Everest 2010 Weekend Update May 9 (updated)

This was a busy week on Everest with the first summits for the 2010 season along with a risky gamble. And several accidents and, sadly, a reported death on nearby Lhotse.

A team of nine Sherpas fixed the ropes to the summit on the south side. They included Sherpas from IMG, Alpine Ascents and Himex. One western guide who was doing route work high on the mountain also joined them to the summit.

These are some of the largest teams on the south side thus have the resources to fix the route. Other smaller teams carried some of the ropes up the mountain or contributed in other ways. And for the first time on the south, each climber was formally asked to contribute $100 for the route preparation supplies.

Two climbers were hot on the Sherpa’s heels following their work by one day with the hopes of making a summit bid in a very narrow weather window. Domnhall O’Doughartaigh, an independent climber, and Lucille deBeaudrap with Peak Freaks pushed the envelope and won.

The risk was known as mentioned on the Peak Freaks site a few days earlier:

The anxious climbers are scooting up in hope that all will work for them just as soon as the route is fixed. There may be a very small one or two day window, but it is not certain. We now need to pay close attention to the weather. It’s bitter cold up there if there are high winds. It may feel okay at base camp, but you add a chill factor to -35c and it equals- a not so good combination. Especially if something goes wrong.

And it was a close call according to Lucille’s most recent dispatch now down at base camp:

So I took off my oxygen mask and within, we were still pretty high we were about the South Summit. It didn’t take very long that I didn’t have any energy at all: I didn’t want to stand up. So, we had a lot of fresh snow which made the climb up kind of difficult and long but so what I started doing was sliding down, and I’ve kind of torn up my seat. My poor sherpa Tshering didn’t really know what to do. Tried to mount up a rescue but I was still talking, coherent, just didn’t have much energy, and so eventually I put the oxygen mask back on and started walking down.

Lucille’s summit report is the Blog of the Day. While they summited in calm conditions, I believe they dodged a huge bullet as high winds started up during their descent to camp 2. Congratulations to all the Sherpas and western climbers for the first summits of this young summit period.

As we approach the end of the week, there are reports of injuries and a death. Altitude Junkies and the Sky climber’s both report a death of a Kazakh (corrected as Russian team member) climber on the descent on Lhotse. I will provide the name once it is public. My condolences to the family, friends and teammates.

Also, there was an injured Sherpa on nearby Pumori. Another Sherpa was injured in the Icefall when an anchor holding a vertical ladder failed. He suffered a broken arm and was helped back to base camp.

Over on the north, it is an entirely different story. Throughout most of the last decade, Russel Brice’s Himex Sherpa team set the ropes to the summit and often had them in well before the south in even the most difficult weather conditions. However, with the turmoil in China and the restrictions on Everest from the Chinese, Brice moved his operations to the Nepal side. This left the door open for the China Tibet Mountaineering Association to take over the rope management.

According to teams, the ropes are currently fixed only to camp 3 or about 27,300′, far short of the summit and thus stopping most summit attempts. The weather has been difficult this year. As usual, the north receives more snow and wind than the south and increases the difficultly of climbing on that side.

Layered on top of this is more high winds in the forecast for the summit of Everest. It appears no summits attempts until May 11th when the winds could begin to ease but more likely it will be a few days later than that.

Almost every report this past week mentioned the weather but this is the good news from IMG:

Greg said that the recent snowfall has actually improved the conditions on the route to camp 3, with steps starting to form (where it was very icy last week). Coming down the Western Cwm, Greg said there was a foot of fresh snow at Camp 1 that has fallen recently.

Earlier this season, we kept hearing for how dry Everest was on the south. Well Adrian Ballinger with Himex who summited with the Sherpas fixing rope this week gave us a real-time report:

As far as the route is concerned, Adrian thinks that it is slightly easier than last year, especially higher up. “There is more snow, which makes the summit ridge and the triangle face easier than in 2009. There is certainly less rock to climb over,”

This is excellent news.

A must see is the video from Leif Whitaker and Dave Hahn climbing the Lhotse Face. It has excellent audio and HD video of them climbing the Lhotse Face to camp 3.

Teams on the south have competed their acclimatization climbs to camp 3 and are back at base camp or even lower in the villages of the Khumbu resting up for the summit bids. Similarly on the north, teams are at the Chinese Base Camp or lower not only waiting for weather but also the ropes.

It is now almost standard practice for teams to descend to the lower villages before their summit bids. I believe it was Anatoli Boukreev who made the notion popular on Everest by saying something along the lines of “Touching the green grass before the summit.” But not everyone agrees. The Himex team with their “pleasure dome” (they hate that term and call it the White Pod) complete with big screen TV, espresso makers, sofas and  … will stay in their BC to avoid any potential contamination by interacting with the locals or trekkers.

The AAI teams seems to be having some serous health issues. They struggled to reach camp 3 but now it looks like 3 members have health issues and 3 more have taken a helicopter back to Kathmandu for their pre-summit rest. However, in his blog, Victor Vescovo, speculates they may not return. This is six of their eight total climbers.

Finally, young Jordan Romero is back at the Chinese Base Camp after tagging 7500, his personal . The team has been unusually quiet after their recent media blitz from the mountain, however other climbers reports multiple cameras continuously surrounding them. Their next move is to the summit so it is good to take some time to get focused on the huge task ahead of time.

Random Notes:
Some side action stirred everyone up in base camp this week. Nepal Telecom’s network coverage now reaches base camp. Dispatch after dispatch reported happy Sherpas phoning home albeit with the Nepalese version of “can you hear me now?” It seems the coverage is still a bit spotty and requires standing on a rock, pointed in the correct direction, holding your arm up .. anyway, this is great for the Sherpas who previously borrowed sat phones to call family members. Don’t look for this to replace sat phones because they are more reliable, transmit data faster and can cost less per minutes, especially for roaming charges.

The Extreme Ice Survey is setting up cameras to monitor Khumbu Icefall according the the blog of Apa Sherpa written by Joshau Choate

The cameras will take a photo every half hour when there is sufficient light. Armed with a 32 gigabyte card and solar battery power, they can go for six months before they need to be changed out. Adam said that some of their cameras in other locations have gone as long as one year. So every six months, someone will make the scramble up to the cameras and change out the cards. Then EIS will compile it all after removing bad shots and attempting to smooth out the lighting.

On some good news, the strikes that have locked down Kathmandu have ended but the struggles there continue.

On a not so good note, Maoists are now roaming the Khumbu area asking for “donations”. They have even arrived at Everest Base Camp but have now left. Usually these are small gangs of young boys armed with powerful rifles. They usually take a few hundred rupees and are gone. But have been know to covet trekker’s cameras and electronics in the Makalu area.

I have now added a daily weather report on the sidebar. It is supplied by Michale Fagin at everestweather.com but should not be used by any climber for planning purposes because conditions change rapidly and this is a snapshot of current conditions and not a forecast. Thanks Michale!


Update: The Kazah team is reporting on the death of the Lhotse climber. He was not on their team but a Russian team:

May 8th day the sad news of the Russian team of tragedy, after the storming of the top of Lhotse died – Sergei Duganov from St. Petersburg … Kazakhstan team brings their condolences.  Gore picked up yet another cherished memory of Sergei … lost in the mountains.

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One thought on “Everest 2010 Weekend Update May 9 (updated)

  1. Thanks for the link to Whitaker and Hahn’s video. That’s some of the best footage of the Lhotse Face I’ve yet seen.

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