While everyone waits and watches Everest, hoping to hear word of a successful summit with the (preferably lit) Olympic Torch, activity on the other Himalayan peaks continues oblivious to what the Chinese are doing. ExWeb provides us with an update from around the region.
Probably the biggest news is that it looks like summit bids are currently underway on Annapurna. Inaki Ochoa and Horia Colibasanu are making their push, and reached C2 today amidst heavy snowfall. They plan to continue upwards tomorrow and hope to reach C3. On Friday they'll continue to climb up onto the summit ridge, where they'll camp overnight, and hopefully top out on Friday.
On Makalu the teams are simply waiting for the next weather window for an opportunity to begin their own assault on the summit. The mountain has seen heavy snow in recent days as well, with some climbers finding their high camps buried under the white stuff. There are still areas above C4 that need to have fixed ropes set down, but a Korean team is said to be moving up to do just that. From there, the teams will work together to blaze a path to the summit. The next weather window may not open until the weekend however, so we could see a number of summits on both Makalu and Annapurna on Saturday and Sunday.
Of course Saturday is also the 10th of May, which is the deadline for the Chinese Everest team, so it's certainly going to be an interesting weekend for a lot of different reasons.
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