Everest 2018: Climbers to Watch

While every climber is special to their friends and family, a few stand out each year try to do something special. Teams are all over Nepal today, with many in the Khumbu, others still in Kathmandu. The flights to Lukla are full and thus far going smoothly.

Every year, Everest attracts highly driven individuals seeking to summit for their own personal reason. I try to follow the most unique ones so let me introduce a few in this post.

Horia Colibășanu – New Route?

While there are about 17 named routes on Everest, there are still many routes that have not been attempted. Horia Colibășanu wants to put a new route up this spring season.

This Romanian climber has a solid CV being the first Romanian to reach the summits of K2, Manaslu, Dhaulagiri and Annapurna. He summited Everest last year with out supplemental oxygen. He will be joined on Everest this season by Slovak mountaineer Peter Hámor who has summited all 14 8000ers. You can follow their climb on Horia’s  blog and Facebook.

There are no details on his plans but he is currently in Nepal and planning on acclimatizing in the Khumbu. I will keep updating his story.

Kami Rita Sherpa – 22^nd Summit?

Kami Rita Sherpa, 48 from Thame, is aiming to summit Everest on the 29th of May, the 65th anniversary of the first summit by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa. He will climb from the Nepal side.

I know Kami Rita well as were were on K2 together in 2014 and summited within minutes of each other. This is a different Kami (Kami Tshering (Ang Chhiring) Sherpa – Pangboche)  than I summited Everest with but he was also on K2 with us.

Anyway, Kami Rita is well known throughout the climbing community as one of the strongest, steadiest and nicest persons you would ever meet. In addition to his 21 summits of Everest, he has 8 Cho Oyu summits, 1 Lhotse, 1 Manaslu and 1 K2 for a total of 32 summits of 8000 meter peaks. If he summits this year, and it is a 99.999% probability, he will break the record currently held by retried Sherpa guides Apa Sherpa from Thame and Phurba Tashi from Khumjung each with 21 summits. Kami Rita had worked for Alpine Ascents for many years but shifted to 7 Summits Treks for this year and possibly a couple more. He says he wants to reach 25 Everest summits before retiring himself.

Lhakpa Sherpa – Female Record

Owning the female summit record is not enough for Lhakpa Sherpa who lives in West Hartford CN, US, she wants to destroy it! Lhakpa is going for her ninth time with a summit this year. She began her dream of Everest as a 15 year-old porter helping others make the top, but soon she realized she had the natural ability to climb at altitude. She says she doesn’t train because she works all day washing dishes at Whole Food to support her two daughters according to her hometown newspaper.

There have been 539 female ascents of Everest by 483 different women. Only 7 have summited without Os. 36 women have multiple summits with Lhakpa at the top of the list with eight followed by Melissa Arnot at six, Anshu Jamsenpa at five, Lydia Bradey at four and several others with three or two summits.

Chinese Xia Boyu – Double Amputee

This 70 year-old has a dream and not much will stop him – even politics. The Nepal Ministry tried to ban double amputees but their Supreme Court overruled the mandate thus supporting those with disabilities. The case was brought by Hari Budha Magar who lost both his legs above the knee to a bomb blast in Afghanistan in 2010 while serving in the British Gurkha Regiment. The politics delayed his attempt this year so he will try in 2019.

However Xia Boyu is going ahead with his plans. This will be the his fifth attempt on Everest. His story is one of determination. On his 1975 attempt bad weather stopped him just above the South Summit. He and his teammates spent three nights at 8,600 meters in sub zero temperatures. Xia left his tent to help a teammate and lost both legs to frostbite according to this story on ExplorersWeb in 2007.

His story continues when he developed lymph node cancer but still gave Everest another attempt in 2014 and 2015 but almost no one summited those years due to the Sherpa strike and earthquake.  His fourth attempting 2016 again ended close to the summit but weather was the culprit again.

Don Bowie – Speed Record

After Kilian Jornet’s double summit at a very fast time, Don Bowie wants to give it a go. He posts on his blog, that he will attempt the summit from the Chinese Base Camp on the Tibet side for a no-oxygen speed record for climbing Everest. He went on to say that he feels confident based on his current fitness level and past performance at high altitude. While speed records are dubious, especially when starting and ending at different points, he is targeting Jornet’s 26 hour time from basecamp to summit time. In addition, he has targeted the most commonly accepted Everest speed climb record set by Hans Kammerlander in 1996 of 16:45 from Advanced Base Camp to the summit. Note: I have not been able to confirm if he found sponsors for this climb so it may not happen. Update: It seems he is not on Everest but will climb Kanchenjunga solo with no Os instead.

Best of luck to all.

Climb On!
Alan
memories are Everything