It was the third straight morning of summits on Mt. Everest in very good conditions. Saturday morning saw well over 75 people summit bringing the total from both sides to around 350. More summit bid tonight for Sunday morning. Also, we are seeing many people being the first from their country to summit Everest.
The fourth wave of Everest summiters are beginning to reach the summit, with more female youngest records being set. With the Jet Stream MIA, the weather is unbelievably perfect, thus allowing the 500-600 climbers to spread out and minimize crowds, not that they don’t exist.
Everest now has a formula. It’s straightforward: a high level of Sherpa support, a high level of oxygen support, and this year, an extremely lucky weather system, absent of the Jet Stream. Thankfully this has allowed day after day of 100 or more summits with minimal (but no) crowds and no reported (but still could have occurred) deaths or rescues. Let’s hope the weather continues until the queue is empty.
Another headline from this season thus far is the young female summiters, albeit with massive support, in some cases a 1:7 ratio. Putting style aside, we need the next-gen to make a difference in conservation (LNT), adventure, exploring, and ambition. They will find new routes in the old mountains.
The third wave of Everest summiters has come and gone, with around 22 members supported by 37 Sherpas. Thus far, there have been about 202 summits on the Nepal side and 50 on the Tibet side, for 252 total this Spring season. Many more people are climbing now, aiming for Saturday morning, May 14.
There were 316 permits issued on the Nepal side, so estimating that 30% drop out for various reasons and overall for members, the success rate hovers around 80%; we can expect another 175 members supported by a 1:1.5 Sherpa ratio leaving about 250 more people to summit. Thus 240 of the 361 foreigners who received a permit will summit, or 75%, which is about normal for these days.
Thankfully, no deaths or rescues were reported once again, but we may still learn of difficulties. Overall, the weather was ideal, with low winds and temperatures around 0F/-20C. Tonight should be the same.
After a strong first day for multiple commercial summits, we move into what could be the largest this season. I estimate there were well over 100 total summits made up of 40 members supported by 73 Sherpas. There were no deaths or rescues reported, but we may still learn of difficulties. Overall, the weather was ideal, with low winds and temperatures around 0F/-20C. Tonight should be the same.
We have our first Wave 2 summits on Everest 2022! I’ve received reports directly from Everest that the weather is excellent tonight, making for ideal summit conditions. I estimate between 60 to 90 people (clients and guides) on the Hill this morning. The summit temperatures are hovering around 0F/-17C, which is extremely warm. This is excellent news for those climbing without Os as they will move slower and be colder than those on Os. Look for huge summits crowds leaving the South Col Thursday night, May 12, for a May 13 summit.
Much to my surprise and probably many others, Portuguese climber Pedro Queirós was the first member of 2022 to summit this spring season. He summited at 9:39 am on Monday, May 9, 2022, with Mingma Sherpa of 14summit and owned by Subin Thakuri.
Teams are leaving the South Col for the first wave of summit pushes tonight, Tuesday, May 10, 2022. Everest summit record holder Kami Rita Sherpa was evacuated from C2 with snow blindness. The high winds seemed to have calmed allowing these first summit attempts.
This is a special Podcast and YouTube interview with Tim Bogdanov, 37, who was rescued from Annapurna last month. He tells a chilling tale of getting lost and multiple mistakes he made during his no Os climb.
Tim has summits of Manaslu and Annapurna plus over 30 6,000-meters peaks around the world. His style is to climb alone and without supplemental oxygen. He summited Annapurna on April 28 alongside an Indian team that was climbing independently. Also on the summit, that day was Italian Alpinist Giampaolo Corona, who was climbing in a similar independent style.
They both got into serious trouble once descending, albeit separately. The rest of the story is in the video.
Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything
With a good window before a brief windy period, teams are positioning for Everest summits and reaching the summit of Makalu, Kangchenjunga, and Dhaulagiri. But there was a tragedy on the South Face of Lhotse.
It was a busy week in the Himalayas with summits on multiple 8000ers, including Everest. On the Nepal side of the mountain, Kami Rita Sherpa led the rope team to the summit and at the same time extended his summit record to 26. Sadly, there were two more deaths of the season, one on Kangchenchunga and another on Everest. Still, thus far 2022 is a low-drama season. With the good weather emerging, the summit trolls will now allow everyone to make their attempts.
Big Picture
2022 is turning out to be an unusual season but in a good way. On Thursday, I did a podcast with three world-class meteorologists, Michael Fagen of Everest Weather, Chris Tomer of Tomer Weather Solutions, and Marc De Keyser of Weather4expeditions , about what we are seeing and can expect these last few weeks of the season. They all agreed that it is warmer than usual, drier than usual, and with less wind than usual. The culprit is the Jet Stream is not sitting on top of Everest like it usually does.
They even suggested that we may see another year like in 2018 when we had 11 consecutive days of low winds that allowed a record year for Everest summits with 802 summits on both sides. The Nepal side saw a total of 562 summits made up of 266 foreigners (aka members) and 296 High Altitude Workers (aka Sherpas). We won’t see anything like that number of summits in 2022, perhaps around 400, including support.
A wild card was a potential typhoon brewing in the Bay of Bengal but now it appears that “ASANI” will track away from making landfall. Again, there are currently NO typhoons warnings issued by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center:
