Climbing gear sprawls across the dining table in their Warrington home on Dunedin's north coast. Two large red The North Face bags spew clothing and equipment. This is the chaos of packing for a six-week expedition in the Himalayas.
Shelley Hersey remains calm as she tries to shoehorn a Nepalese phrase book into a pocket.
"It's the little details that we're trying to address in the last dash to the finishline," Shelley smiles. "We're surrounded by gear at the moment including all the medical paraphenalia – ensuring we have enough throat lozenges and paracetamol."
Together with her husband Paul and their Australian friend John Price this svelte climbing team has Anidesha Chuli – a Himalayan mountain in the Kangchendzonga region of eastern Nepal, also known as White Wave, firmly in its sights. Nobody has ever stood on the summit of Anidesha Chuli.
"We've done a few trips with John and he's a really good guy who has been climbing his brains out in Canada for the past few years getting really strong," Shelley explains. "This will be his first big expedition at altitude."
At 6815m Anidesha Chuli will present a challenge for them all.
"I've climbed to 6000m in the Indian Himalaya and this time the summit is 6800m so that last little bit will be a bit of an unknown – knowing how the body will cope," she admits, adding: "I'm reasonably quick to acclimatise, whereas Paul takes a bit longer, but I have to be more careful about staying healthy and resilient for the length of time that is required."
The team is planning to be at base camp (5000m) and above for 24 days.
"Technically we have enough time for two attempts at the summit," she offers. "That's 6-8 days of acclimatising and the climb itself will take six to seven days. We have a 10-day walk in and prior to that we have two days on a bus, so hopefully we will be climbing by mid-May."
On their 10-day trek into base camp they will pass through the highest permanently occupied villages in Nepal.
Coffee aroma fills the air as Paul, a keen surfer, writer and author, nestles into the couch between the bags.
"It's an unclimbed mountain somewhere between 6800m and 6900m high," he shares. "It has been recognised as a really attractive technical mountain since the 1970s when there was a New Zealand climbing team that tried to climb the north face of Jannu (7710m). They never summited but recognised this mountain and Graeme Dingle mentioned it in a book he wrote. It was only opened up recently by the Nepalese government as a peak that could be attempted. Last year some friends of ours tried to have a go at it. There were four of them and two of them got to within 600m of the summit and one of them had a bad fall and had to be rescued off the mountain at about 6200m."
"So we're going back to give it another go."
Paul said the last bit on the ridge was an unknown because nobody had actually eyeballed it.
"We are going to pick a slightly different line if we can. I'd call it moderately technical, but we may come across something that we can't climb towards the top – there are some ice cliffs that we're hoping we can get around," he concedes.
"Once we are on the ridge we don't know what to expect other than what we have seen on Google Earth, which can be quite misleading," adds Shelley.
"It looks like the southwest ridge of Mt Aspiring with a couple of rock steps thrown in, but who knows," Paul laughs. "There are a lot of things that have to go right to get to that point. There's a major icefall to get through, which the guys last year managed to get through because there was a lot of snow, but without that snow then the crevasses will be impassable. That's quite a possibility."
Paul has been on five expeditions in the Himalaya including successful expeditions in India, Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan. He has completed several first ascents overseas and in the Southern Alps.
"You always have to weigh up the risk factor – Shell tends to get summit fever – she's very driven to get to the top of something. I try and be the voice of reason and as a team that works quite well."
"Our biggest goal is to get home safely – we don't want to climb it at all costs," offers Shelley. "We're not obsessive about it. Somebody asked me, 'if you don't climb it this time will you go back?' and I told them I would probably go and explore a new area – it's not an obsession."
"Logistically it's a challenging mountain," Paul continues. "The upper section is beautiful, but you have to get through a 1000m icefall, which is certainly not beautiful."
"And not at those altitudes," adds Shelley.
Paul said it was "like playing snakes and ladders with some pretty serious consequences".
"If that icefall wasn't there then it would have certainly been climbed already," he offers.
Shelley is considered one of New Zealand's strongest all-round female climbers.
"If Shell gets up it then as far as we know she will be the first Kiwi woman to climb an unclimbed mountain of this height and if John gets up it he will be the youngest Australian at 27. I'm just the token old guy, " Paul laughs.
Paul and Shelley said they weren't going to be making regular updates during their trip because of the remote location, but would keep people posted upon their return to Kathmandu through their blog site Backyard and Beyond or the expedition's Facebook page.
Their Anidesha Chuli 2014 Expedition would not have been possible without the support of Sport New Zealand through its Hillary Expedition Grant or the support the team recieved from Bivouac Outdoor and The North Face Adventure Grant.
See you at the beach ...
Derek
PS The Aotearoa Surf Film Festival rolls into Dunedin this week. Book your seat here.
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