montgomery, Dan Martin, Sundeep Dhillon, Paul Gunning, Patrick Doyle, Chris Imray, Jon Morgan, and Maryam Khosravi. The Sherpas were Sherpa Pma Chhiring, Sherpa Nima Gombu, Sherpa Pasang Tenzing, herpa Dawa Tenjin, Sherpa Phura Geljen, and Sherpa Thundu.

The team are in good spirits, and making their way down to Camp Two as we speak. Only one of the team had been above 8000m before (Cho Oyu is 8201m high), although the Sherpa team has multiple ascents between them. The last ten days had been fraught with anxiety as the team witnessed some of the worst weather fronts in recent history according to our Sirdar, Pema.

Our Medical Officer, Denny Levett, with the assistance of Alex and Chris Van Tulleken, were involved in assisting a climber from another team high on the mountain. We hope to see all Sherpas and Team members down at advanced base camp by tomorrow afternoon. Then it will be a mad rush to get back to Kathmandu and so home for the majority next week.

UPDATE

Xtreme Everest is extremely pleased to announce that all 9 team summiteers and 6 sherpas have now arrived back safely at Advanced Base Camp. One of the Xtreme Everest team members described it as a challenge in an extreme environment: high winds, extreme cold, and extremely low levels of oxygen available to breathe. This is despite needing to call on all reserves to complete the 17 hour day. In fact, three of the team had set off 4 hours previously as they were starting from Camp Two instead of Camp Three.

Whilst on the summit the team erected a small tent to take a sample of human arterial blood. This was a repeat of a sample taken by the 2005 Xtreme Everest Cho Oyu expedition. Sherpa Pasang ran down to Camp One with the blood sample in an ice slurry for analysis by our medics waiting for this sole purpose.