Everest 2012:

Many, many good updates today from teams on both sides who are still at their base camps finishing Pujas or training before their first true climbs higher.

Let’s start today with some solid information from the north side of Everest. You will see how very different it is than EBC -South whereas it is on dirt not glacier. Again, the North side is much more rugged, dusty, cold and windy at Base Camp.

Progress on the North

Phil Crampton of Altitude Junkies posted on their Everest North Base Camp, also known as Chinese Base Camp (CBC) set up:

Having arrived at base camp on the 14th we spent the day making our camp comfortable and even though it was very windy we managed to erect all our kitchen tents as well as our dining and movie dome and our separate ladies and gents shower/toilet tents.

Adventure Peaks reports all is well and they will begin moving higher:

After a couple days rest and training we will have our Puja and henceforth be blessed and permitted to set foot on Mount Everest. We are all very excited and hopefully by April 21, 2012 we will be making our first climb up to the north col t 7050M, aka camp 1.

Once again Grant Rawlinson give us a nice blog post with a detailed audit of all the teams currently at CBC with the totals around 13 teams, 109 climbers with about 100 Sherpas/Tibetans. This compares with over on the south with my very rough estimate of 30+ teams, 350 climbers and 400 Sherpas. You will note I have less than that on my location table because many of these do not have websites or do not post frequently enough for me to track them. Axe also has a nice panoramic picture of CBC.

Climbing by the Numbers

Tom Kowpak made a short post with some biometric numbers:

Sitting here at 4350m. I just checked my “Sats” Blood oxygen saturation: 90-92 bloods; pulse is around 100bpm. The blood suggest that i’m well acclimatised. (i’d be around 95-98 at sea level) The pulse suggests i’m at altitude.. its always bloody high!

This is always an area of extreme interest for the climbers (and guides) and can be quite controversial. Tom is right that his numbers are great, for where he is. Many guides will take your blood saturation reading and not tell you. It can become a competition of who has the number. The higher the better. At sea level, your ideal level of oxygen saturation is about 100 but as you move higher in altitude, it goes down; thus the “climb high, sleep low” regime. But there are many factors that influence the reading ranging from a poor device to cold fingers to recent rest or activity. So it is more of a guide, not a true indication of health. Yet another opportunity to increase stress on Everest!

For another take on this visit Kurt Wedberg’s site, plus some excellent pictures.

South Side Scramble

Lenna Shuttleworth, aiming to be the youngest Brit to grab the 7 Summits plus climb Everest and Lohtse within 24 hours made a nice post today on their Puja along with a good picture of the Sherpas dancing. She comments on putting flower on her face. This is to symbolize living to an old age with a white beard; not sure it translated well for our young female climber!

Adventure Consultants is preparing to move to Camp 1 tonight (Tuesday night Nepal time) and their guides has some words of wisdom for the team:

Victor told us that on an alpine climb if you are not cold, you are carrying too many clothes; if you are not hungry, you are carrying too much food; if you’re not scared, you are carrying too much gear; and if you get too the summit it was too easy anyway! We took this advice with a pinch of salt while packing our gear but the focus was on taking just enough, without overburdening ourselves and our Sherpa crew.

Eric Simonson, IMG, reports that their camp 2 is about ready and the big guide meeting will take place on the 18th:

IMG leaders Greg Vernovage and Ang Jangbu report that the IMG Sherpas have been working hard moving gear up to Camp 2. Today we had 35 sherpas go up there, and tomorrow we have another 20, including our C2 cooks Shyam and Tashi, who are moving up to occupy the camp in preparation for the climbers and sherpas. Greg reports that the various expedition teams will be having a rope fixing meeting on the 18th, with the work on the Lhotse Face route scheduled to begin a few days later.

I posted this answer to a question yesterday but it worth repeating here about the rope fixing on Everest:

The Icefall doctors are about 5 Sherpas who have been fixing the ropes and ladders through the Icefall for years, not sure when this same team started but I believe the leader has been doing it since the late 1990?s. So they know the route better than anyone on the planet!

All the climbers/teams pay them each year and it its taken directly during the permitting process just like the USD$5,000 trash permit. Each team pays USD$2500 for the Icefall Doctors.

As for ropes above the Icefall, they are fixed by the combined efforts of the commercial teams with the largest ones (Himex, IMG) usually taking the lead by actually ing new line, pickets, etc. and shipping it to EBC each season. There is almost zero reuse due to the toil on the gear each season. The smaller teams pitch in with “Sherpa-power” to set these lines from Camp 1 to the summit.

I had heard that Himex was taking the lead this year but the teams work together so you might have 10 Sherpas from 6 different teams working together. Each year, about this time, there is a huge meeting of the guides but it are the climbing Sidars who really make the decisions on what needs to be done and get it accomplished each year.

For all this the climbers pay only $200 (paid by their outfitter through their climbing fee) to reimburse for the rope costs. The “labor” is generally donated. As you can imagine, there is always a bit of contention when some teams contribute nothing and others do all the work – and that happens each year. Over on the north, the China Tibet Mountaineering Association does everything and the teams pay for it as part of the permit process thus avoiding the contention of the south … usually. 🙂

Lobuche Climbs

Both IMG and Himex use the trekking peak of Lobuche for the first acclimatization rotation. I like how Bandar with IMG described it and is the Blog of the Day:

The climb on lobuche is not very technical yet we had about 2000 feet of fixed lines and there was definitely some technical parts, more than can be seen on any of the 7 summits except everest. There were very short bursts of mixed rock and snow climbing that was easy with the fixed lines, and honestly would have been a lot more fun without the fixed lines although more dangerous. At about 19000 feet I felt very tired and I could see most of the team were also feeling the effects of altitude and fatigue. We summitted after 5 hours and 15 minutes. At 19’700 feet we were on top of Lobuche and done with our acclimatization hike. We sat on the summit for about half an hour then head down to Lobuche High camp, packed and head down to Lobuche Base Camp for the night. We arrived at LBC at about 4:30 PM.

Hopefully we will see a few reports on how the Icefall looks up high and on Camp 1 as several teams move tonight! Climb Safe everyone.
Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything