Everest 2018: Summit Wave 7 Recap – Another Death, Summits over Obstacles

By this past week’s standard Sunday 20 May was a real slow day on Everest with just a handful of summit, around 50! But those who did had to work a bit harder than the rest to reach that spot. Also, don’t forget to read the Weekend Update for this past week that was filled with oxygen drama, deaths, records and over 400 summits!

Common Sense Over Silly Rules

Matt Moniz and Willie Benegas had to deal with over a week of unknowns to see if they were even allowed to attempt to summit. After they skied down the Lhotse Face, they were told they didn’t have the proper permit and faced fines, deportation and bans. Thankfully, none of that occurred as the Director General of the Ministry of Tourism determined it was a “very innocent mistake” and gave them his approval to “climb on!” And did they ever. In fact, they had to slow down and stop as they approached the summit because they were climbing too fast otherwise they would miss the sunrise!!!!  Matt messaged “We went way too fast, we are burrowed in at south summit waiting for the sun inr.ch/5CEYVJJ – Matt Moniz” They waited an hour for sunrise and summited per Matt’s Tracker at  4:49 am. Follow the at Matts tracker as they go for Lhotse on 21 May.

2nd Times for Alpenglow ends well!

Adrian Ballinger’s “overachiever” team summited. AB told me directly:

10 out of 10 on top this morning at 5:26am! No reg issues. We are already back at ABC, total push was 29hours round trip ABC-ABC, with no O’s until N Col. This Cho/Everest group are def overachievers ????. They basically climbed 3 x 8k peaks in 23 days in country. And they still want to walk the 12 miles down to BC this afternoon instead of spending a night. 8848m to 5200m in a day. Ouch! PS: fun fact – my team member/pro skier Jim Morrison skied 7500m to 6400m today on North Side of Everest. Good effort in pretty awful snow conditions.

The team was strong and unique, not your normal commercial expedition. Jim Morrison is a well-known extreme skier and Neil Beidleman was a guide on the 1996 Adventure Consultants team and returned to summit Everest in 2011.

Tibet

Asian Trekking also had a good day on both sides with 4 members and 4 Sherpas on the Tibet side. Arnold Coster put 6 members along with 8 Sherpas on the summit. All are safe back at ABC or the South Col. 7 Summits Club completed their third team with summits: 3 guides, 7 members and 7 Sherpas

Nepal

Asian Trekking also had a good day on both sides with 13 members and 15 Sherpas on Nepal side

Death

The Himalayan Times is reporting a member of Tim Mosedale’s Nepal Everest team died above Camp 3.  Gjeorgi Petkov, 63,  from Republic of Macedonia apparently suffer a heart attack. My condolences to his family, friends and teammates.

Sherpa Injury

In the same report on The Himalayan Times , a Sherpa was hit by rockfall near Camp 2. This is highly unusual because C2 is situated in the middle of the Western Cwm and not under a mountain side of Everest West Should or Nuptse.

Monday 21 May – Summit Wave 8, yes #8!

Look for more summits, a lot, early Monday morning with teams from IMG, Furtenbach, Asian Trekking, 7 Summits Club and more.

Well done to all.

Climb On!
Alan
Memories are. Everything

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