Everest 2017: After 14 Everest Expeditions, Why Altitude Junkies is Leaving?
Guide companies tend to come and go, especially on Everest, but there are a handful that have made a significant contribution to the industry and when they “go”, there is a good reason. I’ve known Phil Crampton since 2008 when he was instrumental in helping me recover from botched logistics on a Everest North side climb. We went to the South side that year and was waylaid by the Chinese antics related to the Olympic games. Anyway, in 2013 I summited Manaslu with Phil and team plus was on his Everest team in 2016 for my Lhotse attempt. When he told me a couple of years ago that he was leaving Everest, I nodded politely and dismissed his comment as recreational complaining. But then he did it. His company, Altitude Junkies, has an incredibly loyal following. It is common for him to have 8 out of 9 repeat members on an expedition, almost all who have summited several 8000 meter mountains. And of course Everest was the crown jewel for many. He is not a “guide” and takes it personally if you call him one. He expects his climbers to come prepared, independent and ready to climb. No training at base camp. If you ask him if there will be a gear check, he will scoff at you and suggest that you are on the wrong team! Phil is famous for his afternoon happy hours where attendance is mandatory, but drinking is not. I have spent many an hour in the dining tent visiting with the who’s who in climbing including Conrad Anker, Russell Brice and others. His Sherpas are some of the best and loyal to a fault. He pays above average wages, does not accept tips and keeps his promise that there will be zero surprises on his trips. Oh, and his prices are below average. So why would he walk away from the largest draw in Himalayan climbing? Why would he leave money on the table? And what is next for the Junkies? With that background I asked Phil what was going on. Q: What is the background on Altitude Junkies not being on Everest in 2017? The Junkies have been on Everest every year since 2008 and I have participated in 14 Everest expeditions, both on the north and south sides of the mountain. It’s been a very enjoyable dozen plus Everest expeditions and nearly three years of my life if you include the pre and post expedition duties. The mountains of the Himalayas and their dynamics are changing and with this in mind we decided to switch the direction the Junkies were going with our 8,000-meter peaks expeditions. One major concern I have for 2017 is overcrowding especially with the climbers from 2014 and 2015 using their permit extensions. 2014 permits are valid until 2019 but those climbers present in 2015 during the earthquake and subsequent avalanche have to use their permit this season otherwise they are invalid. There were some meetings in Kathmandu with the local operators last year in regards to the expected increase in numbers of foreign climbers expected this spring season and going on rumors and local operators talking, it will be a substantial increase and a record number of climbers are expected on the south side. I am also noticing a lot of climbers, some making their first visit to Nepal, wanting to climb both Everest and Lhotse in the same push. Lhotse used to see very few climbers on her flanks but the allure of two 8,000-meter peaks in a 24-hour period is too much for some of the novice climbers to refuse to attempt. I believe there were only two summits of Lhotse last season and you need a lot of luck for everything to fall into place to gain both is a short period of time. Q: How much did the deluge of inexperienced climbers play in your decision? It was always the joke on the north side of Everest back in the 90’s and early 00’s about the inexperienced budget climbers showing up unprepared. We used to call it the “Everest Circus”. It now seems as if the north side has rid itself of that image and unfortunately the circus seems like it’s moving to the Nepal south side. A few years ago a lot of the western companies would ask their members to have experience on a peak such as Aconcagua before going to “The Big E” but recently I am meeting members of well-known western guiding companies at Everest base camp who are very proud to tell me that they have no experience whatsoever and their expedition company had no problem allowing them to join the team. It now seems very fashionable that a lot of the Everest climbers want to take the fast track to the summit, skip a 7,000-meter peak as preparation and sleep in a plastic tent at home so they can be done with Everest in 4 weeks. Q: Were you concerned about your member’s safety relative to earthquakes and avalanches? I am always concerned for the safety of my members and Sherpa staff on any mountain. Earthquakes cannot be predicted whereas those climbers and guides with avalanche training can spot potential dangers but no one can predict exactly when a slide will happen. We provide each climber and Sherpa a radio and an avalanche transceiver but the big mountains throw situations at us that we cannot always control. I always tell my team members that the avalanche transceiver they wear is to help the rescuers retrieve bodies safely if possible, it will not protect them from an avalanche or serac falls. Any climber on Everest who does not carry a radio is stupid in my honest opinion. They weigh nothing and can save your life. I can attest to that after taking a big crevasse fall back on Manaslu in 2013 and my radio saved my life. Q: Why did you select Makalu as the alternative? My good friend and climbing partner, the late Samuli Mansikka
Everest 2012: A Preview of the North Side
As we get closer to the Everest season, climbers are in full prep mode and also the operators. Phil Crampton owner of Altitude Junkies took a few minutes to talk about his expectations for the north side of Everest this season. Phil is a bit unique because he ran climbs on the north for years before switching to the south as it became more difficult to run a reliable operation from Tibet. Now he is satisfied that side is stable enough and with the demand from his members, online he is back for 2012. If you don’t know Phil, he is quite well-known in the Himalayan mountaineering circles; being what I call a “boutique” operator. Phil started in the industry by leading several expeditions to both Cho Oyu and Shishapangma at the start of the decade under the Altitude Junkies banner. He also served as a guide and logistics manager for Mountain Madness. But it is his work with the China Tibetan Mountaineering Association’s (CTMA) climbing school in Lhasa that he is proud of where he helped train Tibetans as serious high-altitude mountaineers. Today he runs his own guiding business full time. Q: What has been the reaction from your members on switching from the south to the north for 2012? A. I had always been an Everest climber on the northern Tibetan side of the mountain until the infamous 2008 spring season when the mountain was closed for the Chinese Olympic Torch relay. I was fortunate enough to switch our expedition last minute to the south side and my climbers graciously accepted the price increase allowing us to have another successful Everest expedition. We were always going to head back to Tibet but we became comfortable with the south side of the mountain with its beautiful trek to base camp, warmer temperatures at base camp and slightly easier climbing route. We also wanted to give it some time and see how the following years expeditions fared with sudden closures of Tibet and restrictions on permits by the authorities who regulate the mountain and the autonomous region of Tibet. All of the climbers on this spring’s expedition preferred and requested we climb on the north side in 2012. We have a few climbers who have already climbed on the south side with the Junkies and they are now hoping to add the north side to their high altitude resume. Q: How is the planning progressing for your Everest North expedition this year? A. I can actually spend more time at home this winter in Woodstock, New York, as I don’t have to arrive in Kathmandu early March to start sending cargo to Lukla and then onto base camp. Woodstock is a great little funky town in the heart of the Catskill Mountains. It’s not widely publicized but we have some great ice climbing and cross country skiing, although there is not too much of either this winter due to the mild conditions we have been experiencing. The beauty of an Everest expedition in Tibet is that all the supplies will cross over the border the same day the team members do and then the majority of Sherpas will go directly to base camp to establish our compound. We limit our expeditions to eight climbers and I am pleased to say that we have a full team once again this spring. We like to think that we offer one of the base camp set ups of any of the commercial operators and we have been adding to our already comprehensive base camp set up. I am just hoping that we have enough juice to keep our Wii powered up during the wait for the final summit window. We all need our dose of Guitar Hero before a summit push. Q: Any concerns with the Chinese closing entry into Tibet until the end of March? A. There has been talk of this by some of the operators in Kathmandu but we think that if they do, they will open up the mountain first or second week of April. They have closed Tibet during Losar in the past and going on this article it looks as if they will do so again this year. We have purposely made our expedition cross the border on April 10th to allow for any delays in re-opening the border to foreign travelers. I remember they closed Tibet last summer and this really hurt a lot of the Nepalese operators who run Mount Kalish trips. Unfortunately the sporadic opening and closing of the border will continue but I am optimistic that it will hopefully get better. I am looking forward to pumping some money into the local economy with the hiring of some Tibetans to help fetch water and clean pots and pans at base camp. Q: Who will fix the rope this year and when are you hoping it will be ready to the summit? A. The Tibetan guides from the Tibet Mountaineering Guide School in Lhasa, who are often mistakenly called Tibetan Sherpas, will fix the ropes as they did the past couple of seasons. They were criticized by several teams for the delay in fixing the ropes in 2011 but to my understanding, the weather was a huge factor in the delay. In the early 2000’s the summit was often reached via the north side way in advance of the south side. In 2006 and 2007 the Sherpas from Himalayan Experience who fixed the ropes did so in late April. I am hoping that we are able to summit between the 15th and 25th of May. Saying that, I have had team members reach the summit as early as the 10th and as late as the 30th on the Tibet side so anything could happen. Q: Any idea of how many expeditions will be on the north this year? A. I haven’t really heard of too many teams heading to Tibet but I know the south side will be crazy busy as usual. It’s
The Everest Rescues and another Death (update 3)
With the summits mostly ended, climbers are making their way back down to Base Camp. As they recover from their summit push, there stories are emerging of rescues. Once again, we are seeing tangible proof that the climbing community is a tight one; especially in times of need. We are also seeing that pure accidents happen in spite of every precaution and mountaineering is dangerous and altitude s everyone the same; regardless of experience. While impressive and motivating to non-climbers, one of the downsides of having a 13, 16 and 22 year old summits this year is that it could portray Everest as an easy walk-up that requires little to no experience. The press coverage touts Bonita Norris as a “Novice climber becomes youngest British woman to reach Everest summit” and how 13 year-old Jordan Romero summited Everest with little experience. Even his own site said “Jordan not only climbed Mt. Everest, but he climbed with unbelievable strength and skill.” With all due respect to these talented young climbers, their experience is not representative of many climbers through the years. It is a dangerous message for those who do not know better. If you climb enough, you know that if everything goes perfectly, you were lucky; full stop. With this, the real stories are starting to surface. As the Altitude Junkie team were climbing on May 23rd, they were making good progress. Then one of their climbers started to act strange, it was apparent he was in trouble. British climber Mike Herbert had HACE. This is a condition when the brain leaks fluid into skull; putting pressure on the brain itself and eventually will cause death. The only cure is to descend rapidly and immediately. Phil Crampton and his Sherpa team took charge to do just that. But he had help. Phil’s short but instructive dispatch describes the details: I have highlighted the individuals and teams involved: Mike, who is a seasoned Himalayan climber and an Everest veteran developed a case of HACE at 8,700 meters and was helped down the mountain by the following people who we are so grateful to for their assistance. Both of our Sherpas, Sirdar Dorjee Sherpa, Lhapka Tsheri Sherpa and myself assisted Mike from the rock steps just below the South Summit all the way to the South Col. We were assisted by Willie and Damien Benegas along with their team doctor Roman and their Sherpa, Lhapka Nuru, who assisted Mike from the rock steps to the Balcony. From the Balcony our Sherpas and I were assisted by Lhapka Rita, the Sirdar from Alpine Ascents who ascended from the South Col, Pasang Gumba Sherpa who was descending from the Mountain Trip expedition and Pasang Yula also descending from the Benegas Brothers expedition assisted to the South Col. Mike showed a huge improvement and traveled on his own power from the South Col to camp three but again found himself needing help from camp three down. Dorjee and Lhapka Tsheri Sherpa along with some mental coaching from Bill Allen of Mountain Trip got Mike back to camp two after an epic two day descent. Our Sherpas Temba Bhote, Cheddar, Pasang Nima, Pasang Wangchu and Pasang Dawa all ascended from camp two to assist. On the advice of the doctors from the Himalayan Rescue Association we helicoptered Mike out from camp two so he could medical attention immediately. His condition is good at present. I would also like to thank both Vern Tejas from Alpine Ascents and Dave Hahn from RMI for keeping contact on our radio frequency throughout the descent monitoring the rescue. Melissa Arnot on the First Ascent blog tells that during her descent she and her partner, Dave Morton, were at camp 2 when told of a climber who had fallen into a crevasse in the Khumbu Icefall. A rescue was being mounted. Instead of spending the traditional night to recover at C2, they hurried down to give what aid they could. The climber was rescued. We gathered some rescue gear and medical equipment and headed down to the Icefall below Camp I, where we were told we would find a female climber who had been involved in an ice bridge collapse and fell about 30 meters. We arrived around 5 p.m., 12 hours after leaving Camp IV. The other climbers who had come to help were already in the process of stabilizing the women and getting ready to move her uphill, where she would spend the night until a rescue could be completed in the morning. We are now hearing the real story about that young British climber Bonita Norris’ accident as she descended from her summit. It was deadly serious and could have resulted in death if, once again, the climbing community had not pitched in, Bonita herself describes in detail on her blog that she slipped and hit or twisted her head and neck thus causing her pain when she walked. She was literally drug down to the South Col. 20 minutes later though, my neck and shoulders had siezed up to such a point that i took one last step and a shooting pain went up my spine- it was so painful i yelped and Lakpa stopped. He saw i was crying- but this time with pain. It was then i realised something was wrong- i must have pulled a muscle in my neck, maybe whiplash. I didnt know what it was, but moving was excruciating. We were in trouble. Finally, about an hour below the balcony, another group of sherpas arrived, from here on i dont remember much- apart from the pain of being dragged across ice and rock as the attempted to get me back to camp 4 as quickly as possible. My neck was blinding with pain, but i remember having covnersations with the sherps and thinking i felt OK bar the neck- i knew if i just let them do the job we would all be home safe. Yet another harrowing tale told by
Wave 2 Recap (updated)
updated with more team summits. more than 108 for both sides now! It was another long day on Everest for an estimated 200 climbers, check split evenly on both sides. The weather at the high camps was reported to be so warm that climbers were in T-Shirts and complaining about their down suits. The ever-present wind was nonexistent. At that point their biggest concerns were getting ahead of the crowds to avoid the bottlenecks on the way up, and down. However the weather forecast had a nasty kick up in the winds for Sunday afternoon. And there were summits! Starting with Adventure Peaks on the north and Peak Freaks on the south, the reports came in slowly over the next 18 hours. You can visit their websites for all the names since there are over 50 named on them but we had summits from (total number of names listed including members, guides/ Sherpas): Adventure Peaks (5+/6+) Altitude Junkies ( Anne-Marie and Jussie plus more) Australian Everest (3/3) Extreme Everest (6) IMG (15/15) Patagonian Brothers (8/5) Peak Freaks (6/8) Melissa Arnot, Dave Morton Mountain Trip (7/12) 7 Summits Club (10) 7 Summits club reported going up but no word from them yet. The winds did pick up as predicted per this update from Adventure Peaks: We’ve just had some broken communication with Stu – unfortunately the radios between C3 and ABC give broken communication so we could only hear bits and pieces of the conversation. Things are not great in C3 and they have decided to stay the night there – this includes Stu, Nigel, Brendan, Steven +1 — . There are 8 sherpas at C3 to assist Stu to assist everyone down tomorrow. The weather up there right now looks terrible and Matt Dickinson confirmed that conditions were extremely challenging. Having said that, the forecast for tomorrow looks good so hopefully the gusts will die down over the next few hours. Their next update confirmed the entire team was down to ABC (north). For those following 68 year-old Bill Burke, he turned around per this from his wife Sharon: I got a phone call tonight from Bill at 7:50 PM. He was back at Camp 3 after reaching the “Second Step” and turning around. He said it was dark, windy, cold, and his legs got very weak and wobbly. He said it was the same feeling he had in 2007 when he turned around. He knew he couldn’t make it to the summit and then back down. He will be posting when he gets down to a lower level and gets some energy back. I’m so proud of what he has accomplished and now I want him to get back home. Great effort Bill! There has been no information posted on Chad Kellogg who was doing a speed ascent. He was scheduled to be back at the south Base Camp at 10PM on the 23rd, 7 hours from this post time. I have updated the location chart with all these numbers. We have well over 300 summits from both sides as of Sunday night Nepal time. A new post will cover the summit bids starting Sunday night, wave 3. Congratulations to all! Climb On! Alan
Everest is Buzzing with Activity for Next Window
Excitement is building once again for more summits as team after team left Base Camp for camp 2 on the south and ABC on the north. Their enthusiasm, however, was tempered by talk of monsoons in India; more on that in a moment. There were talks of additional summits for Tuesday, May 18th, but nothing has been reported. As the weekend summiters return to base camp on the south, more details are coming in of summits. First up is on the north, Julio Bird’s wife Maribel sent me this email: I just talked to Julio. He reached the top on May 17th at 7:00 am. He is now resting at Camp 2 and will move to BC soon. It took them 14 hours from Camp 2 to the summit. Apparently he was the first Westerner to summit from the North. I don’t have the details but he said “I was the first”. Our connection was not the . He climbed with Sherpas, Lhakpa Gelu and Lhopsang and the large rope fixing team. His climbing partners, Bill Fischer and 70 year-old Japanese Hoshino Kohei both had left the expedition earlier with minor health issues. To add an international flavor to my coverage,I want to highlight climbers from countries who do not usually receive a lot of western media coverage: The Indian team of Mountaineering Association of Krishnagar (MAK) reported in with some interesting news about the weather on the descent. Apparently they made their summit from C3, not the South Col: … 17th May at 7.45 am, their summitteers being Shri Basanta Singha Roy (aged 47 years) and Shri Debasish Biswas They had been guided by Pemba Sherpa and Pasan Sherpa who had summitted Mount Everest several times before. They had made the ascent from the Nepal side and had started from camp no. 3 towards the summit at 9 pm on the night of 16th May and finally reached summit at 7.45 am on 17th May, 2010. While on their descent to camp no.3 yesterday, the duo had run into a terrible blizzard. Nepalese cyclist Pushkar Shah summitted Mount Everest on Monday(18th May, 2010) morning. On his expedition, Shah had taken along flags of 150 countries he had visited. He had cycled through all the countries. Two Colombians, Nelson Cardona and Rafael Avila, toped out on Monday morning. Of note, Cardona had wanted to climb in 2007, but lost his right leg while training for the climb thus used a prosthesis on his successful summit this year. Talk about determination!! Basanta Singha Roy and Debabrata Biswas, two members of the first civilian expedition from West Bengal by ‘Mountaineers Association of Krishnanagar’, also summitted. Looking forward now, Adventure Consultants’ Mike Roberts has a very informative update describing their climb to C2 on the south. he noted about 150 people heading higher and the recent warm temps are melting out the lower Icefall and heating up the Western Cwm. They left base camp at 2:00 AM to minimize danger: Today’s early morning wakeup ritual was fairly typical: sleep deprivation; grunting rather than talking; bad humor; suppressed appetite; Ang Tsering praying with his Tibetan rosary beads; hugging the heater for all it’s worth; icefall and summit nerves kicking in; chuck in the odd throw-up for good measure (Tony, you got to hate that); and by 2.00am everyone was rolling clockwise around our puja altar and throwing rice three times for success, safety and luck. Caroline, thanks for getting up at that ghastly hour to see us off and for your wicked summit success art work! As climbers leave for their summit bid, the Sherpas light juniper boughs that produce a thick smoke. On mornings like today with so many teams leaving, base camp has a cloud of smoke. You walk up to the alter with the smoke, and wave the smoke over yourself three times. Standing still for a moment, you go deep in thought about the upcoming effort – it is a very private personal moment. And then you swiftly leave your base camp home knowing the next week will be the toughest physical, and perhaps mental, challenge of your life. North teams are also in full motion with Adventure Dynamics and the first wave of 7 Summits Club already to the North Col. Young Jordan Romero has been there a couple of days now. The world’s media has caught on to this year’s search for the Mallory & Irvine camera from 1924. Multiple reports are quoting Duncan Chessell. “I was at North Col (7050m) last week and the wind was 150kp/h and it was stripping snow off the mountain which has been there for many years,” he said in his latest message from Everest base camp on Tuesday. There is now bare rock exposed which has been deeply covered for decades in the most likely areas where Andrew Irvine’s body may be. It is my intention to search those areas en route to the summit and take this rare opportunity to find him and, perhaps, the missing cameras. I have studied this matter very closely and am now very familiar with Mt Everest. I believe we have a good chance of finding something.” As regular Everest followers know, this has become an annual event and this year there is a mystery team making a serious effort to look for the camera and Ivine’s body building on previous years, if not decades, of work. Most keep their effort low key and avoid publicity. For friends and family monitoring this upcoming summit bid, an interesting story. The wife of a climber on last weekend’s summit push told me she had not heard from her husband for over 30 hours, the last time he called he said he was 10 hours for the summit. Now she was worried. He was an independent climber so there was no home office to contact. Eventually she heard from him and he was fine, in fact had summited safely. It seems, his phone batteries had died. So
Summit Plan Updates – Fin Race is Cancelled (updated)
The situation on the south side of Everest continues to be quite fluid. I have confirmed Phil Crampton of Altitude Junkies’ update that Ann-Marie will NOT attempt the summit during this narrow window. Phil had already kept the rest of his team back at base camp. They are planning on using the longer weather window in the forecast about a week from now. The situation is simply too dangerous according to Phil.
Fins at High Camps in Race for Everest
With teams now heading higher, the race between Carina Räihä and Anne-Mari Hyryläinen to be the first Finnish woman to summit Everest is being explained fully by their support teams, Peak Freaks and Altitude Junkies. Both are viewing it as a friendly race (kind of) and this is supported when I interviewed Anne-Mari back in February. She commented then on the “race”:
A Race to the Summit
The lure of Everest’s summit has taken on new dimensions and is spreading throughout the south base camp. First up, we have an old-fashion foot race on Everest. Two Finish women are literally racing to claim bragging rights to being the first Finish woman to summit Everest. Then in addition to the previously announced summit intentions, click including the Hanesbrands team, the entire Summit Climb team is heading up. The concern is that summit winds are currently in the 80 mph range. The forecast calls for a reduction on Saturday night and then regaining strength. Climbers like to see the summit winds under 30 mph at max. With extreme winds, if something creates a delay, there is a high likelihood of frostbite, hypothermia or even death; especially on the descent. These teams are out on a long, narrow, weak limb that all the other teams are refusing to touch. Most teams are looking at a May 22nd-26th as the summit opportunity. Obviously, I wish them only safe climbing up and down. The first summit this year was on May 5th. While early, there have been other early summits according to research with 44 on May 5, 54 on May 8 and 44 on May 9 over the years by various routes. There have even been summits in February and April! Historically the majority of Everest summits have occurred between May 20th and 25th. Now the details. After weeks of posting on their blog about being careful and not taking risks including some strong comments about Lucille deBeaudrap summit in a narrow window, she has succumb not only to the call of the summit but also the competition of a race. Anne-Mari’s decision to start her summit push was made yesterday. Her goal is to be the first Finnish woman on top of Everest. Another Finnish woman, Ms Carina Räihä, has the very same goal and she started her summit push early Tuesday morning, a day ahead of Anne-Mari. Even though mountaineering should not be a race, Anne-Mari felt that she should climb higher up, at least to Camp 2, and be ready to strike should a weather window open. Today, both Anne-Mari and Carina are in Camp 2 and cannot yet climb higher due to strong winds. Carina is climbing with Peak Freaks, who already put one climber on the summit. Anne-Mari is with Sky Climbers team. Honestly, I am baffled by these attempts. As experienced guide Phil Crampton of Altitude Junkies posted today, the two premier weather forecast services both agree: We have been studying our weather reports very closely the past few days as we received some data revealing a possible small weather window on the 16th and 17th. As the two dates approached, the window seemed to close as we were not satisfied with the safety margin it offered us. The wind speeds predicted by the two premier weather forecast services used on Everest, both our US forecast and the Swiss forecast, are still predicting very dangerous high winds for another week. Robert Hill of No Guts, Know Glory team summed up the danger with this dispatch direcrtly from the south Base Camp: Several teams moved up the mountain today hoping to take advantage of a potential window from May 15th to the 17th, but accounts from camp two suggest that some camps have been decimated and attempts to move up to camp three have been thwarted by high winds. We expect the wind to diminish somewhat over the next few days – summit winds have been 100 kilometres an hour plus for the past four or five days – but not enough to offer a good window. Any teams who decide to push up the mountain are taking considerable risks, including the chance of severe frostbite. The absolute latest reports have all the teams attempting the summit on Sunday pinned down at camp 2 in howling winds with reports of destroyed tents. Let’s hope the winds abate for safe conditions for every climber this weekend. On the north, the weather continues to change plans. Bill Burke called in with a detailed reported from Advanced Base Camp. Basically, they are on hold due to weather and lack of fixed lines. He described the harsh winds and extreme cold on that side this year and then the fact that the fixed lines and from camp3 to the summit are still not fixed. Bill commented that one of their empty tents literally blew away and was never found and a laptop computer ripped from the hands of a climber standing outside his tent. Many expeditions use a mesh net to secure tents against the high winds. As a result, Bill has abandoned his plan for a double summit – a climb from the north then a climb from the south. He will focus only on a north summit around May 22nd. This is the same date young Jordan Romero is probably considering. Meanwhile, Bill’s partner, David Liano will continue with the original plan. He is looking at May 17th as a summit day when the winds will still be high, Bill said 40-64 mph. Still dangerously high. David will utilize a running belay where climbers use a rope and anchors but move it as they progress through the climb. David still may be able to utilize fixed ropes. Summit Climb reports a large team leaving base camp today: The latest talk has been about the weather, as its too windy on the summit to climb Everest now. However, we did see the larger Chinese-Tibetan team leave BC today with around 30 people in their party. That is good because they aim to fix the ropes to the summit in the next few days!!! In other updates, Alpine Ascents has listed their Sherpa who participated in fixing the ropes and making the first summits this year. To be complete, here is the entire list of these strong climbers: IMG: Nima Karma Sherpa (Phortse) Phu Tshering (Phortse) Phinjo Dorje (Pangboche)
Everest 2010 Weekend Update May 9 (updated)
This was a busy week on Everest with the first summits for the 2010 season along with a risky gamble. And several accidents and, sadly, a reported death on nearby Lhotse. A team of nine Sherpas fixed the ropes to the summit on the south side. They included Sherpas from IMG, Alpine Ascents and Himex. One western guide who was doing route work high on the mountain also joined them to the summit. Over on the north, it is an entirely different story. According to teams, the ropes are currently fixed only to camp 3 or about 27,300′, far short of the summit and thus stopping most summit attempts. The weather has been difficult this year. As usual, the north receives more snow and wind than the south and increases the difficultly of climbing on that side. It appears no summits attempts until May 11th when the winds could begin to ease but more likely it will be a few days later than that.
The Weather Game
Once again we find teams all over the Khumbu. Many are down valley in the village of Periche enjoying some time at the teahouses and the richer oxygen environment but others are still high on the mountain. The weather continues to play havoc with those climbers. AAI reported an aborted attempt to reach camp 3 on the Lhotse Face due to high winds. They will try again on Tuesday, Nepal time. But as usual, try the Sherpas rarely get a day off as described by Phil Crampton of Altitude Junkies: Our Sherpas have been doing a fantastic job of getting the respective high camps stocked and ready for our anticipated summit bid hopefully in the coming days. On May 1st, six of our Sherpas collectively carried oxygen and tents to the South Col. The weather the following day was not so good so they rested at camp two with the help of our two full-time camp two cooks. May 3rd saw an improvement in the weather but Dorjee Sherpa and myself were concerned about the snow accumulation above the Yellow Band, so the Sherpas only climbed to camp three and dug the necessary tent platforms for our intended stay there. Today they completed another load carry to the South Col and will return to base camp later today for a well deserved rest and plenty of Tuborg beer. They are looking at a summit window between May 13 through the 19th. IMG reports their Sherpas did make a carry to the North Col and expect to see the fixed lines to the summit in a few days. We had 14 sherpas carry to camp 3 today to finish building that camp and support the move up there by the Hybrid team today, for their overnight. The rest of the team has split into three groups and is also moving up towards C3. Greg moved to C2 today with the lead group, we have more climbers at C1 tonight going to C2 tomorrow, and Justin moves up to C1 tomorrow with the last group. The sherpa plan for tomorrow is another big push to the South Col. We have Nima Karma, Phinjo Dorje and Phu Tshering along with 6 other sherpas from Himex and AAI that will try to fix up to the Balcony and then sleep on Col. They will then fix to the summit the next day (weather permitting). The Adventure Peaks team on the north has tagged 7300m and is back at ABC on their way to BC before their summit bid. They also commented on the recent weather: Stu has been in contact this morning to confirm his group have had a successful but wild and cold period of acclimatization on and above the North Col! He described their walk up the North Ridge to 7300m as the worst weather (cold and strong winds) he had ever experienced on Everest during his three previous expeditions. So well done to those who were able to complete their acclimatization. If all goes well, they are looking at a summit on May 16th. Of note, four of their members have decided not to continue their climb based on the avalanche and death lat week on the North Col. This is a bit similar to what happened last year when an avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall discouraged several climbers as well. Meanwhile back in Kathmandu, Billie Bierling with Himex and a Kathmandu resident reports on more problems in the capital: While climbers are busy moving up and down Mount Everest to acclimatise to finally reach the summit, the Nepalese capital Kathmandu has completely shut down as the Maoists have called an indefinite strike. They are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister, Madhav Kumar Nepal, and the leadership of a national unity government. Apparently most of the shops in the capital have closed down and only emergency vehicles are allowed onto the streets. “Thousands of people are demonstrating in support of the Maoists but the atmosphere is still quite peaceful,” my friend Alex reported from Kathmandu. Hopefully things will settle down before the teams return for their flights home. But once again, this illustrates the instability in that par of the world. Climb On! Alan