Hello,
I wanted to provide you
some direct feedback on my recent climb in the Rwenzori Mountains. I am
copying my outfitter as well, in case this is not the correct e-mail
address to submit concerns to.
I climbed Margherita Peak
on 10 Jan with Rwenzori Trekking Services. Our two lead guides on
summit day were Enoc and Robert. If I recall correctly we were the 3rd
of five groups to arrive at the second glacier, the steep one. Our
guides were world class professionals. They knew what they were doing
and were vary safe. I have experience on both glacier climbs as well as
winter mountaineering so I am not a novice to the alpine environment.
The
reason I have chosen to contact you has to do with the other trekking
services on the peak that day. I don"t know specifically who they were
except that they were not from RTS. My first complaint was not a safety
issue but speaks to the lack of professionalism I observed from the
other services. While waiting on our guides to place fixed ropes the
next group arrived. Their lead guide kept looking all about at both us
as well as his own clients. Being that we arrived in the dark and all
were wearing headlamps this guide was blinding us each time he looked in
our direction. Headlamp discipline is a basic hiking skill, and this
fellow lacked it completely. By this point several groups were waiting
to scale the glacier. One of the earlier groups had a panicked client
and were not handling it well. We ended up being delayed nearly an hour
while the situation was resolved. Once our guides had a fixed rope in
place we began up. At this point several groups were all waiting to
scale the glacier. As I am sure you are aware climbing this glacier in
the dry season creates something of a bottle neck where groups can
access the glacier safley. One of the guides from another service
stepped between myself and the other 2 climbers I was to be roped with
and began faking out his rope. I mentioned that I was going to have to
step around him and he ignored me. This is significant because I was
wearing crampons on bare rock which is precarious enough. Additionally
they seemed unconcerned who they leapfrogged or how so long as they were
on the glacier. A woman in our first climbing party (we were broken
into 2 groups for this glacier) was just starting up and nervous, when a
guide from a different service, began changing up her belay rope. She
panicked and I heard her scream for him to stop touching her rope. She
was a novice and was doing her best to follow the directions of our
guide Robert who was well up on the glacier at the ice screw securing
the fixed rope. The most concerning things I noticed were other groups
crossing over our fixed line in their rush to climb. Walking across a
fixed safety line with crampons is not only poor form but dangerous
business for anyone who will be using that line. Crampons can easily
slice a line making it useless. We finally made the summit but on the
return I noticed several clients from other services were using our
fixed line while we were descending on it as well. Again this is a
sloppy and dangerous practice that was ignored by their guides.
As
I stated I do not know who the other guiding services were that
happened to be on the mountain that day. I am hoping you can contact
them and take some form of corrective action. They were dangerous and
unprofessional and appeared to not have much understanding of alpine
skills. As for myself I will only venture into the Rwenzori"s with
Rwenzori Trekking Services as they are he only safe group in the range.
All the best,
Posts
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