{"id":22707,"date":"2016-05-14T12:38:01","date_gmt":"2016-05-14T18:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/?p=22707"},"modified":"2016-05-14T14:54:06","modified_gmt":"2016-05-14T20:54:06","slug":"fast-summit-start-slows-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/14\/fast-summit-start-slows-wind\/","title":{"rendered":"Everest\/Lhotse 2016: Fast Summit Start Slows with Wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gambling that the current high winds will let up during the summit climb, multiple climbers\u00a0and at least one team, Adventure Global\u00a0are on their push to summit Everest.\u00a0Most teams however are looking at topping out on the 18th<\/sup> or 19th<\/sup> of May.<\/p>\n

Fast Start to the Season<\/h3>\n

After a fast start to the season with an impressive team of Sherpas\u00a0fixing the ropes to the summit on May 11th<\/sup>, a couple of high profile climbers who were under the radar at base camp, made\u00a0a stealth climb to summit on the heels of the Sherpas to claim\u00a0first foreigner summit status.<\/p>\n

What I called Summit Wave 1, on May 12th<\/sup>, the UK’s Kenton Cool got his 12th<\/sup> summit while guiding member\u00a0Robert Richard Lucas. Sherpa Guides\u00a0Pemba Bhote and Dorchi Gyalzen summited with them. 13 minutes later,\u00a0Mexican climber David Liano Gonzalez and\u00a0Pasang Rita Sherpa also\u00a0summited. This was Liano’s fifth summit and he was planning\u00a0on not using supplemental oxygen.<\/p>\n

Next was Wave 2, when targeting a very short weather window, climbers\u00a0from Himalayan Experience (Himex), Jagged Globe and Asian Trekking pushed thru high winds and some felt, deep snow, to put 25 people\u00a0on the summit on May 13th<\/sup>. All climbers\u00a0are reported\u00a0to be\u00a0back at either\u00a0Camp 2 or Base Camp. Greg Paul with Himex, summited\u00a0at age 61 with two\u00a0artificial knees.<\/p>\n

Today, Wave 3, May 14th more climbers are fighting\u00a0high winds as they move towards the summit. I will post\u00a0an update on their \u00a0status when more information is available.<\/p>\n

Summit Conditions<\/h3>\n

It takes about seven\u00a0days from Everest Base Camp on the Nepal side to reach the summit and back: climb\u00a0to Camp 2 and spend 2 nights, climb\u00a0to Camp 3 and spend a night, then climb\u00a0to South Col and leave\u00a0that same day for the summit, hopefully summit early\u00a0the next\u00a0morning and return\u00a0to South Col or Camp 2 and finally return\u00a0to base camp.<\/p>\n

Climbers can tolerate poor weather on the first and last couple of days but for the summit\u00a0push, they need winds lower than 30 mph\/48 kph. Wind speeds higher than that can easily\u00a0result in frostbite or worse. Lite snow is acceptable but when combined with high winds can create dangerous blizzard conditions and even following a fixed rope, can result in climbers\u00a0getting lost or going too slowly to summit and using up all their supplemental oxygen.<\/p>\n

Going too slowly and not turning\u00a0around is one of the largest contributors to death while on the summit push.<\/p>\n

Finally a condition called hoar frost\u00a0can create dangerous conditions when the humidity from air, or even from climbers, crystallizes creating a thin layer of ice on surfaces, including a climber’s down suit, making everything look like\u00a0an ice sculpture, obscuring visibility and creating cold conditions. This happened to several teams in 2012 on their summit push forcing most\u00a0to re.<\/p>\n

Most reputable teams a weather forecast from sources like\u00a0Michael Fagin in Seattle, Meteotest in Switzerland or freelance sources like Chris Tomer in Denver. These provide guidance as to incoming fronts\u00a0and wind speeds. Other teams “draft” off the larger well established teams\u00a0saving a tiny amount of money\u00a0relative to the overall expense but increasing their risks., not to mention poor style.<\/p>\n

Tibet<\/h3>\n

As of this post, the ropes have\u00a0not been set to the summit by the Chinese on the Tibet side. This has stalled most\u00a0summit plans. Seven Summits Club made an attempt but stopped lacking\u00a0fixed ropes and poor weather conditions a few days ago.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile there are climbers above the North Col, mostly those acclimatizing while attempting to climb without supplemental oxygen, but there have been no summits in 2016 thus far. I expect to see a massive push once the ropes are in and\u00a0a good weather window\u00a0emerges, perhaps as soon as May 18\/19, similar\u00a0to the south.<\/p>\n

Still Early<\/h3>\n

To state\u00a0the obvious, it is still early for Everest. I have\u00a0posted this chart\u00a0before of the summits\u00a0from Nepal but you will see a significant number of summits well into lateish May. And on the North where there is little worry about a melting Icefall that needs to be maintained by the Icefall Doctors, summits can regularly go into early June.<\/p>\n

This is a time when the leadership of the teams must explain this and exercise patience. Joining the rush based on peer pressure can be a huge mistake.<\/p>\n

\"Everest<\/a>
Everest Summit Days. Data from Himalayan Database<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Normal Season<\/h3>\n

As I have been saying for a few weeks now, Everest 2016 continues to behave like a ‘normal’ season down to the weather conditions. Also as noted, there have\u00a0been warm temps at base camp but these warm\u00a0conditions have not had a serious impact\u00a0on the upper\u00a0mountain\u00a0and in fact, the snow conditions are more like a cold season up high with a layer\u00a0snow at the South Col which is usually\u00a0barren rock.<\/p>\n

With at least another 200 foreigners and that many Sherpas still waiting for their summit opportunity, the hope is for several days of low winds. This will allow teams to\u00a0spread out and reduce potential crowds.<\/p>\n

My sincere hopes for a continued safe season for all.<\/p>\n

Climb On!<\/p>\n

Alan<\/p>\n

Memories\u00a0are Everything<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gambling that the current high winds will let up during the summit climb, multiple climbers\u00a0and at least one team, Adventure Global\u00a0are on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"With over 40 #everest2016 summit thus far, high winds have slowed progress but there are attempts tonight, May 14\/15. A quick look at the 'normal' season thus far.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[460,463],"tags":[461,464],"class_list":["post-22707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everest-2016-coverage","category-lhotse-2016","tag-everest-2016-coverage","tag-lhotse-2016-climb"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}