Everest 2024: Weekend Update April 21: Route to C2, Permits Catch Up
This is the late April Everest 2024 Weekend Update. The headlines are significantly more positive than last weekend: Permits are a bit higher, which is good for the local economy but not so good for the mountain. The fixed ropes, aka the route, are all the way to Camp 2, thus opening the path for Sherpas to establish the upper camps and for clients to begin acclimatizing. #everest2024
Everest 2024: Weekend Update April 14: Icefall Woes, Fewer Climbers
Welcome to the Everest 2024 Weekend Update in mid-April. This week’s headlines are a bit concerning. The fixed line that should already be at Camp 2 is only halfway through the Icefall. I’m not sure this is bad news for climbers, but Everest permits lag significantly from 2023, down 34%. However, we saw the first 8000er summits this past week, with many more to come. Base Camp at Everest is filling up. Trekkers are on the move, and mountains are seeing summits. Hello, spring 2024. #everest2024
Everest 2024: Weekend Update April 7: Climbers on the Trek
Welcome to the Everest 2024 Weekend Update. The Everest spring season is on track. Hundreds of people are advancing towards Everest Base Camp on the Nepal side of the Mountain. The Tibet side remains quiet, as teams will not arrive for at least another week. There are a few snags here and there, but nothing serious at this point. Each weekend during the season, I’ll post a “Weekend Update” summarizing the main stories from the past week and what we can expect coming up. #everest2024
Everest 2022 Season Summary: The Year of the Missing Jetstream
2022 brought even more stable weather windows than during the great Everest 2018. This May, a stalled high-pressure system made for horrendous temperatures in Northern India while paradoxically creating nearly ideal climbing conditions across much, but not all, of the Himalayas. The net result was nearly 650 people summiting from Everest’s Nepal side and another 50 on the Tibet side.
Unlike previous seasons, this spring saw more experienced climbers resulting in fewer deaths, rescues, and an overall low drama environment. Despite this good news, there were periods of brutal weather and climbing conditions, and yes, there were rescues, close-calls, and, sadly, deaths.
This season, we saw the continued trend of a very high member to support ratio. A milestone reached with more Sherpas summiting than foreigners in total since Everest climbing began in the 1920s. We’ll dig into this later. All in all, it was a year like we saw a decade ago. But, unfortunately, it was not without deaths, three deaths on Everest and three more on the other 8000ers.
In the good news department, for the first time in many years, the Nepal Ministry of Tourism seemed content to stay out of the way and the headlines. But, this spring, significant changes appeared in the world of mountaineering. These changes will disrupt decades of climbing norms on the 8000-meter peaks.
Everest 2019: Season Summary The Year Everest Broke
Everest 2019 will go down as the year Everest finally broke. It was one of those seasons where a lot of things went wrong, more things went right and many trends took center stage with new and old lessons for members, support, guide companies and governments. The only remaining question is, is anyone listening? One […]
Everest 2019: Weekend Update May 27 – It’s Not About the Crowds
The third week of May 2019 may go down as one of the best and worse in Everest history. Over 500 people summited but it was not without cost, 10 people died, many of which were avoidable in my view. More are headed up to summit on Sunday, May 26. As I will develop in […]
Everest 2019: Weekend Update May 19
Last week was important for climbers across the Himalayan. The ropes were fixed to the summit on four separate 8000-meter mountains all on the same day, May 14, 2019. This was historic in that it has never happened on so many peaks on the same day. With that, many peaks, including Everest, were summited in cold temperatures but manageable winds. […]
Everest 2019: Weekend Update May 12
Update: Sherpas at South Col. Will fix to Balcony tomorrow and summit on Tuesday. Let’s be clear. Climbing Everest is complicated. The press likes to characterize it as an easy “walk-up” or “short-roped to the summit” after paying $65,000, As I have said for years, this is lazy cut and paste journalism that disrespects the […]
Everest 2019: Weekend Update May 5
If you look at Everest over the past decade or so, there is a slight trend with the weather. April is generally nice, May starts off horribly, then a ‘miracle’ happens and the winds and snow take a holiday off the summit opening the floodgates to everyone on both sides. Well, 2019 is on track! […]
Everest 2019: Weekend Update April 28
April is just about over and everything on Everest is mostly on schedule. High winds were reported on both sides. Lots of information in this Weekend Update. The #Everest2019 season is in full swing! The lack of rope to the North Col is a bit disturbing and suggest the objective dangers are growing on that […]