A Personal Letter to Everest 2016, and 2017, Summiteers
“I want to climb Everest, but there is so much negative press about it. I don’t want to add to the problems.”, she added with genuine concern as I was having coffee this week with two 20 something aspiring climbers. Her statement got my attention. On one hand, I admired her ethics, on the other, damn it, […]
Everest 2016: Season Summary – A Normal Season
Everest 2016 was a success by many measures. Climbers achieved life long dreams and a country got a break. It was a ‘normal’ season with around 600 summits but sadly there were five deaths plus one on Lhotse. However in stark contrast to the previous four years on Everest, 2016 lacked large scale tragedy or extreme drama. If ever a […]
Everest 2016: Team Locations and Headlines
Welcome to Alan Arnette’s Everest 2016 coverage My annual coverage is based on my own summit and climb experiences, research, sources, and public information. I try to provide insight and interpretation of the activities ranging from routes to weather to the challenge of climbing Everest. I attempted Lhotse this spring but ended it early due […]
Everest/Lhotse 2016: Season Ends with Strong North Summits
It appears the Everest 2016 season is over with the base camps on the Nepal and Tibet side becoming ghost towns. I will post a full summary of the entire 2016 season along with my thoughts on the season next week, but wanted to make sure I included a brief coverage of the summits from the north as the south usually gets […]
Everest/Lhotse 2016: Why People Die on Everest
Why do people die on Mount Everest? That is the question many people are asking this Monday after three deaths were reported over the weekend, five thus far for the season with tragically more to be reported. Sadly, many of the press articles, and pundits, are looking for a villain, someone or some organization to blame. […]
Everest/Lhotse 2016: Arnold Coster Statement on Climber’s Deaths
I am passing this along from Arnold Coster, owner of Arnold Coster Expeditions. This past weekend two climbers on his team died while on their summit climbs of Everest. In Arnold’s view there has been a lot of misinformation published so he wanted to set the record straight as he was there and heavily involved. I […]
Everest/Lhotse 2016: May 21 – Summits, Frostbite and Deaths
The summits continued on Saturday morning, 21 May 2016 on both sides of Everest. However, there were two deaths on the Nepal side and reports of frostbite and multiple helicopter evacuations from Everest Base Camp and Camps 1 and 2 in the Western Cwm. The climbing conditions were reported as good with calm winds and […]
Everest/Lhotse 2016: Slow Climbers put Others at Risk
The final summit pushes continue on the Nepal side while it feels like everyone on the Tibet side is going for the summit on the same couple of days! As crazy as this seems, it is business as usual on the world’s highest peak. The huge teams from International Mountain Guides and 7 Summits Club represent […]
Everest/Lhotse 2016: More Everest Summits to Come, 300 Thus far – Update
After 202 climbers summited the morning on 19 May, another couple of hundred will continue tonight looking at 20 May for their time on top of the world. Sadly, there was one death but it was not associated with the summit push. Some teams reported lines but that appears to have been not widespread judging […]
Everest/Lhotse 2016: Summit Wave Underway – Update 2
A constant stream of Everest aspirants are steadily making their way from the South Col to the South Summit, over the Hillary Step and to the summit as I write this around 3:00 am Nepal time Thursday 19 May 2016. It is estimated that about 200 people evenly split between foreigners and Sherpas left the South […]