The Realities of Everest

The north has become quite busy in spite of some difficult weather, view meanwhile on the south, climber after climber has slept at camp 3 – their ticket to the summit – and are back at the lower camps.

In somewhat of friendly competition, Carina Räihä climbing with Peak Freaks and Anne-Mari Hyryläinen climbing with Altitude Junkies are vying to be the first Finnish woman to summit Everest.

On another entirely different level, Koren climber Ms Oh Eun-Sun is over on Annapurna attempting to be the first woman to summit all the 14 8000m mountains which would be a major and serious mountaineering accomplishment. Only 18 other people have climbed all 14  and they are all men thus far. She is scheduled for her summit bid on Tuesday, May 27th.

The Altitude Junkies team continues to push hard by climbing to camp 3 on the south. Part of their team includes the Sky Climbers with Anne-Mari Hyryläinen. From her home team, this report:

Jussi called to Finland today. Jussi and Lhakpa had climbed successfully to Camp 3 at 7200 meters. Anne-Mari climbed there already yesterday. Currently, the team is well ahead of their initial schedule.

Carina tells us how she felt going through the Icefall:

In the morning at 6 a.m. we were ready to start the climb up to Camp 2. Though tired from yesterday, soon we were once again crossing crevasses and climbing on ladders. First I proceeded very slowly: I could feel each step burning my lungs and it felt unbearable to go further. I had to push myself. I needed to focus on crossing the crevasses and I kept going as if I was in trance.

It took three hours for me, one guide and three others to get to Camp 2. The rest of the group didn’t come this far. I was lying under the sun watching the incredible view: there it was right in front of my eyes, the route to the Everest summit. The top of Everest seemed to be closer than it really was and it was time for a reality check: the last days had been rough and reaching the top would be the hardest and the most challenging thing I’ve ever done.

Various reports are coming in about the difficult weather conditions on both sides of Everest. The Australian team via Stephen Bock reports from their sortie to camp 2 on the south:

Hi All. We have all arrived safely back in Base Camp. We spent the first night (20th) in Camp 1 -certainly one of the windest places we have visited. Some of us were worried our tents would lift off! Lex returned to base camp on the 21st as he was ill and the rest of the team progressed to Camp 2. We spent the 21st,22nd,23rd at Camp 2 and then returned yesterday to Base. We heard about a massive serac fall in the icefall on the route by a Colombian team that came up to Camp 2. We saw it yesterday coming down and its a miracle no one was one the route at that time….it was utter devastation.

On the North side Bill Burke continues to keep us informed on the north with his excellent audio dispatches. He reports an Asian Trekking team has gone from 6 to 2 members. His efforts to reach the north col have been stymied for several days due to extreme wind and cold. On the forecast of lower winds, they are planing on going to the North Col today and to tag camp 2, the next high camp above the North Col. Bill and his climbing partner, David Liano, are attempting a double summit this year starting with the north side.

Adventure Peaks reports:

Hi Folks, We’ve had a successful few days up at ABC despite the weather, it’s not been the , very cold winds and a couple of stormy nights. On the rest day most people walked to either crampon corner (6500m) or the headwall.

Communications still tends to be an issue on the North side. Thuraya users cannot use the inexpensive Eco card because it is not supported from China, But some climbers find this out after they have arrived. Others are having issues with accessing satellites. Jamie McGuinness notes their use of cell phone technology:

We now have email and internet access set up, thanks to some friends and China Telecom. We are using the 3G mobile services and with a little dongle in the laptop and the service is truly amazing. Skype works, even if facebook doesn’t (blocked by the Chinese government).

It appears the realities of climbing Everest has hit Bill Fischer. He vents in the Blog of the Day from ABC on the north.

We have been here for 5 crappy days and will be leaving to climb the North Col tomorrow. It will be nice to get off of my arse and do something although I have no energy to do anything. I forgot to mention the headaches that come and go every day. Can someone ship me a gun please.

I have told you all that I believe climbing is 80% mental and 20% physical. Well I am being taught first hand the mental side of Everest is brutal. I already hate being here and we haven’t even stepped on the damn mountain. Even worse, what stands in front of me is 8,500 vertical feet of snow, rock and ice. I’ll write something a little more pleasant next time. More later.

Almost everyone feels like Bill does from time to time on major expeditions. My guess he will be all smiles tomorrow. By the way, this is what reality is like up there and I appreciate Bill and his team willingness to document it. It is refreshing to see the unfiltered version and not the overly polished talk of laughs and smiles throughout the team.

Continuing the candid talk, this from Lucille with Peak Freaks on her return to camp 2:

I’m all bundled up in Dohmnall’s -40 bag, and trying to stay warm, it’s a little bit cold here. So today, I got up at 3:00 in the morning, was ready to go at about a quarter to 4, and …ahem… excuse me, made it all the way up to Camp 1 in about four hours, so that’s really amazing time. Then I continued on to Camp 2, whick took me about three hours, which was really long…I just died, and was just kind of struggling.

It’s been kind of a mixture of a day, really great this morning, and kind of feeling tough, kind of, in the afternoon. And then I found out that a couple of the friends turned around just part way up the icefall, it’s because they weren’t feeling very well. So, that’s really too bad for them, and I’m sad as well. The rest of the team, two of us climbed, made it both here to Camp 2, along with Tim and Angel, and everyone else is at Camp 1, apart from the three that didn’t make it all the way up.

She is using SPOT to track her route.

Climb On!

Alan