The remanence of Cyclone Tauktae\u00a0is playing cat and mouse with the aggressive teams. Madison Mountaineering hoped to get a jump on everyone and went to C3 only to find high winds. Four Sherpas from IMG made it to the South Col and also reported high winds. So the summit plans are off by a day with Madison now targeting May 22.<\/p>\n
Teams are scattered from base camp to the South Col. Most appear to be targeting May 21 through the 24 for their summit. Sherpas stocked the Col over a week ago with supplies needed for the summit, however, some tents are reported to been blown away by the winds from Cyclone\u00a0TC01A aka Tauktae.<\/p>\n
As I posted yesterday due to warm temps this season,\u00a0the Icefall Doc saying the route will be closed on Saturday, May 29. Complicating matters is another cyclone brewing in the Bay of Bengal that might<\/span>, might<\/strong>, impact Everest around May 27\/28\/29. But given the Icefall closure, teams need to be off the upper mountain by then anyway. So that leaves us with low-wind days between May 23rd through May 26th.<\/p>\n As for crowds, well it depends. First on the number of summit days, second on how many members are really left, and third on the willingness of the guides to thread this tiny eye of the needle. Obviously, the more days of low winds, the less chance of crowds. Hopefully, we’ll see a lot this weekend to clear off the mountain for those leaving base camp now. As for how many members are left, it’s hard to get a reading on that given the cover-ups, lack of transparency, and gag orders from both the government and the operators. But it’s their choice as to how much to share, my job to ferret it out \ud83d\ude42 At this point, It’s safe to say that there are fewer than we thought a month ago. Finally as for the eye of the needle, well this is why people hire guides – for their experience, connections, and judgment. I wish them all well.<\/p>\n Marc De Keyser<\/a>,\u00a0Meteorologist\/Owner of weather4expeditions.com<\/a>\u00a0weighs in on the current and potential second cyclone:<\/p>\n The old cyclone is expected to clear tomorrow but the high winds between C3 and C4 will linger into the 22nd. Best day will be the 23rd but the difficulty will be to reach SC the day before. I am a bit worried about the new cyclone yaas, from the 23rd developing inthe northern BoB. If this happens as currently indicated, everest and makalu will be affected with massive cloudcover and showery\/thundery outbreaks. But 6 days ahead forecast concerning the influence of a cyclone on one particular place is not very confident!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Many teams are holding at Camp 2, some are higher. Here’s what some are saying. A comment on my process, I follow around 200 sites several times each day in addition to phone calls, emails, and texts from multiple sources and my own experience of six times on Everest\/Lhotse (with one Everest summit in 2011) to generate these updates. However, if a team doesn’t provide timely updates, I cannot report on them thus you might not see your favorite one listed.<\/p>\n 7 Summits Club<\/a>. Note\u00a0Alex Abramov <\/strong><\/a>hoped to make a no O’s attempt but will not now.<\/span>:<\/p>\n Today we climbed up from Camp II to Camp III.\u00a0 We are currently in Camp III<\/strong>.\u00a0 Happy to be here on the Lhotse Face<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a stormy day \u2013 very blustery, lots of snow fall, and high wind gusts throughout the day.\u00a0 We got up here to our camp and spent the first three hours digging out our tents which had been consumed and covered in fresh snow and spin drift blowing by the wind.\u00a0 Once we got moved into our tents, got our stoves going and made some water, we had dinner.\u00a0 Everyone is getting to bed now.<\/p>\n The weather changed a bit.\u00a0 We were hoping to head up to Camp IV tomorrow, but with the new forecast and the inclement and blustery weather on the way tomorrow, our plan is to hunker down here in Camp III and take a rest day and wait out the weather and then move up to Camp IV the following day on the 21st of May.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Mountain Professionals<\/a>:<\/p>\n Today was test day for the Mountain Trip Everest team and everybody passed! Scott Woolums has been in charge of covid testing for the team, and he spent the morning testing all members including kitchen staff, Sherpa team, and all climbers and he was happy to see all negative results today. We had a couple of tests fail to produce a result the first time, but had enough available to try again and got results we are confident in on everyone.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the only challenge in front of our Everest team, but it was a big hurdle and we\u2019re happy everyone is healthy and Covid-free in the Mountain Trip camp. They\u2019ll maintain a \u201cclosed camp\u201d and not interact with any other teams while our focus turns towards the challenges of weather and logistics for the summit push. So far, the cyclone that has been moving through India hasn\u2019t produced a ton of snow on the mountain and should be clearing out in another day or so. We\u2019re watching the weather<\/strong> and other climber traffic closely now as the team looks towards a summit opportunity at the tail end of this challenging season.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Pioneer Adventure<\/a>:<\/p>\n Our team is planning for their final Summit push soon<\/strong>. We wish the good luck, good weather, good health and safe climb<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Summit Climb:<\/a><\/p>\n Everest News: Because of the cyclone forecast and 5 new cm of falling snow, we decided we should remain in Camp 2<\/strong> today. Our plan is to move to c3 on 20 may (tomorrow), c4 on 21 may, rest in c4 on 22 may, and then ascend the summit on night of 22 and morning of 23 may. According to the 4 weather forecasts we checked, thats when the winds should be the most quiet. Lets hope it has stopped snowing by then, otherwise it would be like walking in a huge blizzard. Fingers Crossed!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Tim Mosedale<\/a>:<\/p>\n Climbalaya<\/a>\u00a0(from\u00a0Mingma Sherpa<\/a>)<\/p>\n Today we practiced ice climbing at the base camp<\/strong>. We will depart for the upper camp in a few days for the final summit rotation. Hope the weather will be change better in some days.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0And Quentin Roberts<\/a> reporting for them:<\/p>\n The rest period is now over and the time has come to get ready for the summit attemp<\/strong>t. The weather forecasts have been changing on a daily basis and so it did this morning also, showing us that we need to leave tonight if we want to avoid the next lot of bad weather coming.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve had a good long rest and, in fact, are as ready as we can get for a summit push. Mentally we feel excited and energized to give it a go; physically we\u2019ve slept, rested, and eaten as much as our bulging bellybuttons allow. Now that the brief gap of calm is on the mountain, we\u2019ve got to grab with both hands and go for it.<\/p>\n There will be many other teams there too, but we are hoping that the several, clear weather days will spread the summit teams in a way that allows everyone to have a go within the safest possible way, space, and time.<\/p>\n As the summit date itself may still change I won\u2019t jinx it by writing it down 😉, but hopefully we can give you some good news in a few days\u2019 time.<\/p>\n Wish us luck!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Kilian Jornet and\u00a0 David G\u00f6ttler<\/a>\u00a0reportedly aiming to summit Everest via the West Ridge and then follow the ridge to Lhotse (and perhaps Nuptse) for a true traverse are in a holding pattern as well. Gottler posted:<\/span><\/p>\n Spain used their charter flight to evacuate their national from Nepal to bring help to the struggling country. The Himalayan Times<\/a> noted: “more than 5 tonnes of health materials, includes 15 respirators, 10 oxygen concentrators, together with consumables and spare parts necessary for their use, 144,000 FFP2 face masks and some 125,000 antigen test kits.”<\/p>\n The Pakistan government announced limited re-opening effective May 24. They are seeing a significant spike in COVID cases due to their proximity to India. Stefan Nestler<\/a>\u00a0reports, \u201cMountaineers, trekkers and High Altitude Porters from Nepal or those mountaineers\/individuals who have been in Nepal in past three weeks are not allowed until Nepal is taken out of the \u2018List of Category C countries\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Overall, I estimate between 250 and 300 total people left to summit throughout this period. See my location table<\/a> for team locations.<\/p>\n Climb On!Cyclone Action<\/h3>\n
Team Updates<\/h3>\n
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Everest\/Lhotse Traverse<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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International Help for Nepal<\/h3>\n
Pakistan Climbing Update<\/h3>\n
Potential Summit Schedule<\/h3>\n
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\nMemories are Everything<\/p>\n
\nVideo Version of this Post<\/h2>\n