Dispatch20 November 20265 min read
A season on Ama Dablam
Notes from autumn on the Mother's Necklace: rock in the sun, ice in the shade and the best ridge in the Khumbu.
Words by Pemba Dorje
Fourteen climbers, fourteen summits. The season on Ama Dablam was one of the best we have had: settled weather, firm snow on the summit face and a ridge that was more ice than rock for the first time in years.
We changed one thing this year. Instead of moving Camp II up, we kept it low and made the summit day longer. It meant earlier starts and a little more fatigue, but a lot less time sitting on the narrowest part of the ridge.
- Summit days averaged eleven hours, camp to camp.
- Every climber used one bottle of oxygen on the summit day.
- No frostbite, no evacuations.
