The first Amadablam expedition team have just arrived in Lukla under blue skies with no winds, a perfect day to fly to Lukla. Sumit is leading this first team, which includes Mark Ayrey (New Zealand), Allan Cohrs (Australia, on his second summit of the mountain), Michael Hansen (Australia), Raul Helander (Sweden) and Jack Scott (Australia). Cara Jacobson (USA) is trekking with the team to Ama dablam base camp before exploring the rest of the Khumbu with Deepak. They are reorganising loads in Lukla and will soon begin the trek to Monjo.
Anil, Pasang, Mingma and the other base camp support guys have already arrived into base camp with 5 porters and 12 yaks. They have a big task establishing base camp for the coming weeks, which will be used by other teams arriving at different times. We have a good season planned on our favourite mountain. Other climbers include Malcolm Jones (Australia) who is currently trekking around Gokyo with Chirring, and Stephen Smith (Australia) who is climbing Lobuche East first with Jangbu. Thomas Rogerson (Australia) and Noel Clough (Australia) arrived into Kathmandu last night.
They have a day to shop and get organised before their flight to Lukla tomorrow joined by Ang Kaji (remember he has just returned from 2x 8000m summits, legend!). The boys are climbing Island Peaks before Ama dablam. Lakpa is leading Christine Burke (NZ/Australia), Candace Coughlan (Australia/Canada) and Greg Lemarche (Belgium) on Lobuche East and Ama dablam in the next few days.