{"id":29077,"date":"2018-02-21T09:49:04","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T16:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/?p=29077"},"modified":"2019-04-06T12:28:20","modified_gmt":"2019-04-06T18:28:20","slug":"winter-everest-summit-bid-starts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/21\/winter-everest-summit-bid-starts\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Everest Summit Bid Starts!"},"content":{"rendered":"

After six weeks of preparation and waiting, the winter Everest summit bid has started. The Polish K2 team is back at base camp waiting out a few days of weather.<\/p>\n

See this post<\/a> for full background on the K2 and Everest expeditions and the history of winter attempts on the highest two mountains on Earth. Both expeditions need to summit no later than the spring equinox on March 20, 2018, at 0:15 PKT for K2 and 18:00 NPT for Everest to meet a winter summit definition.<\/p>\n

Winter K2 – Waiting for Weather Window<\/h3>\n

The entire\u00a0Polish team<\/a>\u00a0is back at base camp except for Martin Kaczkan who slept at C1. Only Denis Urubko and Adam Bielecki have slept at 7300m, which expedition leader\u00a0Krzysztof Wielicki had said previously was the requirement to go on the summit push. We will see if he holds to that for the rest of the team. \u00a0<\/span>They have camp 3 established around 7300m. \u00a0There are a few nice pictures of them climbing on their website<\/a>. Wspinie.pl<\/a> has a good interview with Bielecki. One comment caught my attention when he talked about the wind saying at time it was gusting to 100kph\/60mph knocking him around:<\/p>\n

Wind 20 to 40 km \/ h is not something that makes a big impression on us.<\/span> Above 40 km \/ h there is a problem.<\/span> It is very important whether they are gusts or constant wind.<\/span> Up to 7000 m with a wind of 40 km \/ h, with gusts up to 70 km \/ h, it can work, if there are higher values \u200b\u200bit is already hard.<\/span> We at the descent had gusts above 80 km \/ h, and even reaching hundreds.<\/span> Then it is very hard, any manipulation is difficult, even getting into the exit, the snow is blowing in the eyes.<\/span>Every climber knows what it’s like to be a dupe in the wall.<\/span> Especially that it is cold.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Winter<\/a>
Winter K2- Adam Bielecki climbing House Chimney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can follow them directly on their website<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, and SPOT<\/a> tracker<\/p>\n

Winter Everest – Summit Bid Underway<\/h3>\n

Alex Txikon,<\/a>\u00a0Muhammad Ali Sadpara<\/a>\u00a0and team are now at Camp 2, 6500m\/21,325′, \u00a0targeting a weekend summit date. The weather window appears to be a few days so they probably will not rush as in leaving for the summit from Camp 3, but instead get to the South Col, establish camp and rest for a few hours then leave. The key will be to move fast since the temperatures are brutally cold, -40C\/F on the summit. If the wind blows at 30mph\/45kph that puts the windchill at a deadly -80F\/-62C. They are not using supplemental oxygen which makes the risk even higher. It was the wind near the South Col that stopped Txikon last year.<\/p>\n

There are 5 Sherpas with them, names unknown, but most certainly include Pemba Bhote Sherpa and Nuri Sherpa who summited Pumori with Txikon and Sadpara a few weeks ago. Also, I suspect Fursang Sherpa, Dawa Rinji and Tanjing Sherpa are with them.<\/p>\n

Txikon posted:<\/p>\n

The time has come. We are already in Camp 2, the whole team ready waiting for good weather. First and last chance to get to the summit of Everest in winter without artificial oxygen. We expect the summit day to be on the 24th or 25th. We need all your support! GO!<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Winter<\/a>
Winter Everest 21 Feb 18<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can follow their movements\u00a0on Alex’s\u00a0GPS tracker<\/a>, \u00a0Twitter<\/a>, \u00a0Instagram<\/a>, and Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Everest Winter History<\/strong><\/p>\n

With this bid underway, let’s look at the history for a moment. A paltry 0.2% of all summits since 1953 have occurred in the winter.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Everest Seasonal Summits. Source: Himalayan Database<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The\u00a0Himalayan Database<\/a>\u00a0reports that the last successful winter\u00a0summit was in 1993 and the only previous summit without supplemental oxygen was by Ang Rita Sherpa in 1987. Technically winter begins\u00a0on the winter solstice on December 21st<\/sup>\u00a0or 22nd<\/sup> and ends on March 20th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

To add to some controversy, the solstice in 1987 was on December 22nd<\/sup> at 4:45:13 and Ang Rita summited at 15:20.<\/p>\n

\"Everest<\/a><\/p>\n

There have been 21\u00a0winter expeditions with only five making the summit.<\/p>\n

Climb On!
\nAlan
\nMemories are Everything<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After six weeks of preparation and waiting, the winter Everest summit bid has started. The Polish K2 team is back at base […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":29079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The summit push on Everest has begun. Alex Tixkon and team are hoping to be the 1st climbers to summit Everest in winter with no supplemental oxygen. K2 team at base camp.","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":[7,147,494,422,500,545],"tags":[432,448,42],"class_list":["post-29077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climbing-news","category-everest","category-everest-2018-coverage","category-k2","category-k2-2018-coverage","category-weekend-update","tag-climbing-news","tag-everest","tag-k2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/28167872_1465940496866319_5054596089131479159_n.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29077","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=29077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}