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sticky: Everest 2012 Team Locations

Dec 162011

Welcome to Alan Arnette’s Everest 2012 coverage. The teams listed below have announced their 2012 plans or usually run an annual Everest expedition. Contact me to add your team. I do my best to estimate each team’s location throughout the season and track their summit success rate. My coverage is based on my own experiences, research, sources, and public information. I try to provide insight and interpretation of the activities ranging from routes to weather to the challenge of climbing Everest.

I did similar coverage of the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 seasons. I summited Everest on May 21, 2011. I climbed Everest four times – 2002, 2003, 2008 and 2011.

		South Col Route
	TEAMS	BC	C1	C2	C3	C4	Summit:
	Adventure Consultants
	Alpine Ascents Int.
	Asian Trekking
	Dream Guides

	Himex
	IMG Classic
	IMG Hybrid
	Jagged Globe
	Mountain Trip
	Patagonia Brothers
	Peak Freaks
	RMI
	Summit Climb
	others

		Northeast Ridge Route
	TEAMS	BC	ABC	C1	C2	C3	Summit:
	Adventure Peaks
	Adventure Dynamics
	Altitude Junkies
	Project Himalaya
	Summit Climb
	Bill Burke
	7 Summits
	others
e= climb ended, x=last reported location, x+ = on summit bid, -x = descending h=high point.
Summit number = client/sherpa Locations are estimates derived from public websites

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Everest 2012: A Preview of the North Side

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Feb 202012

Everest 2012: A Preview of the North Side

As we get closer to the Everest season, climbers are in full prep mode and also the operators. Phil Crampton owner of Altitude Junkies took a few minutes to talk about his expectations for the north side of Everest this season. Phil is a bit unique because he ran climbs on the north for years before switching to the south as it became more difficult to run a reliable operation from Tibet. Now he is satisfied that side is stable enough and with the demand from his clients, he is back for 2012. If you don’t know Phil, he is continue reading

Everest 2012: Interview with Mike Moniz

4 Responses »

Feb 152012

This interview with Mike Moniz is part of an ongoing series of interviews I do each season with Everest climbers. Not the famous, sponsored ones who get plenty of publicity but the regular people, who have full time jobs, full time families in many cases and climb for the love of climbing. Please send me your suggestions for an interview. Now here’s Mike: These days we hear about the youth movement in climbing big mountains; setting records and motivating others to get off the couch however we rarely hear about that steady hand climbing along with them providing encouragement, nurturing continue reading

Everest 2012: Interview with Leanna Shuttleworth

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Feb 132012

Everest 2012: Interview with Leanna Shuttleworth

This interview with Mark and Leanna Shuttleworth is part of an ongoing series of interviews I do each season with Everest climbers. Not the famous, sponsored ones who get plenty of publicity but the regular people, who have full time jobs, full time families in many cases and climb for the love of climb. Please send me your suggestion for an interview. Now here’s Mark and Leanna: You know climbing is in your blood when you post this for the world to read at age 14: “I was the only girl on the 21 day trip, got quite bad altitude continue reading

Everest 2012: A look at the Costs

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Feb 072012

How much does it cost to climb Mt. Everest? This is probably the most popular question second only to “Did you summit?” Well the short answer to question one is – a car. Selecting a guide is often personal, controversial and highly based on a last experience. This article strives to be objective and not make specific recommendations other than to carefully research your choices, ask questions, get references and go in with your eyes wide open. The Big Picture I am always receiving emails asking how to climb Everest as inexpensively as possible. My short answer is stop trying. continue reading

Profile of an Everest Sherpa

5 Responses »

Jan 302012

Sherpas are the backbone of Everest. But who are these people and what motivates them? I have now climbed with Sherpas multiple times and my admiration increase with each experience. That said, Sherpas are real people with all the strengths and weaknesses of everyone else. They get altitude sickness, have bad days, bad moods and sometimes make mistakes. And, to climb with a Sherpa is a honor. The Sherpa People First, a bit of historical background. Sherpa is the name of a people and also used as a last name. They mostly live in western Nepal today but migrated from continue reading

Lhotse – the Other Everest

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Jan 222012

Every Everest climber, actual or armchair, recognizes the term “Lhotse Face” as a difficult section leading to the Death Zone at 8,000 meters. What some people often miss is that the Face is part of the 4th highest mountain on Earth, Lhotse standing 27,940 feet or 8516 meters. Sitting in the fake Starbucks in Lukla after my successful Everest summit, I overheard a middle-aged climber talking to a group of trekkers, ” I just summited Lhotse, it is a lot harder than Everest.” The group began to grill him on the details and he rewarded them with tales of “real” continue reading

Everest 2012:: Interview with Cian O’Brolchain

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Jan 222012

Everest 2012:: Interview with Cian O'Brolchain

This interview with Cian O’Brolchain is part of an ongoing series of interviews I do each season with Everest climbers. Not the famous, sponsored ones who get plenty of publicity but the regular people, who have full time jobs, full time families in many cases and climb for the love of climb. Please send me your suggestion for an interview. Now here’s Cian: So what does professional tennis have to do with mountain climbing? Well, a lot it appears from my conversation with now retried Irish tennis professional Cian O’Brolchain. I first met Cian on Denali last summer. We shared continue reading

Everest 2012 Interview with the Axe

4 Responses »

Jan 182012

This interview with Grant Rawlinson is part of an ongoing series of interviews I do each season with Everest climbers. Not the famous, sponsored ones who get plenty of publicity but the regular people, who have full time jobs, full time families in many cases and climb for the love of climb. Please send me your suggestion for an interview. Now here’s Grant: Climbing Everest is never easy. Sometimes you hear people dismiss a route as a Tourist Route; or pay your $65,000 then tie yourself to a Sherpa and get hauled to the summit. I respectfully disagree and suggest continue reading

Everest Base Camp – Himex Style

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Jan 162012

I’ve been in many base camps but I knew I was somewhere special when I was told “… and this is our garbage tent.” Welcome to Everest Base Camp, Russell Brice style. In 2011 while climbing Everest, I spent the afternoon with Brice getting to know this man and how he runs his expedition base camps. Let’s just say, it’s different. Most expeditions will promote their excellent base camp facilities and talk of gourmet food, individual tents, and clean kitchens. Today, this is the ante to play the game and let me say from the start that many operators take continue reading

Everest 2012: Interview with Bill Burke

7 Responses »

Jan 112012

This interview with Bill Burke is part of an ongoing series of interviews I do each season with Everest climbers. Not the famous, sponsored ones who get plenty of publicity but the regular people, who have full time jobs, full time families in many cases and climb for the love of climb. Please send me your suggestion for an interview. Now here’s Bill: I have come to know and admire one Everest climber for several years now, Bill Burke. He epitomizes determination and optimism like few other climbers. Here are some stats: 69-years old, has been to Everest every year continue reading

Everest 2012: The Summit Routes

6 Responses »

Jan 092012

Along with my annual coverage of Everest, I always update information on the climbing routes on Everest. I am surprised that there is always something new. For Everest 2012 season, I want to discuss an acclimatization technique that is becoming more common on Nepal expeditions, the climb of nearby Lobuche Peak. Lobuche Acclimatization Lobuche is often classified as a Trekking peak due to the lack of technical difficulty and the relatively mild altitude; it is “only” 20,075ft/6119m . Teams like to use Lobuche for acclimatization because the summit is the same altitude as Camp 1 and it eliminates at least one continue reading

Communicating from Everest – 2012 Update

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Jan 022012

Communicating from Everest - 2012 Update

I receive many questions on how I did my live dispatches for the 7 Summits so I put together this short tutorial for anyone wanting to communicate during an expedition from anywhere on our planet. While staying in touch is mandatory and part of an expedition for me, some people want to get away from it all and escape the modern noise that comes with 24 by 7 communications. If that is your case, then take a sat phone for safety but don’t use it unless there is an emergency! Tell everyone that no news is good news and you continue reading

Getting in “Everest Shape”

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Dec 262011

With the heavy eating of Christmas behind us and New Year’s resolutions in the making, I thought it might be a good time to talk about training for mountain climbing! With only about 90 days until teams start leaving for Everest 2012, it is too late to start training but for the rest of us it is never too late! When I was training for Everest, I was told “Alan, you better be in the best shape of your life!” Well they almost got it right, actually I needed to not only be in the best shape of MY life, continue reading

Welcome to Everest 2012 Coverage

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Dec 192011

Welcome to my kick-off for Everest 2012 coverage! This will be my 10th season of Everest: 6 times providing coverage and another 4 seasons of actually climbing on Everest. I summited last year on May 21st from the south side. My goal is to provide insight and analysis of what is going on up there with no favorites or agendas. I use sources directly from the mountain, public information and my own experiences to develop my posts. Usually I post once a day as the season gets started in early April and ramp up to almost hourly coverage during the continue reading

Dramatic Increase for Everest North Permits

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Nov 102011

Dramatic Increase for Everest North Permits

In a dramatic increase, the China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA) has notified operators that they will increase the permit costs for climbers, Sherpa and cooks. The net impact is that a permit to climb Everest from the north is now more expensive than from the south for most climbers. This according to Phil Crampton of Altitude Junkies. The north side of Everest has long been the ‘bargain’ side primarily based on a lower cost permit from the Chinese then Nepal’s permit of $10,000 per climber. This is turn had attracted the lowest budget operators, and independent climbers. But this had a continue reading