Everest 2013: Summit Chances

With the route fixed from Base Camp to the Summit on both sides, climbers are shifting their attention to one thing: their turn. For those of you who love details, view you might like this post.

Another summit! David Liano, climbing with logistics from Asian Trekking, summited at 8:05AM Saturday morning, May 11 with Sherpa Samden ote. They left the South Col at 11:15PM Friday night and were the only climbers to summit today from the South. The conditions were noted as ‘windy’.

He is now heading down to fly back to Kathmandu. From there he will drive overland to Chinese Base Camp on the North to attempt another summit. If he is successful, he will be the first person to summit from both sides in the same season.

Don’t look for more summits right away. The winds are forecasted to pick up on Saturday afternoon and shut down summits for a few days. Many teams are looking at Wednesday, May 15/16^th and again around May 21^st. But it is the weather and anything goes.

First Summits

It was a big day Friday with the first summits of the season. Mark Tucker, RMI, summarized it this way:

And what a day it was and what a day here today – May 10th.  We now have a group of Sherpa on top of Mount Everest, so the floodgates are now open. The (Sherpa) team did a great job. Sounds like conditions were very favorable for an ascent as of now.  People are starting to rally, lots of teams are looking at the weather of course, as well as us.  Making some plans to the start the movement uphill.  The Lhotse and Nuptse Teams have gotten very far along in the progress of fixing the ropes. We are not quite sure on the status of those, but it won’t be long now for those mountains to see some summitters. 

It’s a crazy place here right now and we are enjoying some good weather.  It looks like there is some wind up high with the jet stream around. Hopefully some people will get started taking advantage of the opportunity to make their summit attempt and get on top this season. Our Sherpa team is resting well. And they are ready to give us the support that we’re going to need in the near future and Dave Hahn, he’s the in the business, so we will have a great attack coming up here pretty soon. So, we will keep you posted when we can.

 Nelson Dellis, climbing with Altitude Junkies, gave this update for the North Side:

Ok, so things are getting closer and closer, I can feel it—both here and on the South Side. The Chinese said they saw the Tibetan rope fixers near the summit and our head Sherpa Dorje confirmed that the ropes had indeed been roped all the way to the summit. BEAUTIFUL. I believe the South Side was also roped to the summit this morning as well, but the Tibetans beat them by a few hours! Woohoo!

Secondly, our Sherpas completed their loads to C3 at 8300 meters. All our tents, oxygen, and other stuff is all up there, ready for our summit bid. Can I just take a moment to say that some of the Sherpas double carried yesterday—they carried 33 kilos (that’s just over 70 lbs)—at high altitude, in really high winds. These guys are freaking superheroes. Wow.

Summit Odds

From the original estimated 415 Westerner climbers on both sides, there are now about 360 who are going to the summit, in my very, very rough estimate.

Using leaving Base Camp as the marker for a summit attempt, I estimate about 210 on the South along with the same number of Sherpa and around 150 total, Westerners and Tibetans/Sherpas on the North. So overall, around 570 total people attempting to summit Everest this month. Thus we can expect to see about 500 people, over half being Sherpas,  stand on top of the world, about normal for the past few years.

There is a natural attrition in climbers and some get sick, lose their motivation, have emergencies back home all leading them to abandoned their summit attempts. Then there are those who know they won’t summit and set a smaller goal to return to a high camp for example, perhaps in preparation for another try next year.

Every climber and team is different but International Mountain Guides has an interesting chart on their site that gives insight into the attrition on Everest. Himex has a similar chart but most companies do not provide this level of detail.

This chart does not include Sherpas. The key take away from this is that, 86% of the IMG climbers reaching the South Col made the summit. Also, many people stop after reaching Camp 2 on the south. Overall, of those who reached Base Camp, 67% went on to summit. For Himex that same number is 60% from 1994 to 2011. Many companies promote higher statistics but rarely show details, break out Sherpas from guides and members and over a long time period.

David Hamilton, Jagged Globe, details their Camp 4, South Col, preparation:

The Jagged Globe sherpa team are all back in Base Camp for a short rest before the summit push begins. Over the last 4 days the team of 11 people have carried all the expedition equipment from Camp Two at 6,400m to Camp Four (South Col) at 7,950m. 8 of the sherpas made this carry twice while 3 of the team made the trip three times. Oxygen bottles make up the bulk of the material carried, but tents, food, fuel, stoves etc are also heavy.

Now that this phase of the expedition is completed we have 22 bottles of oxygen at Camp Three 7,200m and 110 bottles at Camp Four 7,950m. There are 13 tents standing at Camp Two (plus dinning tent, kitchen tent & toilet), 7 tents standing at Camp Three, and 8 tents ready for pitching at Camp Four.

Winds!

Of course the largest factor for making the summit is weather, specifically winds. This chart is from Meteotest and shows the wind forecast at 8500 meters over the next week. Note: this is not to be used for climbing decisions but only as an example. There are usually 8 to 12 days each May when the winds are low enough to summit so not every team or climber will target this window.

Usually teams will look for winds under 30mph/48kph on the summit before going for the top.

Adventure Consultants sums it up:

Sometimes, once the climber is acclimatized it is only a matter of a few days rest before they can go up the mountain and make a bid for the summit. This is where the daily weather forecast from Switzerland is essentially the keypin of the day… will the forecast show the winds abating up high, will the projected summit window move to an earlier (or hopefully not -)or a later day?

In spite of great forecasting, the models used can get it somewhat wrong. Where we might avoid a few days for reaching the summit because of the forecast saying high winds, it may turn out to be a relatively calm day and suitable for climbing. Bearing in mind it takes us a minimum of five days to get to the summit from Base Camp, all our calls must be made ahead of time.

Timing

2013 looks to be right on schedule. I created the following chart from data on research showing the sweet spot for Everest summits is between May 13^th and  May 22^nd with 70% of the summits historically occurring during this period. This is due to low winds and light snowfall on the summit as the jet stream moves away from Everest for a short time.

  In 2005 the first summits were the latest in 40 years occurring on May 21. But the following year, the Sherpas took the line to the summit on May 2. So with the lines set on May 10th, this year is mostly on schedule, perhaps a bit behind.

One of the reasons for all the crowds in 2012 was that many, many team leaders selected the first summit window not wiling to be and wait for the next one. Of course there is always a gamble but for last year, it resulted in an abnormal number of climbers stuffed into only a few days resulting in long waits between Camp 3 and the South Col, up the Southeast ridge and at the Hillary Step.

Look for the most experienced leaders to wait out this first window and go for a later one that almost always emerges.

Chris Klinke, guiding for Rolwaling, describes his teams feelings. He has two climbers that had intentions of going without supplemental oxygen so selecting a low wind day is paramount for them:

Sadly, there is no clear answer yet on a summit day. There are summit plans, summit logistics, but no summit day at the moment. In the meantime I continue to utter inane phrases that have no real meaning outside of Everest Base Camp. What we do have is people who are being , hoping that the day comes soon that we can utter the phrase, “We are on the Summit”, immediately followed by,  “We are safe in Base Camp and heading to Thailand.”

Who is up there?

Ang Tshering Sherpa, Chairman of Asian Trekking and former of the President of Nepal Mountaineering Association reported the breakdown of nationalities for the 2012 season. These are climbers who summited from the South side. Of the 401 South summits, 55% were from Nepal, overwhelming Sherpas.

Name of Country	Number of Climbers Summited
Nepal	222
India	45
America	40
United Kingdom	19
Canada	10
Chili	10
Germany	5
Australia	4
Argentina	4
South Korea	3
Bangladesh	3
New Zealand	3
Mongolia	3
Iran	2
Ireland	2
Latvia	2
Spain	2
Norway	2
Ecuador	2
Switzerland	1
Georgia	1
Czech Republic	1
Bosnia-Herzgovina	1
Costa Rica	1
Mexico	1
Poland	1
Sweden	1
Tanzania	1
France	1
Cyprus	1
South Africa	1
Singapore	1
Finland	1
Austria	1
Manoglia	1
Japan	1

 

2013 appears to have a similar breakdown. There is a large Ecuador team on the north. Chinese climbers dominate the north statistics.

Mirza Ali and Samina Baig, bother – sister team from Pakistan have a nice post as they prepare to leave Everest Base Camp on the South for their bid. They are climbing to raise awareness of gender equality: 

Today we got the good news that after long waiting in Base camp,finally the weather forcast arrived, the weather window for the summit push is starting 14^th May, we will leave for Camp II on 15^th of May,16^th Rest at CII and 17^th CIII and 18^th CIV and 19^th Inshallah will go For Summit Push, we request all our readers, visitors that please Pray for us for the Great success that ,Samina being first Pakistani women and I being first Young man without bottle oxygen could unflure pakistan Green flag on top of the world with our other Indian friends! Wish us luck!!! Will update shortly as we leave for CII. Thank you for sharing and for your support!

OK, this next week will be full of surprises I’m sure. Look for Lhotse summits plus a large push to summit Everest mid to late in the week. Safe climbing to everyone.

Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything

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