Everest 2013: Climbing to Camp 1

The Khumbu Icefall was busy with several teams making the sojourn from Base Camp to Camp 1 for their first rotation. A couple of teams are at Camp 2.

Delayed for a day after a few ladders were eaten by the ice, climbers awoke at 4:00AM and made the first significant move of an Everest expedition.

The big picture is that climbers on both sides are just starting their initial climbs to camps above Base Camps in order to begin the serious acclimatization process. Most climbers will do three or four total rotations lasting into early May depending on the weather.

Check the location table to see where the teams are based on their latest public reports.

Communications seems to be an issue on the South side this year with multiple complaints about 3G coverage, Internet access and the like. Oddly, comms from the north appear better than in the past. I know I sound like an old fart, but I remember when we sent postcards from Base Camp 🙂

On the north side, the fixed lines are now reported by Altitude Junkies to be set to Camp 2. This is very encouraging because the past few years, teams have been frustrated by the slow pace of setting up the fixed line. That said, there is still a long way to go to the summit proper. Phil Crampton says

Not much other news to report on except that the word around base camp is that the Tibetan Guides from the Tibet Guide School in Lhasa have already fixed ropes to high camp two at 7,900 meters. We hope that this news is correct and that they can continue with their fast progress and get the ropes fixed to camp three at 8,300-meters in the next several days if the weather allows.

David Tait, with Himex, has set the tone for his climb this year. After feeling very strong and extremely confident while on Lobuche, he wants to go with the Sherpas when they fix the line to the summit. He did this in 2009 and felt it was an incredible experience. See my interview with him about 2013. Climbing to raise money for the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, he has already raised over USD$300,000 this year alone.

By the time I had reached Lobouche BC at 9am, I had made up my mind to ask Russ Brice, the expedition leader, if I could substitute my 2-night Lobouche Peak stay for a return to Everest BC and a couple of trips, perhaps carrying small loads, though the Khumbu Ice-Fall. The whole Lobouche experience is an effort to avoid the dangers of the Icefall, so my request appeared at first counter-intuitive. However, my desire is to be allowed/asked, when the time comes, to climb with the “rope-fixing Sherpas” [who set the first lines on the mountain], and I felt that having negotiated the Icefall at such an early stage as this, whilst everyone else is languishing on Lobouche will have put me in a strong position.

Speaking of climbing fast, Chad Kellogg is returning this year for yet another speed attempt. He attempted to set a speed record last year but stopped just above the South Col. He will be climbing alone, without supplemental oxygen but will take water from teams at camps along the way and have a Sherpa trailing him with emergency oxygen should trouble develop, like last year. He currently at Base Camp.

Elite climbers, Simone Moro and Ueli Steck, share on an EpicTV video their plans to go all the way to the South Col during their no O’s acclimatization program.

Sometimes, the legend around Sherpas lead people to believe they can do anything. David Mauro gives us this insight as he discusses a punctured air mattress with his Personal Sherpa Mingma:

I drug my miserable air mattress out of the tent and examined it’s wound. Mingma, ever attentive, came over to wish me a good morning. I told him the story of what had happened to the mattress, leaving out my expletive. He studied the hole. He studied the mattress. Mingma’s passive facial expression is one of quiet wisdom. I imagined he was about to share some time tested Sherpa anecdote that spoke to such circumstances in life’s condition. Then he looked up at me and said “S#&t.”

Climbing to Camp 1

For many everest climbers, the Icefall represents a huge event and becomes a defining moment in their climb.

The first step into the Icefall, is other-worldly. Yes, you took the practice run a few days earlier, but this time it is for real. Getting up at 4:00AM, you tried to eat the toast and eggs, washed down with coffee, but honestly your throat was too tight. Now you are making your way up what a lot of people term the most dangerous part of climbing Everest. A fair characterization except for everything above the Khumbu Icefall.

Your headlamp lights up the area just in front of your boots but as the sun is rising there is just enough ambient light so the headlamp is really a placebo.  After only ten minutes, you find yourself breathing like you had just run the fastest mile in history. What is wrong? You had trained for months, years and now you are crashing on your first real test.

About now you hear voices behind you, a Sherpa train. You step aside as four Sherpas, each with a pack overflowing with pads, oxygen bottles, white sacks holding who know what goes by. They seem to be running, and talking, and laughing. They are having a great time. You are struggling to stand still.

Back clipped into the fixed rope, you continue to climb.  All of a sudden you find your rhythm, you get your cadence, your pace, your style. Your breathing calms down. For the first time you look around. Ice, nothing but ice. The boot track is clear ahead, the white nylon line is like a snake’s skin shed as it goes higher.

An hour into the climb, the steep initial pitch of the Icefall eases a bit. Time for a break. As you sit on your pack, drinking water, you try to huff down an energy bar. Still not hungry. But you know better and force it in along with some water.

Instead of looking up, you look down. Base Camp. The tent city is widespread. You instinctively look for your camp, your tent, a connection with something you know instead of this world of uncertainty, of the unknown ahead. Sighting your tents, you relax, but then it dawns on you how high you are but yet you have hours to go to reach the next camp.

This pattern repeats every quarter hour for the next five hours. One step at a time, you cross ladders, clip onto and off of the fixed ropes. You swear at each anchor that requires you to unclip the carabiner, perhaps the jumar. Why are they so close together? A rhetorical question.

Taking a break at the well known features – the popcorn, the football field, the prayer flags – roadsigns and weigh stations along an icy highway they are memorized in your mind from years of study. You feel like you know each spot like you know your gloved hand. But each one is drastically different than what you had envisioned.

Traffic picks up. You are now at ease with stepping aside to let Sherpas pass going up and coming down. You quietly let out a “Namaste” to each one, they respond in kind. You are starting to feel good. Glancing at your watch, it is 8:00AM. Quickly, you try to do the math. How far have you come, how far to go. You must be close.

The Icefall ahead seems to crest. Ah, the top. Camp 1 is just beyond and your tent, your mat, your down sleeping bag, no movement, just rest, air to breath. But like many things in climbing it is a mirage. No they are not just for barren deserts.

Ladders, more ladders, but these are different, they go straight up. The Icefall seems to have risen like a big city skyscraper. Your legs start to complain. You question taking that book in your pack, even though it weighs less than that extra wool shirt you added at the last minute.

Climbing the ladders requires concentration. The crampons hitting the aluminum rungs makes a tingy, metallic noise. It is comforting. You know each step takes you closer. The thin nylon line is your consent companion, now half way up the four ladders lashed together you see that your carabiner is down by your feet, but still attached to the safety line. You look down, careful not to let it trip you up.

Thinking clearly, you pull it back up above your hand, like you were taught. You need to concentrate. Mental lapses can be deadly. Higher, more ladders and then a flat spot. You pause. A deep breath. A smile. Looking ahead the snake skin disappears, so does the trail. All you see are the stubs of a ladder top. This one goes down, and down and down.

The Icefall does not go up, it goes down. Up and down and so do you. Down climbing the ladder, everything is in reverse. Your mind complains, you are confused, a bit discouraged. After all you are climbing up to Camp 1, not climbing down.

Reaching the bottom of the icy ravine, you climb back up the other side. This is more like it. But a few more of these takes it toll. You are tired, on the edge of exhaustion. Then the mirage dissolves, the fog clears, the vision slowly comes into focus. The Western Cwm.

Onto the Cwm, you relax, but no Everest, no Lhotse, just an an endless expanse of ice and snow is now laid out like a huge sheet of white paper. But the exhaustion is gone. You move faster. What is the source of this new strength? Clipping in and out of the fixed line is suddenly second nature, You have made peace with the anchors. The smile is back. The breathing is normal. You can do this.

Camp 1 can’t be far, but there are more ladders, more ravines. The optimism fades, your pace slows down. The smile becomes a straight line. With your eyes focused on your boot, one step at a time, you move forward. The trash talk with your teammates has been replaced with deep introspection. You are lost in your thoughts.

A yellow speck in the distance emerges, and another, and another. A line of tents! Camp 1!!

You did it, you made it and you smile.

Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything

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