SAMAYA x AURÉLIA LANOÉ

 

 

In October 2023, Aurélia Lanoé and five fellow rope-team members traveled to the heart of the Himalayas, on the border of Nepal and Tibet, to explore and ski virgin peaks. Immersed in an immaculate, wild ecosystem, our six guides with their different personalities found harmony there. Aurélia tells us in detail about their exploration, underscored by team spirit and commitment.

 

"It’s the kind of expedition where, truly, everything went smoothly.

 

The weather and conditions were perfect: the snow was really pleasant to ski, quite firm and 'grippy,' perfect on the steep sections, with no sluff and no avalanche risk. The terrain was very stable, not too windy, so the snow wasn't frozen.

 

We were incredibly lucky compared to the last two years, which saw heavy late snowfalls—what we call monsoon tails—that brought large amounts of snow in a short time and significantly increased avalanche risk.

 

Our objective was the Ratna Chuli, the exact altitude of which is undefined. Estimates range between 7,040 and 7,135 meters. It is a protected area on the Tibetan border, little known and rarely visited, located in the Nar Phu valley, behind the Annapurnas. We wanted to explore a region of Nepal that hadn't seen many visitors, and even fewer skiers, and to be the first to set our edges on virgin peaks while experiencing high-altitude skiing.

 

Our expedition was exploratory in nature and intended to be full of adventures for which we aspired to take limited risks. We are all six high-mountain guides and benefit from a level of expertise, skills, and knowledge of the mountain environment that allows us to be comfortable even in unknown settings.

 

Furthermore, the rapport between the six of us proved perfect. Firmin Fontaine, Bastien Lévy, Damien Coelho Mandes, and I formed the first team of the expedition, and Maud Vanpoulle and Victor Colombie formed the second. We were heading to relatively the same place at the same time and decided to join forces and share expedition costs and the permit up to base camp. We quickly got along very well and ended up doing the entire expedition together.

 

After spending two days in Kathmandu to settle the final administrative and logistical formalities, we left by bus for Besisahar, where we spent the night. We then took a Jeep to the village of Koto on a completely demolished road, where our heads hit the roof of the car whenever the jolts were too violent. We who thought we could send emails and make calls during the trip were in for a surprise! We couldn't do anything but hold on. It was quite exhausting, but the landscape passing before our eyes was well worth a few bumps to the head. At Koto, we left the main road to head into a narrow valley where only a path allowed access to the villages located higher up. We walked for two days to the magnificent village of Phu. Perched on a rocky promontory, this village is the last sign of civilization, with houses that blend into the surrounding rock and Tibetan flags contrasting with the lunar landscape.

 

We spent a rest day there, where we scrambled around the surroundings a bit to begin acclimatization, and the next day, a final day of walking allowed us to reach our base camp located at an altitude of 4,700 meters.

  

The acclimatization phase went quite well for the whole team, except for Bastien, who had a mild case of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness). We may have climbed a bit too quickly to 5,600 meters, where we set up our advanced base camp, without fully respecting acclimatization rules. Along with Firmin, I accompanied him back to the last village, where he spent two nights before joining us again.

 

We took the opportunity to climb the Upche, a virgin peak at 6,150 meters, entirely in powder. We rested for two days at base camp, then went back up to the camp at 5,600 meters with all the equipment to set up a camp at 6,000 meters. We set up the Samaya3.0 there in a moraine. It was very spacious, with a really cool weight-to-surface ratio. It was the 'luxury' tent, which we had placed on a small promontory previously prepared with flat stones, and in which everyone wanted to sleep. We were forced to organize a rotation to sleep in that tent.

  

From this camp at 6,000 meters, we set off for the icefall, a fairly steep slope with 600 meters of vertical gain, with sections that had to be traversed in crampons, winding under seracs and between giant crevasses. A fairly uneven section, in short, which we tracked in one day and which allowed us to acclimatize, going from 6,000 to 6,600 meters.

 

We came back to sleep at the camp at 6,000 meters and the next day, we went to climb a peak at 6,687 meters, the Hulang Go, also still virgin. The ski descent was magnificent, very aesthetic, with an incredible view of Tibet. These four days of acclimatization had well and truly taken it out of us, and we descended to our base camp to rest for three days and regain our strength before carrying out the final assault.

 

We spent a first night at 5,600 meters, then we climbed to 6,000 meters. From this camp, we left at 2 a.m. to climb the icefall by night. We arrived at the top of this section as day was breaking, around 6:30 a.m. The golden lights of daybreak ignited the sky and were silhouetted against the immaculate white of the glacier. It was magnificent. From the top of the icefall, we had to descend through a technical section of 250 meters, steep and crevassed, leading to a flat traverse on a magnificent hanging pass. We then had 600 meters of vertical gain left to the summit of the Ratna Chuli, a steeper section, in crampons, with our skis on our backs.

  

We all reached the summit at the same time. It was a very intense moment. To find ourselves together at the top of this mountain that dominated everything: on one side the arid Tibetan high plateaus and on the other the immense Nepalese glaciers. Achieving this goal we had set for ourselves, all together, had a very particular flavor: that of team spirit, of rope-team spirit.

  

The descent was extremely pleasant, just enough commitment where needed. You had to stay focused and not fall, especially at the beginning where the snow was very hard with passages at 50 degrees. It was incredibly beautiful to ski in such an amazing environment with the Annapurnas and Dhaulagiri as a backdrop.

  

The mission wasn't over, since from these first 600 meters, we had to climb back up the 250 meters to reach the top of the icefall and descend once more to our camp at 6,000 meters. It was quite a trek, just how we like them!

  

Arriving at 6,000 meters, we dismantled our camp and descended to the one at 5,600 meters. From there, we packed everything up again and reached our first camp, loaded like mules, at 8 p.m. in the pitch black.

  

Our logistics team composed of three Nepalese was waiting for us at base camp and had prepared a king’s meal for us. Unfortunately, we didn't eat much because we were shattered. However, the next day, we had a feast and celebrated our ascent with them as it should be, with beer and rum! It was great fun.

  

It was a successful expedition in a really great atmosphere. The communion we had, the perfect rapport, the energy created were really super pleasant. We are all different and we complemented each other perfectly. I had never gone on an expedition with so many people, and it scared me a little, but ultimately, for an expedition of this style, which doesn't seek out slopes that are too steep and exposed but rather virgin peaks, it was incredibly fun and very humanly rich to be six.

 

I feel quite happy, with a form of pride for what we have accomplished. We didn't go looking for a Piolet d'Or, but we made some beautiful firsts without getting scared, we created solid bonds, and above all, we discovered incredible corners of the planet.

 

Coming back, we rediscover the comforts of our society: hot water running from the tap, electricity that works very well, paved roads. We no longer realize that these little things of our daily lives that we are used to are so precious and are not part of everyone's daily life on this planet. We are truly lucky."