The Chinese team said they would get the ropes and anchors to 8300 meters but couldn’t go higher and still support their members. So the Transcend team stepped up to finish the job. A technicality here, actually the Sherpas are termed as working for\u00a0Arun Trekking<\/a>, a Kathmandu based guide company, but Transcend, an Indian company with an office in Kathmandu, has the climbing permit. Thus we are seeing that both companies are proudly taking credit for getting the ropes to the summit.<\/p>\n Is anyone still reading this?\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n If you want to read even more, guide\u00a0Zeb Blais<\/a>\u00a0has an excellent blog<\/a>\u00a0on the subject plus other activity on the north side.<\/p>\n Certainly\u00a0the climbers on the Tibet side are thrilled that the road is open and now they can finalize their plans to summit.<\/p>\n So what is up with the ropes getting to the top from Tibet but the Nepal side is locked down with high winds and deep snow. Isn’t it the same huge rock? Well yes and no – the key word here is huge.<\/p>\n I thought I would ask a world-class meteorologists this question and get a factual answer.<\/p>\n Chris Tomer<\/a> is a meteorologist in Denver Colorado and provides weather forecasting for climbers all around the world in addition to being a climber himself and forecasting for the huge recreational\u00a0community in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. He is currently providing weather forecasting for climbers on Everest this season thru his company Tomer Weather Solutions<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is Chris’ take on the tale of two mountains:<\/p>\n … it looks like the higher pressure readings are on the North Side. And we’re talking true mountain meteorology here. If that’s the case you’ll have a pressure gradient at the Lhotse Face and a dominate North Wind off the Lhotse Face\/Everest\/Lhotse massif that acts like a wall pushing the clouds and precip south or at least blocking it from flowing over that physical barrier. Tends to keep the North side cleaner right now.<\/p>\n I do see where the absolute flow of moisture is heavier on the Nepal side and that fits with the idea that the higher pressure readings are on the Tibet side. So, what does this all mean? For the time being the North side is more stable. The north wind is holding the moisture on the Nepal side.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So this explains why the north has been pretty nice, including an excellent day today to summit, but Chris suggests a change is in the air:<\/p>\n However, climbers\u00a0will still run into the same bitter cold higher on the mountain and unless they are\u00a0climbing to the summit in the next two days their\u00a0fate will be the same as the Nepal side with the jet stream returning in a few days.<\/p>\n Light summit wind the next couple and some light snow for the Nepal side. Then jet moves back over summit and influences both Nepal side and Tibet side equally.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So the window remains open for climbers ready to get to the summit. I won’t be surprised to see a slew of north summits before this window closes.<\/p>\n This from Tony Mills<\/a> with Adventure Peaks:<\/p>\n The plan is definitely to go for a summit on the 16th but the window is very very slim, the weather isn’t behaving to well at the moment. If we don’t take this opportunity we may have to wait for at least another week, so we will be threading that needle to a certain extent. We can sit at abc for a day or two if it doesn’t work out we come back to bc. Other teams are on the move tomorrow as well so the 16th has some credibility, we’ll see!! Hopefully we can just get this done now!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Brooks Entwistle<\/a>, who arrived at EBC only last week, 2 May, after “pre-acclimatizing” at home made this post:<\/p>\n Today our @alpenglowexpeditions team was resting, but that wasn’t true for everyone on Mount Everest<\/span><\/span>. The first team of the season reached the top, fixing lines to the #<\/span>summit<\/span><\/span>! The next couple days are our final acclimatization<\/span><\/span> climbs before we’re ready to summit. Then it’s all about the weather<\/p><\/blockquote>\n High profile German climber, Ralf Dujmovits<\/a>\u00a0, is attempting to get Everest without supplemental Os made this update: click to see his Instragram<\/a> photo<\/p>\n Yesterday I came back from another acclimatization loop on the Tibetan side of Mt. Everest. I spent one night in CII (7,700 m) where I had a relative good night – beside some slight disturbance from my stomach which told me at 3 a.m. to leave the tent in less than 20 seconds…. In this picture – taken by a Tibetan Highporter of a Chinese expedition- you see me zig-zagging up the snowridge leading from the North Col to CII. In the background you see Pumori (7,161 m), Cho Oyu (8,188 m) and Gyachung Kang (just below 8.000 m, from left to right). It was a beautiful, almost windstill day – until I reached the camp side where snowfall and some wind started. I’m here to undertake my 8th and definitely last attempt to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen. Everest is the only of the 14 8000m peaks on which I used oxigene during the summit climb (early October 1992). Since then I tried six more times to reach the summit without supplemental oxygen. Each time something went wrong or circumstances were not good enough. . . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This season is turning out to be\u00a0disappointing for some climbers.\u00a0David Tait<\/a> and Kenton Cool with\u00a0his member Rob Owen, were part of the Himex team hoping to shadow the Sherpas fixing the rope to the summit over this past weekend. It was a true roller coaster of events and emotions.<\/p>\n David\u00a0posted<\/a>\u00a0a detailed description but this is the money quote:<\/p>\n What happened over the next 2 hours can only be described as desperate pleading. Kenton and I repeatedly pleaded with Russ to be allowed to continue, even to the extent that we, ourselves fix the rope. All we needed was a little Sherpa help \u2013 just a couple of guys. Russ had the full picture of course. He on the one hand had Kenton and I pleading like desperate children, but he knew, from his interaction with Phurba, his chief Sherpa quite how desperate conditions were on the Col. He also knew the logistical situation \u2013 how much oxygen was left after the previous days labours etc. He also knew that the Sherpas were to a man coming lower \u2013 they couldn\u2019t work in such conditions. All this felt surreal to Kenton and I sitting in two tents and zero wind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Climbers on either side facing a delay for any reason should read this thought from David and let it sink in, especially if this is their first time on Everest:<\/p>\n After 5 successful climbs of Everest in 12 years and 12 long months of my life spent in our around Everest BC for the Nspcc, I had tried to do something a little different. I had tried to condense the expedition into something I personally could more easily cope with. The physical element was within me\/us. Indeed we stood on the cusp, only to be thwarted by a plethora of circumstance.<\/p>\n I could, as I have done so painfully in the past, simply sit and wait for a second, much later May window. Indeed I waited 10 excruciating weeks in 2005 \u2013 but that was for my first summit \u2013 I would have waited forever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n David Tait has\u00a0left Everest Base Camp\u00a0for home.<\/p>\n For the Benegas Brothers<\/a>\u00a0(Willie and Damian) team, their timing seems pretty good:<\/p>\n Team 1 of Mac Reagan and John are up on the Lhotse face today, touching what will be their highest point ever before our summit push in a week to ten days, they\u2019re climbing strong and have remained healthy, seriously a massive achievement this year! A perfectly timed final rotation as we expect heavy snowfall from tomorrow afternoon through next week. During which time we\u2019ll be hunkered down back at BC with our amazing RV heater! We\u2019re lucky enough to have this great new machine this year, solar power, great shower, projector, movies, and a chill area as well as dining room! Truly our best BC set up ever.<\/p>\n Team 2 Giselle and Alberto will rotate after the storm, also fine for a second summit window, patience and keeping moving is all part of the game here! Meanwhile we have been playing in BC with them, enjoying some fun ladder practice, sunny mornings, birdsong, and views of some impressive (safe) serac fall from the Lo La Pass after recent snow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For teams on the Nepal side, they are being told the ropes won’t be to the summit until 16\/17 May. I can tell you from personal experience how tough this news is. For some, a general depression has set in on that side.<\/p>\n In 2011, I was given 4 hours notice to leave for my summit push. We went to bed with a weather forecast that said bad weather for another week, then an updated model was used that said there was a tiny window in 3 days from then so off we went. I summited 3 days later. \u00a0Never say never on Everest!!<\/p>\n Many teams will go down valley to spend their time in the relatively oxygen rich environment but there is a big risk to that.<\/p>\n Ricky Munday<\/a>, one of my favorite posters this season, posted on Facebook his thoughts on interacting with trekkers on the north side:<\/p>\n We arrived back at basecamp yesterday after a couple of relaxing days in Shelkar. We had been joined a couple of weeks ago by some ‘trekkers’ who were heading to ABC or the North Col. From my rather selfish and focused perspective, this had felt like something of an unwelcome intrusion, and created a potential infection risk for the climbing team.<\/span><\/p>\n For whatever reason, almost every trekker became unwell, and sharing a mess tent became a somewhat unpleasant experience – we knew that some trekkers had uncontrollable diarrhoea and had soiled their sleeping bags and tents – and yet we would share meals with them 3 times a day. It was a relief to escape to Shelkar for a couple of days. Yesterday, when we arrived back in BC, all the trekkers had returned from ABC and so rather than eat lunch in the mess tent, I chose to hunker down in my tent with some dehydrated noodles.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is a common story amongst climbers on all expedition style mountains. Once you spend a few weeks with your teammates, everyone mostly has the same bugs. So when new people are introduced from late arrivals to trekkers or during visits to tea houses, the same “de-bug” process starts all over. For this reason many climbers will stick out any delay in the relatively immune confines of\u00a0their base camp.<\/p>\n I predicted a record year<\/a> this year for summits on Everest but it is looking more and more to be just another big year on the Big Hill. The record was set in 2013 with 658 total summits from both sides. In 2016, 641\u00a0climbers made the summit from both sides.<\/p>\n North<\/strong><\/p>\n There are fewer people on the north than I anticipated. Even though there are two teams that total over 125 climbers (foreigners and support), some\u00a0teams have pretty low numbers. So, the north is not proving as popular an alternative to the south as I thought.<\/p>\n Perhaps the news that China is severely limiting climbing in the Autumn influenced some people about the stability of climbing in China. Then some teams that tried to climb other\u00a0peaks in Tibet were refused entry because they had Pakistani stamps in their passports.<\/p>\n In any event, the north, with a reported 306 total humans is not a record but still high for that side.<\/p>\n However, no one is complaining of standing in queues while acclimatizing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n South<\/strong><\/p>\n On the south side, a record number of permits were issued at 376, including 70 that used permit extensions from previous years, \u00a0but there has been anywhere between 20-30% attrition from foreigners on that side. With a 1:1 ratio of support, many Sherpas will not summit even though some may stay to get their summit in order to enhance their resume.<\/p>\n The flu bug that is rampant through the Khumbu has hit many climbers and entire teams this year creating another boon season for the helicopter business. \u00a0And with these recent weather delays on the Nepal side, some climbers will run out of time, as in the David Tait case, or simply run out of patience.<\/p>\n All this means that the south side will see significantly fewer climbers when the weather allows for summit pushes, maybe now in the 500’s \u00a0down from the 800’s.<\/p>\n Like on the north, no one is complaining of standing in queues while acclimatizing.<\/p>\n If you study both charts\u00a0carefully, you will see the increase in total climbers on both\u00a0side is coming for increased support staff. My view this is due to more inexperienced climbers and that operators are recognizing they need at least a 1:1 ratio if not higher.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kilian Jornet<\/a>\u00a0planning a speed run up the north side of Everest *thinks* he summited Cho Oyu as training for his Everest attempt. He is now back to Everest.<\/p>\n The Yellow Band was more technical than expected with some thin ice and mix climbing. Around 8.000m, it started to snow heavily, and I continued from the last rocky section to the summit plateau. I continued climbing without any visibility towards what I thought would be the summit. The summit of Cho Oyu is not a shaped one, so at some point I reached something that would be the summit. Honestly, I am not sure that this was the summit as I could only see my feet, but I was at some point around. Very happy with that! It was 3PM.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Cho Oyu’s summit is on a large somewhat flat plateau and somewhat elusive in bad conditions. Elizabeth Hawley<\/a> was legendary in her\u00a0interrogation of Cho Oyu climbers as to whether they made the true summit.<\/p>\n Romano Benet and Nives Meroi summit Annapurna completing all 14 of the 8000 meter peaks without supplemental oxygen. A significant feat. Of the 35\u00a0people who have summited all 14, only\u00a0\u00a017 have done so without Os. source<\/a><\/p>\nSame Mountain, Different Weather<\/h3>\n
North Updates<\/h3>\n
Near Summit on South<\/h3>\n
Nice Timing!<\/h3>\n
Never say Never!<\/h3>\n
Holiday Down Valley<\/h3>\n
Fewer Climbers<\/h2>\n
![\"Everest](\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Everest-North-Summits2-363x480.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Everest](\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Everest-South-Side-Summits-352x480.jpg\")
<\/a>Jornet\u00a0Runs Cho Oyu<\/h3>\n
Annapurna Summit<\/h3>\n
Happy Birthday Buddha<\/h3>\n
![\"full](\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/full-moon-above-the-Khumbu-icefall.-courtesy-of-Ben-Jones-640x427.jpg\")
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