YAK ATTACK - SHOWDOWN in the ANNAPURNA\'S
Deep Snow on the Pass
Phil Evans (Extreme World Challenges) / 17.03.2008
Day 6 – Thorong Phedi to Jomsom; 32km/4450m-5416m-2700m When the Yak Attack posse arrived in Phedi, the skies were blue, the trail up to the pass was clear and everyone was looking forward to the ensuing 1000m climb.
5pm and it started snowing, and it snowed, and it snowed all night. When the competitors awoke at 3.30am for a 5am start, it was still snowing and there was 8 inches of snow covering the trail.
With the route no longer visible it was up to the front runners to forge a way through the soft snow. A team of runners, comprising of Phudorjee (Peregrine+First Ascent), Philip Morris, Dipak Raj Rai (HeatmaxUK) and Sonam Gel Sherpa took it in turns to break trail to the top of the pass but still summitted in an incredible time of 2.5 hours.
Riders Kaji and Pasang Sherpa also put in a hurculean effort to arrive on the pass shortly after the runners.
For the rest of the athletes it was a story of toil as they climbed 1000m in 3km into an ever thinning atmosphere. As an indication of the severity of the climb, it took Nirjala Tamrakar (Fluidforce) and Rubeen Shakya 7.5 hours to summit, eventually arriving in Jomsom some 14.5 hours after leaving Phedi.
The descent should have favoured the mountain bikers but it was not to be as the weather had dumped more snow on the other side of the pass, making for a treacherous, slippery 1700m descent into Muktinath.
The the trails were clear from then on down, for the 1000m descent into Jomsom, but runner Phudorjee Lama Sherpa (Peregrine +First Ascent) managed to keep his time loss down to 20 mins as Kaji Sherpa arrived first into Jomsom, setting up an exciting final 2 days.See All Event Posts
