Everest 2018: The New Generation of Everest Guides Making Their Mark
With the #Everest2018 season pausing for wind, I wanted to explore a few trends that are in full demonstration this season. All is well on both sides of the mountain today albeit with big winds and thunder and lightening reported at the Nepal Base Camp on Wednesday 9 May 2018. All bets are that the ropes will be fixed to the summit by the end of the week. If not then, it will be close to it and then the summits floodgates are wide open! For decades there has been a standard list of guides who have safely lead hundreds of climbers to the summit of Everest and back. They included Adventure Consultants, Alpine Ascents International, Asian Trekking, Himalayan Experience, International Mountain Guides, Jagged Globe, Kobler and Partner and more, but a new generation is now coming of age and determined to make a difference by mixing things up all the way from time required for the climb to the luxuries at base camp. I spoke in depth with a few of them to see what they are thinking. I wanted to cover three areas: 1) so-called “speed” climbs that are done in half the time of traditional expedition using “pre-acclimatization” techniques before arrive, 2) the entire race to have the most luxurious expedition at the highest price climbs and 3) Guide and Sherpa qualifications. Adrian Ballinger and his Alpenglow company is well known to the climbing community and to my readers. We kind of have a something, something relationship 🙂 Adrian strongly believes in his rapid ascents on the North side of Everest (and other peaks) while demonizing the South side even going as far as saying it is unethical to guide on the Nepal side due to the inherent risks associated with the Icefall. I respectfully disagree and accuse him of hyperbole plus out of control marketing. That said he is a world-class alpinist himself summiting Everest last year on the North, with no O’s. Yeah, he is the real deal. Adrian Ballinger promotes his “Rapid Ascent” climbs all over the world arguing that: “we have refined and distilled the acclimatization and climbing process to maximize safety, health, success, and enjoyment.” Reminds me of a statement from Jurassic Park. Mike Hamill is the newest kid on the block. His new company Climbing the Seven Summits is on Everest this season and doing well. Mike is well known in the guiding world having spent many years working his way up the International Mountain Guide (IMG) guide ladder. When he recently left, Mike was the lead guide for “private” or 1:1 commercial trips on Everest. A role that commanded well above average fees for both him and IMG. See this interview I did with Mike just before he left for Everest this year. He made a comment the other day that got my attention, “A huge thank you to our amazing Sherpa team for creating this wonderful and elaborate base camp so that the climbers can relax and be comfortable between rotations. Next year will be bigger and better.” It’s the bigger and better thing that got me. Austrian guide Lukas Furtenbach also heavily markets his so-called “Flash Climbs” advertising that his members can summit Everest in four weeks. He boasts on his Furtenbach Adventures website: “Time is a valuable commodity. We are about to change the fundamentals of high-mountain expeditions. Mount Everest in less than 4 weeks! While a regular Everest expedition can require almost two months, our Everest Flash expedition takes only 4 weeks while increasing safety and chances of success.” See this in-depth sparing interview I did with Lukas late last year. Before we get into this, I fully acknowledge that there is a market for luxury and for speed. In two of my ongoing polls, 15% of the voters readers said they would like a fast climb because “Great – I’m busy but want to climb so making it faster, if safe, is good.” As for luxury, it seems that voters want hot showers, heated tents and access to Wifi over movie nights, carpeted tents and foosball tables -:). These guides are meeting a market demand but when is it too much? [poll id=”14″] [poll id=”27″] Speed Climbs with Pre-Acclimatization Both Adrian and Lukas strongly believe in “pre-acclimatization” but the jury for some is still out. A recent article by Steve House and Scott Johnston of the well-respected UpHill Athlete took the entire premise to task with the summary: “We believe that if you want to climb an 8,000-meter peak, the safest way to do so is to arrive for your expedition in the best aerobic fitness of your life and employ supplemental oxygen. We believe that for 99 percent of climbers, sleeping in a hypoxic tent prior to departure on a high-altitude expedition will return fewer gains than proper training and preparation.” Lukas told me he is writing a rebuttal and gives them the benefit of the doubt that as Americans, they have not seen the decades of “proof” from European studies. He begins his defense with two points. I’m sure we will see more later. 1) Kilian Jornet is very sure that without his hypoxic acclimatizing program he could not have done what he has done. One of our team members had endless talks with him about this. He completely trusts in the program. 2) They write that in an hypoxico tent it is hot and humid. This is totally wrong. And any person who has slept in such a tent knows that. Dry air is the problem, not humidity. It is absolutely dry in there. In fact it is that dry that you have to bring moisture in it somehow. But the critics abound about this from the “old school.” In a Bloomberg (a business oriented publication) article about mountain guides and using Alpenglow as a case study, their use “pre-acclimatization” prompted these harsh comments from his competitors: “Complete bloody hogwash,” says Simon Lowe, managing director of Jagged Globe, the British mountaineering company founded in 1987, and one of rapid-ascent climbing’s most vocal