UPDATED: Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker, and Renan Ozturk are back from their adventure on the Shark’s Fin of Meru in India’s Garhwal Himalaya. The trio spent 18 days on the route, stretching to the breaking point their 10 days’ worth of food and water. (The storm depicted in the video above stopped them cold for five days.) Having slashed their rations on the second day, breakfasts for the rest of the climb for each teammate consisted of four spoonfuls of oatmeal and a third of a Clif bar. They each consumed half a liter of water per day.

On such rations, it’s amazing they got as far as they did, considering that Jimmy compared the route to “climbing El Cap on top of Denali.” He said the line up the steep headwall was similar, in fact, to the east face of El Cap. Unfortunately, cracks were scant, and Conrad would rate two of the pitches that Jimmy led as “modern A4″ aid climbing. Once atop the headwall, they thought they’d find easier travel on the summit ridge. Instead, they encountered a steep and unavoidable gendarme. After 35 pitches of technical climbing, they pulled to within 60 meters of the summit, but were finally forced to turn back. At that point, reports Jimmy, the team had pushed themselves to their very limits. “We gave it everything, absolutely everything we had,” he said. Both he and Conrad agreed it was the most demanding climbing either of them had ever done.

You can find more videos at merudispatches.blogspot.com. Also, since my last post about their endeavor, Jimmy added a slew of typically gorgeous shots to the blog, from what looks to be one of the most insanely picturesque basecamps on earth. Psyched to see more and hear more about their adventure. Glad you guys made it off the mountain intact!