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| Latest News 2009/02/05 |
| Written By Greg, Julian's Brother In Law |
Greg arrived in kathmandu 19/01 and met with British embassy, Interpol and himalayan mountain rescue none of whom were very useful.
This was followed up with a meeting between HMR and the guides that Kim of Kamzng had suggested.
HMR concured that we had the right type of guides in angnuru and gurman of himalayan mountain guides (Henry Todds company?).
21/01 Greg and lee flew to lukla arriving at 13.30 and walked to monjo where they stayed for the night distributing posters of Julian (this was done at each overnight stop).
22/01 entered Sangamartha national park and walked to Namche.
23/01 spent another night in namche putting up posters in tea houses, bakery, police posts etc and met with local police who said that they had sent 3 patrols to look for Julian but it turns out that these were just routine patrols that the police carry out and at no time do they deviate from the main trails.
24/01 walked to phortse with 2 local police officers who were useless i.e. they couldn't keep up with Lee and I and didn't speak English. To be fair to them though, they'd converse with locals along the way. We met with our 2 guides and porter who carried tents etc and stayed the night in Phortse. Whilst in Phortse we received a call from Lhapka Dorje Sherpa (HMG) who informed us that no trekers had stayed at the Thagnag / Dragnag lodge on the night of 22/12 which narrowed our search area from Cho La pass to Thagnag.
25/01 Walked to Machermo, by which time I had started to experience problems with altitude but diamox and 10-12 hours sleep seemed to cure.
26/01 walked to Gokyo to meet our second porter (carrying food etc for our camp at Cho La)
27/01 Our guides and porters left for Cho La to set up camp and begin the search. Lee and I remained in Gokyo and climbed Gokyo Ri for acclimatisation as I was unable to make it to the top the day before due to headaches and dizzyness.
28/01 walked to Cho La camp and began to help with search of the area. Stayed overnight in tents (pretty cold camping at over 5000M in the middle of winter when you've just come from an Australian summer!)
29/01 Spent most of the day searching around the rock field, valleys and alternative pass. We also went upto the Cho La pass glacier which had changed significantly since lee was there with Julian in December. The crevasse on the glacier is now huge and apparently bottomless when rocks are thown in. At this point we were very down and feared maybe we had discovered Julians problem. In the afternoon we split with Lee and one guide heading back down the valley to Thagnag searching up and down the valley sides in any possible overhanging rocks etc, Whilst the other guide, porter and I walked down the valley to Tshomteng following the yak trails and searching similar rocks and sheltered places. We met and questioned yak farmers but none remembered seeing Julian. We met with Lee and the other guide at Tshomteng and all walked together to Thare where we spent the night.
30/01 We left Thare and headed for Phortse confident that we had searched the possible areas that Julian might be found in but when we got to an area maybe an hour from Phortse and phone signals returned we received a call frop Lhapka Dorje to say that the tea house owner at Thagnag definately remembered Julian returning to Thagnag 22/12 and leaving for Phortse 23/12 at 8am. At this time we were headed for Namche so continued on our journey seething that we had been searching the wrong area for 3 days. At Phortse we checked at all of the open tea houses to see if anyone remembered Julian staying on the 23rd but none did. It seems that if Julian was staying at Phortse 23rd he may have stayed at the Peaceful lodge which is now closed and the owner as yet cannot be contacted as he has gone to Varanase to see the Dalai Lama.
31/01 Having regrouped at Namche, Lee and I decided to head back up the trail to check the area between Thagnag and Phortse more carefully as in the previous days we had been convinced that julian was somewhere between Thagnag and Cho La. We walked to Pangboche and met again with our 2 guides where we spent the night. We heard from a woman from Thare whilst in Pangboche that she believed she had seen Julian carrying a green rucksack and wearing an ipod on the 23/12, but we are unsure of the reliability of this sighting
01/02 Lee went alone to Pheriche and Dingboche to ask around the lodges and distribute posters whilst I walked with the 2 guides to phortse. In Phortse we picked up another local sherpa guide and headed back towards Thare on the low yak trails. We covered much of the valley walking / climbing from river to trail and back many times in our search and headed back to Phortse from Thare at the end of the day.
02/02 Lee left Pangboche and I left Phortse, we met at Namche and continued our walk to Lukla.
03/02 Flew P.M from Lukla to Kathmandu. Went to Embassy to give them what little information we had found out and tomorrow I fly home to Australia to support my family at this difficult time.
I fear the worst for Julian due to the following information...
Please join me in prayer and thoughts for Julian's family and friends at this very distresing time,
Greg
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