Everest Potpourri

It is getting interesting on Everest. Almost in Vegas fashion, teams are placing their bets on multiple weather forecasts but the stakes are higher than the table minimum.

Most are content to stay at base camp and socialize, rest and wait for the clear window that appears year after year. Others are more aggressive with their bets looking to position themselves at the high camps and then take advantage of the next narrow opening. As we saw last week, this can work, but the most experienced teams are content with a wait and see approach.

Jamie Clark of Hanesbrands has left the south base camp with his camerman and Sherpas looking for a summit in the next few days. Patrick Hollingworth is also looking at that same window as he explains:

The exciting news however is that our forecast now indicates Sunday the 16th of May could be a suitable summit day with minimal winds, so we plan to head up from BC to Camp 2 on Wednesday 12th May, my 33rd birthday. A safe passage through the icefall would be a great birthday present. So it’s looking like tomorrow (Tuesday) will be our last day here in BC. If the forecast stays true, we’ll rest in C2 on Thursday, climb to Camp 3 on Friday, climb to Camp 4 on the South Col on Saturday morning and leave for the summit on Saturday night, hopefully sumitting on the Sunday morning.

But it is a little less frenzied on the north. And they are passing the time with a party. 7 Summits Club just erected a huge tent and hosted a grand opening as explained by Alex Abramov:

We invited all expeditions, which were in BC (15 expeditions) and staged a party in honor of the Victory Day. This is the traditional celebration here. Almost everyone came, because now in the camp has nothing to do, there is too strong wind above ABC camp. Guests were interesting to look at the camp of “7 Summits Club”, especially at a big new tent, named a space station. Inside that big tent more than fifty people sat around the table. About plans of our team: for May, 15 forecasts promise a small window for 1-2 days. But we are a big and serious expedition. We want to wait for a good stable weather for climbing. We hope the good weather will come after the 23rd May.

Jordan Romero was one of the guest. Alex sent me this picture showing the young climber looking fit.

Duncan Chessell reported that the conditions are still very tough on the north side. I doubt we saw any clandestine summits attempts yesterday and perhaps none over the next few days based on this comment from Duncan about their May 11th experience:

Last night everyone had trouble sleeping in the blustery conditions – sudden thumps of 40 knot / 75km/h gusts hit the tents every so often. The camp is protected from direct winds but the wind rotors over the protective wall of ice, bringing whirls of spindrift too. Pleasant!

The views this morning were spectacular though with the strong winds ripping the snow off the route from the North Col up to 7500m, leaving blue ice. And higher up the snowy mountain is being transformed back to its more usual rocky self.

And to emphasize the conditions, Dave Pritt of Adventure Peaks makes their plans clear:

The group continues to wait for a good weather forecast, although it appears there will be a small drop in summit winds around the 16-17th May it is likely we will wait for a more positive and defined window that appears to be forming for the period 23-26th.

As previously reported, a team of 20 Sherpas are cleaning Everest on the south side this year lead by Namgyal Sherpa. They posted this update today on their progress and the sad confirmation of a death on Lhotse a few days ago:

Yesterday the team of 20 climbing Sherpas went up to Camp 2 to send more supplies, and they are currently on their way back. Although the primary aim of this expedition is to clean the mountain above 8000 metres, the team has run into a lot of garbage on the way to Camp 2 and will bring it down with them. This is their first collection of rubbish! Worth 10-15 kilos per person! Meanwhile, 8 Sherpas have dug out the body from under the snow of Swiss climber Gianni Goltz, who died last year [note: he died in 2008], and have brought his body down from the South Col to Camp 2. This effort was one of the primary goals of E.E.E.’s expedition. The coming days will be used to prepare for the final garbage take down.

The team is heading up to Camp 4 tomorrow. We will be lifting the body of Russian climber Duganov Sergey whose body was found on the Lhotse Face, the western flank of Mount Lhotse. The team will carry the body to Camp 2 to assist in a helicopter lift off the mountain.

I will have more on the helicopter mentioned tomorrow.

With the low snow year, the lower Khumbu is melting a bit and climbers are finding all sorts of things, including bodies returned from years, if not decades, in the deep glacier. Tim Rippel commented:

Bodies from Everest… There is another one surfacing right by our camp. The authorities came over today to discuss what to do about it. We covered it with a tarp until some sherpa boys from below are organized to come and start working the remainder of it out of the ice and dispose it the traditional way by cremation. These bodies are from the old expeditions that were left here if they had died. You have to remember that many of the workers then were from below Jiri or below Lukla. It would have meant several days walk to carry a body out. It only made sense in those times to leave people who died up here. They were buried in the lower icefall crevasses. Many of the deaths were not so much climbing accidents but altitude and other illnesses. Ideally the Nepalese people would have wanted their love ones cremated at that time but there is no wood up here.

This is a stark reminder of the dangers of Everest as the action is heating up. The week will develop as we follow a few teams up. Safe climbing to all.

Climb On!
Alan