The Somber Part of Cleaning Everest

Climbers are making great progress with their acclimatization rotations on both sides of Everest. The Sherpas are now starting to fix the ropes to camp 3 high on the Lhotse Face – a great sign. On the north, illness Adventure Peaks is looking to move to the North Col

For some teams, the next climb through the Icefall will result in the almost mandatory night at camp 3. This is quite early at this point. As always, the weather will have the last say. It seems to happen like this every season, great weather through late April when everyone gets excited about an early summit, then the snows start and the mountain is shut down in early May. Again, like clockwork, it opens back up in mid May and we see the stream of summits. It will be interesting to see how it plays out this year.

In an interesting twist, we knew about Asian Trekking’s Eco Everest effort to clean the trash from Everest’s south side above camp 3, but in a BBC article, it is now reported the Sherpa team will also try to bring down five bodies. This is remarkable in that historically, the Sherpa community has stayed away from dealing with the dead on Everest.

There have been exceptions such as when Babu Chiri Sherpa died in a crevasse fall in 2001, his body was recovered. Also, last year when Lhapka Nuru Sherpa died in the Icefall, his body was also recovered in the Fall season. Now the effort will extend to westerners. The BBC reports that seven time Everest climber Namgyal Sherpa is running the expedition. There are expected to bring down American Scott Fischer, who died in 1996, and Swiss alpinist Gianni Goltz, who died in 2008. They will also look for Rob Hall’s body.

“I have seen three dead bodies laying on the trail. But we know that there is another dead body also which we heard about a long time ago,” says Namgyal. The team plans to bring down the body of Swiss climber Gianni Goltz to base camp, where they have been given permission by Goltz’s family to cremate it. “We have a special stretcher to bring the bodies down. We can put the dead body on a stretcher and then drag it slowly to base camp,” says Namgyal.

This is not without controversy. Many climbers and their families feel if you die on a mountain you be left there. But the Sherpa community now feels Everest should not be a burial ground. This may have been sparked by the plan to spread Sir Edmund Hillary’s ashes on the summit. However both the Nepal government and local Lama’s interceded and stopped the plan saying that Everest is holy and should not be used for publicity.

Back at base camp, Cindy Abbott with Mountain Trip notes the obvious for those of us back home

Today we did more training and hiking getting ready to move to camp 1 (20,000 ft) and then camp 2 (21,000 ft). Had a hot shower today! It was the first shower in over a week! Simple pleasures means so much up high on the mountain.

As the climbers make their way through the Icefall, it strikes people in different way. In the Blog of the Day, I really like how Steve with the Explorous team reflects on his experience

As I went to bed last night I was as nervous as I have ever been in my climbing life. For the first time in my life I was facing something that I could not imagine in my mind what to expect. I had read the books. I had seen pictures but everyone had told me that you will not know what it is until you get there because it is always changing.

Nima Tashi, Martin and I left for the falls around 10 am. By 11:15 we had encountered our first ladder. On the way up we were moving fairly quickly as we moved up down sideways etc. It reminded me of the first time I took my kids to the “Jungle Jim” in Chattanooga. (You know how you climb stairs, crawl through tubes, slide down into balls, and climb the rope to the lookout point.) Well that was what this was like but I was 20 something then maybe early 30’s and I am 48 years old now and the stakes are considerably higher with crevasses everywhere you looked and the potential that the ice fall could reshape at any minute.

Nima told us about half way up our climb that what we see today especially as we get higher will be totally different than what we will see in the next few weeks and I totally believe what he is saying because base camp 2010 is totally different than 2009. It is not even close to the same shape and size. I just hope most of these changes are when I am not in the Ice Fall and surly while I am not on the ladder.

Everest is a mountain of characters from time to time. Love him or not, Russell Brice is one of those characters. Those who have climbed with him love him and others tend to see what they want to see. Bili Bierling, a professional journalist who summited with Himex last year is blogging for them and posted an interesting interview with Russell. It gives a nice insight into this character. In the opening he discusses how he got started in climbing:

When I was 16 years old, I went on a climbing course in New Zealand. The leader Paddy Freaney and I became very close friends. We did mad things together and we managed to climb thirty 3,000m peaks in New Zeland in one season. In 1980, we opened a new route on the North Ridge of Ama Dablam, which was the fifth overall ascent of the mountain.

However, my very first time in Nepal was in 1974, when a friend and I helped Ed Hillary build the hospital in Phablu. We worked on the school for a couple of weeks, which was followed by a trekking tour through the Khumbu. My first Himalayan peak was actually Kala Patthar, which offers great views of Everest. In 1979, I came back to guide an expedition to Lobuje East, Island Peak and Parchamo.

A nice read.

Climb On!

Alan