Everest 2018: Season Summary – Record Weather, Record Summits
With an unprecedented weather window, the Everest season is winding down I estimate a total of over 800 summits smashing the previous record set in 2013 of 667 from both sides by members and support climbers. The Nepal Ministry of Tourism reported on 16 August 2018 that a total of 563 people summited during the […]
Everest 2017: Season Summary – A Mountain with Two Sides
This is one of the more difficult seasons I have covered to sum up in one word so let me use several: wind, tragedy, misinformation, spin and summits. Overall it was a good year, a normal year with many summits on both sides plus the average death toll. I think we saw how the pressure […]
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 2015: Season Summary – Summits Don’t Matter
Over 9, 000 people died in April 2015 from a 7.8 magnitude earthquake near Kathmandu. And no one summited Everest – from either side, from any camp. Summits don’t matter. As has been my custom since 2002, I will summarize the season but this time from my first hand experience as I was climbing Lhotse […]
Everest 2014: Season Summary – A Nepal Tragedy
The 2014 spring season of mountaineering on Everest had more to do with politics, advice fame, power and positioning than mountaineering. These agendas dwarfed the deaths of 19 people. The final summit numbers will take months to determine but most likely will be the lowest total since 1997. From Tibet over 100 people summited. And […]
Everest 2010 Season Summary
By recent standards, view Everest 2010 was a safe and successful year. There were about 513 summits with 4 reported deaths, search all on the north, and several injuries and rescues. The total Everest summits broke the total 5,000 (about 3500 are multiple summits by Sherpas and guides) level since the first in 1953. This […]