Inside the Climber’s Minds

With teams mostly enjoying the comforts and electricity of low villages or base camps, the blogs are full of rich details about their recent acclimatization climbs. As I have said so many times, I deeply appreciate it when a climber takes the time, and sometimes risk, to describe what is happening on the mountain. Not so much for the mountaineering details but for the insight into the human experience of climbing Everest. Thanks to you all. But first some mountaineering status.

Everest 2010 Weekend Update May 1 (updated)

There are good weeks and bad weeks on Everest, a bad week is when someone dies. On Monday, April 26, Hungarian climber Laszlo Varkonyi was swept into a crevasse by an avalanche on the North Col. A desperate search ensued, however, by Thursday, the search was called off. Teams on the south, while aware of the north side events, continued their acclimatization rotations with many climbers spending the uncomfortable night at camp 3. The weather continued to play nice and Sherpas took the fixed line all the way to the South Col on the south and to camp 3 on the north. They are now being supplied with oxygen bottles, stoves, fuel, tents and other suppliers needed to launch summit bids. Both camps are roughly at 8000m. As of today, the ropes are not fixed to the summit from either side.