Mára Holeček and Radek Groh gave up the attempt to climb Cho Oyu
Czechs Mára Holeček and Radek Groh abandoned their attempt to make the first ascent of a new route up the southeast face of Cho Oyu (8188 m) from the Nepalese side after reaching the second bivouac and finding that persistent winds made further climbing impossible. They descended safely to the valley and are now safe and ending their expedition. See the information from this evening on Mára's Facebook page:

"Okay, I'll describe everything in more detail in the next post and I'll also add photos. For now, let's be content with the fact that late in the afternoon we're standing on the glacier below the entrance to the wall. Almost without any climbing material for protection, which we had to leave behind when we descebded. So what next? The satisfaction of being alive at this moment was not enough. The constant wind current, which bit into our skin through our clothes, made us suspect that we wouldn't be able to stand it for long. Waiting for a miracle was no longer worth it. Okay, so we're going to our small tent on the glacier, where we had a few things stored. It was buried below ground level, more than ¾ of a meter, to be protected. The result when we arrived at it was the same as when you park your car in a spot in the evening and you' re sbsolutely sure where it was, and in the morning all that's left is an empty spot with blown leaves by the curb. Some thief's hand simply stole it. Good again, we continue with the approaching darkness. Only the narrow scattering of light from our headlamps is a sad companion in the storming snow. Luckily, we have a clue in our previous tracks for a while. What we never know, however, is when the trail will sinkknee-deep, or when we will disappear into a pit up to our balls. This exhausting martyrdom haunted us until midnight. Hell, hell. Ráďa ran away from me, so I didn't get to the BC until much later. I was completely exhausted, frozen like sabledung and I kept repeating the last steps, for mom, for dad.... At that moment, it crossed my mind, something is wrong here. And it is. Our BC suddenly has only one tent. I shout to Ráďa into the darkness. From the last yellow tent, in the whitevsnowy nothingness, surrounded by darkness, a voice comesout: "The next tent is fucked, with its things." I stuff myself into Ráďa's tent, unpack my wet sleeping bag and climb in to it. Before fatigue frees me from a sleep coma, my last thoughts were, I'm done with things and I'm done with theGoddess. We're out of the worst clutches, I know that. In the morning, two hundred meters away from us in the clear lake, we find the half-drowned torso of a tent. From a distance, it resembles the ship Fram in an icy embrace. After Radárek's brave bath, when I watch him from a respectful distance as he cuts something out of the ice in knee-deep water, I accept that tour performance here is over. I guess it was supposed to be that way. All in all, we lack the strength and desire for another attempt. Honestly, everything before we started climbing took more strength from us than we were willing to admit. The will and the enormous desire blinded us to this fact. Now, when I write these lines, already in Gokyo, I can summarize it with a clear view. I am also confirmed in this by the fact that the departure from BC to Gokyo normally took us two and a half hours in the previous snow cover. If there had been snow, as there usually is here, we would have been even faster. However, now, after our trodden and only footsteps from the last place where tourists still go to take in the panoramas of Everest and the ethereal nature of the Himalayas, the return took as long as an eight-hour workday. I don't count another work shift from BC to the foot of the wall. Because the desire was still boiling in my heart and the gradual withdrawal from the limited reserves of energy, which can no longer be replenished, went aside. But now everything came back to me. I would say that I am not a novice and neither is Ráďa, who are first in the mountains. Nevertheless, correctly assessing and always clearly seeing the state of affairs through the horse flaps may require more time. It will be more interesting who will carry our four backpacks, including the wreckage of tents, including garbage in bags, to the valley after us. Maybe they woll have to wait until spring to be picked up, since it is not humanly possible to make the trip there and back in one day. Or a helicopter will pick it up, who knows. That is the end of the infamous attempt on the Turquoise Goddess, who has preserved her inviolability for us and laughs in our faces with her majesty. The lesson is prosaic, the two of them workedhard to understand that a thousand little things can even kill a herd of oxen. Thanks for the strong support that was a daily boost and that you sent us across the starry space.
Ráďa and Maara"



Previous expedition report:

Mára Holeček and Radek Groh reached the 2nd bivouac on Cho Oyu