A few bold climbers actually summited in harsh conditions early Monday morning, ambulance but most teams are ly waiting. I will update this page throughout today as I get more information.
I hesitate to mention this but at the moment teams are becoming optimistic as a nice long summit window appears to be emerging for May 17th – 24th with almost calm summit winds near the end.
If this week long window emerges, malady it will allow all the teams to attempt the summit in an orderly manner, thus reducing the risk of crowds and long waits at the regular bottlenecks on both sides. But, as always, we are talking about the weather.
Summits
Update: Word has it that Tim Mosedale and a member have summited, but no confirmation from Tim directly. Tim had said he would keep his summit plans secret and it looks like he was successful!
A few independent climbers using logistics from Henry Todd and also The Himalayan Ascents team put one Westerner and two Sherpas on the summit early Monday morning. The rest of the team turned back amazingly close being near or above the Hillary Step. They also put climbers on Lhotse finishing the ropes to the summit. They report:
Our teams had a successful morning. Young Chirring picked up where the fixing team left off on Lhotse and fixed the last 300m of the summit blocks, and summited at 10.30am this morning. Chris summited at 11.30am with Lakpa and Pasang. We’re proud of Chirring for the first summit of the 4th highest mountain this season! Previously a monk and now a young guide, Chirring has the luck of his uncle Lakpa’s climbing genes.
Great news on Everest too. The group set off at 9pm last night under calm and cold conditions. Peter summited at 6.30am with Nima and Mingma. Satisfied with their climbing success, Margaret and Warren gave the full summit a miss and turned around after the Hillary Step (8790m, ~5.50am) and after the South Summit (8770m, ~6.30am). A near summit indeed. Due to cloud cover, the sun was late arriving to warm up bodies. After climbing ~9hr in cold conditions, our Sydney friends were missing warm Sydney beaches. Peter on the other hand is Irish (enough said). Margaret and Warren still climbed higher than any other mountain (K2 is 8611m)! Awesome effort.
Both teams are heading back to Camp 4 to rest.
I have a question into them as to the conditions of their climbers given the high winds and cold temps that kept every other team away. I have seen many climbers summit on days like this but suffer extreme frostbite. I admire their determination and send them sincere congratulations for their grit.
On the North side, Altitude Junkies is moving from ABC to the North Col according to Edita Nichols’ home team however a tweet from one of their members indicated they returned to ABC due to winds.
Watching and Waiting
The Jagged Globe team got in a bit of extra work as they went to C2 ready to summit on Saturday but reed to EBC when conditions declined:
Five of the team had climbed to Camp 2 on Saturday, but descended back to base camp this morning… Five of us, myself, Guy, John, Andrew and James all set of a day ahead of the rest of the team to C2. Our aim was to set of a day early so that we could have a rest day in 2 before going to 3 and hopefully to the summit a few days after. Unfortunately the following day the forecast changed and winds increased too much on our target summit day.
Scott Woolums, Mountain Trip, sees the conditions through the experience of his nine climbs. He told me via an email today, he is happy looking at May 21st for their summit:
We are hoping some groups take advantage of a small dip in the intensity of the tropical jet stream winds on the 18th and 19th, as that will mean somewhat less climbers heading to the top during our summit window.
It also good news this arm of the jet stream will slowly be moving away over the next couple days. We still see very high winds until the 21st. While this is interesting, there is no surprise, as this is a normal pattern of very short, sharp, cold, windy pre-May 20th weather windows. In the nine seasons I have been coming to Everest, this has been the normal pattern.
The Famous at BC
Reinhold Messner visited Everest Base Camp (South) to film a documentary on the 60th anniversary of the first summit. He visited several teams. Adventure Consultants has this comment:
Initially he came to our camp as he had heard that Austrian members where part of our team. He interviewed Josef and Lukas Hochmeister (father and son), as well as AC owner Guy Cotter (about commeration), Lydia Bradey as the first woman to climb Everest without oxygen, and Heather Geluk on the Lhotse team.
These interviews will be part of a television documentary celebrating the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest (on the 29th of May), and will be shown on German and Austrian television very soon. Specifically for those of you in Europe, the documentary will be shown on ServusTV in Austria on the 23rd May, and on ZDF German TV on the 29th May 2013.
I wonder if he took urine samples? He had said a few weeks ago he wanted to test his hypothesis that 90% of the Everest climber use drugs. We can always count on David Mauro with IMG to keep things in perspective:
The word around EBC is that two Hollywood movies are being filmed here. One is a reenactment of the 1996 Everest Tragedy, the other tells the tale of George Mallory’s fatal Everest attempt. I cannot substantiate either of these rumors. There is a third, and possibly related, rumor that actor Tom Cruise will be arriving here on May 20 to either 1. film a series of scenes for one of these features. 2. open a Church of Scientology outpost. Or 3. both of the above.
No one talks much about the Reinhold Messner feature, which we know to be in production since he long ago insulted most of us by claiming that climbing Everest with the aid of anything more than aspirin is “cheating”. Our cat-like indifference toward him is an expression of our contempt, which we maintain until such time he actually walks into a camp and the occupants set about boot-licking shamelessly.
Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything
26 thoughts on “Everest 2013: Summits and Waiting”
“Peter on the other hand is Irish (enough said)”
I wonder what on earth this comment means!!!!
Donal
Dublin
Ireland
Regarding the issue of frostbite of the summiteers on Monday – from Henry Todds members and Tim Mosedales group there are reports of one summiteer having frostbite of a cheek but nothing else.
Hi Alan, it’s great being able to follow everything on here this year – getting a taste of what my family and friends were all experiencing last season. I almost feel as if we should know each other, thanks for the nice comments on my blog last year too! I’m hoping to be really cheeky here and give a push for some photos I took on my climb – there’s a beautiful photo of Everest on here that would make an awesome post-climb memory for the wall, plus Makalu taken from just below the Balcony on Everest. If anyone could take a look I’d really appreciate it, thank you! http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/leanna+shuttleworth/all
Thanks again Alan. I don’t want to stir things up but I am curious to know what people really think about climbing with assisted drugs. From oxygen to aspirin what is really acceptable and does it matter anyway? Cheers Kate
Kate, if anyone responds to this, I will go ahead and move the thread over to the general discussion post. There is a wide range of opinion similar to use of oxygen.
Hi Kate of course climbing Everest without Os is the purest form of mountaineering. But if i may relate my experience whilst trekking Kilimanjaro,when out of 12 of us, 3 couldn’t make it and 6 of the 9 that did,wouldn’t have made it without diamox. I only managed it without any aid as I’d trained for 8 months prior with an elevation training mask! Now Kili is nowhere near as difficult or dangerous as Everest beyond 8000m,and the fact that only 135 people have summited without Os proves that it’s nigh on impossible for a human body to survive beyond 8000m without Os. So in my view,tho it’s not the purest form of mountaineering,it’s probably the only way to summit unless you’er lucky to be a freak of nature. Cheers 🙂
Hi Alan. A big congratulations to the HImalayan AScents team in their summits of Lhotse and Everest . Also great job Margaret St Hill for a great job reaching Hillary Step. Great job we are all proud of you. Climb down safely so you can Climb On. Nik
really pleased to hear Tim has summited,congrats to him,and once again thank you for keeping us informed Alan 🙂
I noticed on my twitter feed that David Tait has summitted for the fifth time. I don’t know of you use Twitter, Alan, but it’s another useful info source (of course needing to be verified).
Keep up the great work, I will be sending some money for your charities!
Thanks Melissa, many climbers and teams now use Twitter and Facebook in addition to their blogs and websites. A lot to keep track of!!Thanks for the donation to an Alzheimer’s non-profit. BTW, you may be interested in my interview with David Tait prior to the season http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2013/02/13/everest-2013-interview-with-david-tait-mr-traverse-is-back/
Hi Allan. Edita called this morning when the Altitude Junkies were on their way up to the North Cole. As usual, you are correct, they decided to go back down because of bad weather after reaching camp 1 @ 6900 + meters. There will be other chances for the push in the coming days. Thanks for being one step ahead of us all 🙂
Do you have the names of the independent climbers who have reached the summit (using logistics from Henry Todd)?
No. Sorry not yet
Avidly reading all your dispatches which are most informative and really interesting. I do have a vested interest this year as my daughter is climbing with the Altitude Junkies and of course she is now out of touch with us. Can you please tell me the relevance of changing the X+ entry in your chart – sorry if this is a stupid question but does it mean that they’ve gone back down again after a potential summit bid?
Hi Sue, The legend is at the bottom of the chart but X+ means a team is at that camp and moving higher. This is the legend: e=climb ended, x=last reported location, x+ =on summit bid, -x =descending h=high sleep point, t=touched not slept. Summit number=member/Sherpa.
Best of luck to Holly!
Thanks for your wishes Alan – I have seen your legend so does that still mean they’ve gone back to ABC again?
Sorry!!! Got it now!
Tim Mosedale and one of his members also summited Monday morning.
His summit was with Adam Booth.
It’s all beginning to happen. Delighted to hear Tim has summited, what happened to Ilina? Cheers Kate
Ilina is still at base camp with the rest of Tim’s group.
Ilina will most likely go with Jon Gupta and the rest of the team. Good luck and safe return to them
bwahahaha – boot-licking shamelessly!
Can’t understand how these climbers can even begin to demand respect from one of the greatest climbers ever. Agree with Messner that that non- medical use of drugs is shortcut/cheating. Don’t have any feelings on whether cheating is bad as long as climbing everest is not a competition. If people wish to cheat they are cheating themselves, and if they don’t want to share what they used that’s fine.
I guess all who have a born ability and/or really trained hard and/or accept non summit as an option have the ability to ignore some of the shortcuts available today and take pride out of that just like Messner. Everyone should decide for themselves how high they want to make their Everest.
Depends on what he is refering to as “drugs”? I hardly believe that anyone taking Diamox is a drug cheat!
Love that quote! Nicely sums up the whole situation as Messner has gone out of his way to insult most climbers but his climbing record speaks for itself.
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