Entries from Expedition Dispatches
A few gusts of wind plowed through camp early this morning. Not enough to really test our First Ascent tents, just enough to remind that we, and those tents, will get all the test we can handle soon enough. On several mornings so far, we've seen big streamers of cloud and snow being ripped from high on Lhotse and Nuptse, betraying some fierce winds aloft. But on just as many other mornings, we've looked up at calm and still summits just begging some eager overachiever to come up to play. Of course, should someone come up to play right now, they'd be dealing with radically cooler temps -even in calm conditions- than we hope to experience in a month or so (when it will still be cold enough, thank you).
Normally, the winters in these parts don't produce a lot of snow. The pattern is for the Everest region to be raked by cold, jet stream winds through much of winter and spring. Nobody I know wants to be going for Everest's summit when the jet is near. The summer monsoon, which hits in June, (and not in May, please) is the phenomenon bringing big moisture -in the form of snow- to these mountains. The monsoon is not a popular climbing season since most climbers don't enjoy the avalanches that accompany big snows in big mountains. When we come over here for the Spring, or pre-monsoon, climbing season, the hope is that we can get our acclimatization/rope-fixing/load-carrying cycles completed in the tail-end of the windy/cold winter season. There is then normally a period of relative calm when the jet stream pulls north away from Everest and the monsoon hasn't yet moved in. Ideally, we jump all over that hypothetical window in the second half of May and get our carcasses to the summit and back. Some years the window is open for weeks... some years the window is open for fifty-seven minutes.
I've been encouraged so far this season to believe that the big peaks aren't continually being blasted by an organized jet stream stuck in the vicinity. Less wind up high means the route can be fixed earlier and people can start going for the summit earlier, thus alleviating some of the hazard that would exist if everybody is forced to go for the top in one narrow and congested window of opportunity late in May. We do receive excellent weather forecasts via our satellite email system, but at this early stage of the season, there isn't much to be gained by obsessing over the weather. Working, as we are, down low on the mountain and within giant valleys like the Western Cwm, we don't need forecasts much. If the weather is good, we climb, if the weather is bad we either sit or descend... simple.
Peter Whittaker and Ed Viesturs took their half of the climbing team up above ABC today for an exploration of the starting zone of the Khumbu Glacier. They got a good look at the immense and icy Lhotse Face from its base at around 22,500 ft. and then returned to ABC... working high, sleeping low... it is a repetitive theme in smart acclimatization. Melissa Arnot did the same thing today down at Camp I after her first night there. She tested the ankle that has been giving her trouble and previewed the route to CII for a little distance before getting back to rest another night at CI. She'll hope to join her team at ABC tomorrow.
Way down here at basecamp: Erica Dohring, Seth Waterfall, Kent Harvey and I have been packing and preparing to make the big move to Camp I tomorrow morning. Ang Kaji will be part of the crew, since Kent the cameraman has far more gadgetry than can be reasonably carried in one pack. Technically, we are resting today, but as usual, we are all keyed up and jittery and ready to get this party started. We sat with Linden Mallory and Jeff Martin, strategizing and coordinating. I laid out a plan that could put us up the hill for the next five days. We went "shopping" in the supply tent for yummy and familiar goodies from American supermarkets. We packed a few things for the Sherpa loads that will go up tomorrow. I talked with Tendi about whether to go the old route (from two days ago) in the icefall, the new route (from a day ago), or the new, new route (from today, detouring a section of the new route that fell out yesterday). We've got fresh batteries for our radios and an order in with Chef Kumar for an early breakfast.
We are physically fit and rested. It is time to get in the game... weather permitting.
Another beautiful day at Everest Basecamp. The weather so far this season has been really great. We've had traces of snow some nights but most days have been warm, sunny and the climbing conditions have been, as my friends say, 'splitter'.
Dave, Erica and I took advantage of the conditions today and went for an acclimatization hike. We went down the Khumbu, out of Basecamp and towards Pumori a ca. 23,000 foot peak located across the glacier from Nuptse. The trail below Basecamp was moderately busy with climbers, trekkers, porters and yak trains. Hiking the trails around here with Dave is always fun because he invariably runs into someone he knows, usually several people. Today we ran into a British gent who had done some scientific work on several of the artifacts that Dave and team had recovered when they found Mallory's body on the North Ridge of Everest in '99. They had never met face-to-face but had known of each other for a few years. I couldn't think of a more appropriate place for the two to meet.
On our hike we passed through Pumori Basecamp and then walked out across a rocky ridgeline. At a high point on the ridge we were rewarded with spectacular views of Nuptse, Lhotse and Everest. After getting the requisite photos Dave and Erica headed back to camp for lunch while I continued on to Camp 1 on Pumori. From there the views were even more spectacular. I could see all the way from Basecamp, up the icefall, through part of the Western Cwm (although Nuptse blocks most of this), up the Lhotse Face to the South Col and then I could follow parts of the South East Ridge of Everest to the Summit. It was very cool to be able to see almost the entire climbing route. It also gave me a great visual representation of why it takes about two months to climb this mountain. It's a long way from basecamp to the summit!!!
The rest of the team is doing great as well. Ed and Peter had spent last night at Camp 1 and today they moved up to Camp 2 (Advanced Basecamp). They called on the radio in the morning and reported that all was well and they called again when they had reached ABC. Melissa made her way through the icefall in the early morning hours, climbing her way from Basecamp to Camp 1. Everyone took advantage of the great weather today.
The team is spread out on the mountain for the next few days but that's neither unexpected nor a bad thing on a long expedition. Our schedules will overlap again soon and we'll all be together and that will be great. But for now it's nice to have a little extra room in the dining tent.
It seemed as though everybody was on the move today. When I looked out of my tent at 4:15 AM, there was a line of headlights strung out like a Christmas parade through the icefall. Some of those lights belonged to our gang. The "first team" of Peter Whittaker and Ed Viesturs, along with a couple of the camera crew, got out early and were making their way toward Camp I. They are bound for a "rotation" up the hill, sleeping at CI tonight and possibly at ABC (CII) tomorrow night. That ought to work pretty good for them, although it won't necessarily feel so good. A first night at close to 20,000 ft. is usually good for a headache and some frustrating insomnia. Then a first night at 21,300 ft (ABC) will be good for... let's see, a headache, some more insomnia, and more of everything that is uncomfortable and mean about new altitude. These rotations up high can't be avoided though. Not if one is serious about eventually trying to spend nights at 26,000 ft above sea level, like we are. I'd hazard a guess that when they come down, Ed and Peter will be pretty happy to rest at basecamp again for a few days... which is also an important part of acclimating. It may be oversimplifying things to say that those bound for the summit just need to mix up intensely hard work and ample rest, time at extreme and less extreme altitudes, and endure terror and boredom for two months... but it does run something like that.
I was looking out of the tent at 4:15 AM because I was putting on my own boots for an important run up to the midpoint of the Khumbu Icefall. At 4:30 AM, I got together with Seth Waterfall, Erica Dohring, cameraman Kent Harvey and producer Cherie Silvera in the mess tent where we each slammed a few hot drinks and bowls of porridge before stepping out into the last shreds of starlight and moonshine. We were walking by 5 AM on what I've come to consider a fairly important mission. Let's call it the Khumbu Dress Rehearsal. I've already explained plenty of the reasons why the Khumbu Icefall is not a smart place to dilly-dally... while also pointing out that the rapid gain in altitude and the difficult climbing make humankind very much prone to dilly-dallying there. When guiding, I want my climbers strong, acclimated and familiar with the weird skills needed for the Icefall... BEFORE they step into the Icefall for real. It is not a good place to have a client or partner stumbling around with exhaustion, obviously, since most footsteps in the Icefall have to be precise in order to avoid crevasses and cliffs. And the worst possible way to come into Camp I for a first night there would be on one's hands and knees, begging for mercy, oxygen and water. That does happen from time to time, but being so spent can make one a prime candidate for fatal altitude illness.
As we chugged up the first ice hills and watched the light begin to hit the highest peaks, it was already gratifying to see how much stronger Erica was than during our initial forays up the glacier. This "dress rehearsal" was undertaken in the hopes of giving Erica the necessary confidence for climbing through to CI... but equally important for Seth and me was our need to watch Erica and gain our own confidence in her abilities. Before we risk our own lives in accompanying her toward her goals, we need to believe she is ready to reasonably go after them. It is a delicate balance. But Erica was doing a lot of good balancing herself as she stepped over bottomless crevasses and kicked up ice-walls on her spikes. Not to say that she had an easy time of it, just that her difficulties seemed no different than anybody else's in the same awkward places. In our second hour of climbing, we moved up the "popcorn" section, which is just a bunch of SUV sized ice chunks heaped against one another like... popcorn... actually.
Erica and I reached the our goal for the day, the "Dum" which is the old Sherpa name for the dump... as in gear dump (in the old days when it took a lot longer to negotiate the Khumbu Icefall, the mid-point was a significant load-carrying goal and even an intermediate camp from time to time). Seth, Cherie and Kent were already there and welcomed us with gloved fist bumps and cheers. Since, at 7:40 in the morning, we were still without the heat of the sun in the Dum, we just took a quick food and water break before declaring the "up test" a success and beginning the "down test".
We began to deal with a lot of traffic, both up and down and this was actually an important part of the test (although I definitely had not arranged with the Russians, Kazakhs, Croats, British, Koreans, Americans and assorted Sherpas to meet on these particular ladders at this particular time). Everybody stayed patient and pleasant and with some careful downclimbing we reached the lowest part of the Icefall and walked into the warm sunshine. Peter, Ed and the team already at CI had been listening out on the radios to make sure we were ok, and it was with great pride and relief that I told them to shut off and save their batteries... we were going to be fine.
Erica passed her exams. She is ready for CI and I'm fully confident that she'll get there with adequate strength reserves. Toward that end, we'll maybe go hiking one more time, rest another day and then come at Camp I ready for that all important first rotation. Oh yeah... that's where they keep the headaches... can't wait.
There were lots of heavy boots trudging by the tents in the dark this morning. Climbers and sherpa bound for the Icefall, naturally. Not from our camp today though. It was another packing/rest day for our team. Seth Waterfall and I took the opportunity to get our climber out on the ice pinnacles after breakfast for some more training in rope techniques.
Erica is looking more comfortable with each session of rappelling down and jugging up the lines we fix. While out there in the middle of the glacier, we heard (and felt) a few big rumbles as ice avalanches cut loose in various places. One tumbled down off Everest's West Shoulder and obviously crossed the Icefall climbing route, luckily missing any climbers in the process. That one certainly pointed up the need for a slightly better and more protected route in the region, and I was encouraged to hear that Willie Benegas may have found just such a route a little farther out toward the middle of the Khumbu Icefall. We shall see whether his discovery is accepted and improved by the Icefall Doctors responsible for fixing ropes and ladders. The Ice Docs are a great bunch of guys. We had them over for a small gift of hats and T-shirts yesterday evening, and we heartily thanked each of the seven men who have been risking their lives to find us safe passage through the big jumbled glacier pouring out of the Western Cwm. We were all astonished when Ang Nima mentioned that he'd been climbing on Everest since 1975, when he worked for Chris Bonington's famous Southwest Face expedition.
Since Gerry shot that beautiful and frightening footage of an avalanche crossing the climbing route above Camp 1 we have received lots of questions and comments about such events. That particular event was likely the result of a snow cornice breaking up near Nuptse's summit at 25,000 ft. The cornice -an overhanging snow deposit- may have built up due to strong prevailing west winds in the night and then busted loose when the first strong rays of the sun hit it in the morning, causing it to settle and fracture. Due to that type of process, we have to worry about "new snow" avalanches even when there hasn't been any "new snow" falling from the sky. An ice avalanche, by contrast, is a piece of glacier breaking loose and cascading down. These are scary. They are also a very normal part of the way glaciers move. One cannot predict when a chunk of glacier has decided that it has hung around long enough and that it is now time to thunder down on whatever is below (chunks of glacier -more properly "seracs"- are not made of light, fluffy snow, but instead of dense ice the consistency of concrete). There are a number of "hanging glaciers" threatening the West Shoulder side of the Khumbu Icefall, as I mentioned, but we also need to be quite careful of the seracs that make up the Icefall itself... a hundred foot high tower of ice collapsing a hundred feet upslope can be difficult to get out of the way of. To most of us, there is something slightly more menacing and inescapable about an avalanche dropping in near freefall for 5000 ft. off the West Shoulder though. I suppose that it is like choosing to get hit by a slow bus rather than by a sports car at top speed, understanding that both bring a fair amount of discomfort. Our various routes do get "dusted" from time to time, as Gerry's video showed, with no actual debris crossing the climbing route, but a big and dramatic powder cloud engulfing those on the track and likely causing them to hit the deck and cover up for a minute or two. Our best strategies for dealing with avalanches on the lower part of the mountain involve moving as quickly as possible through known hazard areas and looking for alternate routes (as Willie apparently did today) when we can. We go early in the day, before sunrise, because this affords us some protection from certain types of avalanches, but it doesn't solve our problems with serac fall. Glaciers move in the night, just as they move in the day, and so their chunks continue to get pushed off randomly rather than when we'd like them to. Getting an early start just feels a lot safer in a world of frozen bridges and towers. The footing can get sloppy later in the day and the heat can get oppressive when the high-altitude sun gets bounced around enough in a concave valley.
So when our first team of climbers (Ed, Melissa and Peter) move up tomorrow, they'll go early and they'll try to move at a business-like pace and they'll look after one another on the move to Camp 1, in addition to checking in by radio with those of us at basecamp. We take the hazards of this lower mountain seriously, which is why we've "waited" a week before setting sites on sleeping at Camp 1. Best to be acclimated and ready to use all of one's fitness for this particular push.
We built up that fitness a little more this afternoon by hiking down to the approaches to basecamp for a building project. Many teams gathered, perhaps a hundred climbers, in order to build a helipad. We don't want to use the helipad for helicopters ... they tend to crash up here in the thin air and hard rock, and we all live in soft shelters that perform poorly when subjected to shrapnel. But of course, if there is an emergency evacuation that a helicopter may be the correct tool for, we want the pilots to enjoy a flat and stable pad of rock. So we all moved rock around for an hour while laughing, breathing heavily, and catching up with long-lost pals from the mountains.
Plenty more Pujas took place today ... the gods have to be at least a little bit impressed with all of the offerings and pretty flags and fragrant smoke. Perhaps they'll mind those seracs and cornices for us while we get the safest possible routes established.
Sherpa. It's a name that we hear with increasing frequency in popular diction worldwide.
But who are the Sherpa, and the sherpa, for that matter? The answer to this is as complex as the country in which they reside.
Let's begin with a bit of context.
The nation of Nepal, one of the poorest in the world in terms of per capita GDP, is arguably one of the richest in terms of geographic and ethnic diversity. A mere 54,000 square kilometers (about the size of Illinois), it ranges geographically from the tropical Indo-Gangetic plains (Terai) in the south to the crest of the Great Himalaya, the highest mountains on earth, in the north. So short is the span from low to high that one can literally sit on the back of an elephant in the Terai, gazing at endangered rhinos, and see, some 90 miles distant, the snowy crest of the Himalaya rising above the haze of the tropical plains.
Not to be outdone by its geography, Nepal's human diversity is rich and complex as well. In its small footprint reside some 25 million people from 36 different ethnic groups speaking 36 (or more) different languages and dialects. From the Indian ethnicities of the Terai to the Tibetan peoples of the mountains, the Gurkhas of the center to the Lepchas of the east and the Thakurs of the far west, the countryside of Nepal rings with diversity.
The Sherpa, so often discussed if not totally understood, are one of these many ethnic groups in Nepal. Crossing over the high Nangpa La (Pass) some 700 years ago from Tibet, the early Sherpa nomads found in the Khumbu Valley a rich region with lush vegetation, flowing rivers, and the possibility of a life far easier than their nomadic one in Tibet. They settled in, making the valley which drains the slopes of Everest their home.
When asked who they were, the early Sherpa would reply, as is common in Tibet, with the region from which they came. Their answer: Shar pa, or "east people." Nomads originally, the Sherpa had come with their yak across the plains of Tibet from the eastern edge of the Plateau, perhaps near Kham. Over time, shar pa turned into Sherpa, their tribal name, and also last name.
Centuries later, when the first Western explorers began their attempts on the high Himalayan peaks, they employed Sherpa as porters to help move equipment on the mountains. From George Mallory to Sir Edmund Hillary to our First Ascent Team, the Sherpa - strong, hard-working, ever-friendly, impeccably kind and loyal - have been a mainstay of Himalayan climbing, with only a small handful of teams getting anywhere in the high peaks without the hard work, diligence, and dedication of these remarkable mountain people. So deep has been their connection to mountain climbing in the Himalaya that the ethnic name Sherpa has come to mean any Nepali who works in the mountains.
However, not every sherpa is, in fact, a Sherpa. Confused? Our team of Nepalis, our sherpa, hail from no less than 4 different ethnic groups: Rai, Gurung, Tamang, and, of course, Sherpa. All have vast experience:
Maila Tamang, Camp 2 cook, with several expeditions and one summit of Everest under his belt
Nima Dorje Tamang, hoping for his 4th summit of Everest on this trip
Kumar Gurung, a veteran expedition cook since 1994, on his 15th Everest expedition
Damber Rai, a seasoned mountain man, on his 7th Everest expedition
All these men, Tamang and Rai, Gurung and Sherpa, work hard, day in and day out, and all are contributing deeply to our efforts on the mountain, just as they are for the 30-some-odd other expeditions on Everest this spring.
Simply put, we couldn't do it without them, and our thanks are beyond words.
Dhanyabhad.
These are busy days at basecamp. The trail into camp is still quite full with trekkers, porters and yak trains. Most, although not all, climbers have now reached base, and the Puja poles with their colorful webs of prayer flags now form an intersecting canopy over the entire area. Each morning, teams of Sherpas are heading up into the Icefall carrying loads and a few teams have their members sleeping up at Camps 1 and 2 already.
I'm not in a big hurry to get through the Icefall with Erica just yet. The route, although complete when I checked it out the other day, could still stand to be tracked in and improved somewhat. And I'd just as soon have my seventeen-year-old client as ready as possible when we go through to Camp 1 for the first time. So our plan has been to keep training and acclimating ... which, it turns out, is not a bad way to pass the time in this place. Yesterday, while half-a-dozen of the team made the early start and tagged C1, Erica and I got a full night's sleep, ate a fine breakfast, and then set out for a good day of walking. We made our way down to Gorak Shep, banged a right turn up into the hills, and began to climb Kalapathar. The weather was perfect throughout most of the day and our views were unlimited and improving as we climbed. We could look back to the peaks that had lined our path on the trek in, with Thamserku, Kangtega, and Ama Dablam in the distance. Tawoche, Cholatse, Nuptse and Pumori were big and beautiful a little closer in. To the east, Lingtren, Changtse and a big, dark, high pyramid by the name of Everest were stunning. From the top, Erica and I could see the South Col and part of the Lhotse Face. I was surprised when a Slovenian climber near Kalapathar's summit recognized me from the time in 1997 when we were alongside one another on Vinson in Antarctica. But such meetings are not uncommon here.
We cruised on down to Gorak Shep for a drink and a rest at the outdoor tables, chatting with trekkers while watching a few soaring birds. We rallied for the hike back up to basecamp and compared notes there with Ed Viesturs, who'd gone for the same circuit a bit earlier in the day.
Today was generally a good rest day in basecamp, which means meetings for those of us who endeavor to figure out schedules and strategies and future meeting possibilities. Erica and I did bust out of camp for a fine walk in the lower glacier before lunch. I love getting out there to explore ... note that I normally refer to walking "in" the glacier near basecamp, whereas anywhere else in the world it would be normal to talk about climbing "on" a glacier. In this particular section of the Khumbu, which is devoid of snow cover, one walks up and down hidden gullies and waterways in the ice. I like to get out to easier walking on a medial moraine of rock and then to find a new way home through the ice with a different gully each time. This time I was able to show Erica a few old logs that had been used for crevasse bridges in the days before ladders. These, of course, had originally been placed up in the Icefall and had been carried down with the passage of decades. Even so, the logs still clearly bore the crampon scars of whichever famous climbers had scrambled across them.
After lunch, our camp was quiet with napping and a few board games. I joined Peter Whittaker, Jeff Martin and Linden Mallory for a short walk to Damian Benegas' camp, where an initial team-leader meeting had been called for. There was plenty of handshaking and backslapping among those gathered. All of the usual suspects of South Side Everest climbing, plus the former North Siders who've all given up on the Chinese restrictions on entrance to Tibet-The big players-IMG and HimEx, Adventure Consultants and Jagged Globe were there, along with Croatians, Russians, Kazakhs, Koreans, Irish, Spanish, Swiss and Canadians. Willie and Damian Benegas went over the group business with input from those assembled. We tried to figure out radio frequency overlaps and attempted to pool resources for rescues and rope fixing. The gang agreed to meet tomorrow to build a helipad to the west of camp. I helped myself to popcorn and pimento-stuffed green olives from the Benegas table while the big business was conducted and the hors d'oeuvres were sadly being overlooked. The olives were tasty and the meeting therefore a great and friendly success.
Base Camp is a busy place these days as all of the teams have arrived and the route through the icefall is now open. In the daytime climbers and trekkers are constantly milling about camp, checking in with friends and other teams to see what everyone's plans are. It's quite a scene.
Since the Icefall Doctors completed the route to Camp 1 teams have been busy staking claims to the prime sites. At least one team has sent climbers to spend the night there thus starting their first acclimatization 'rotation'. The Sherpas in our team went to Camp 1 the day the Icefall Doctors completed the final leg of the route and marked off an area for our camp there. Today our team carried loads of gear to the camp. This accomplished two things. The first and most obvious is to transport some of our gear further up the mountain. The second is to aid our acclimatization by climbing to almost 20,000 feet before returning to Base Camp to recover.
This was my first trip through the icefall in it's entirety. Of course I've heard about it, read about it, and have had plenty of time to obsess about it over the last 6 days. But there's no way to really get a feel for it other than climbing through it. I have climbed on plenty of glaciers. In fact I've spent weeks on end living on glaciers. But climbing through an icefall, where the glacier drops off of a steep slope, picks up speed and breaks up into crevasses (you can fall in these) and ice towers called seracs (these can fall on you) is not a normal or common thing, even for a mountain guide.
So we got up at 2:15 am this morning and started our climb at 3am. There's two reasons to start this early. One is to get ahead of other people that may slow us down in dangerous sections. The other is to climb in the nice, cool temperatures of the night and avoid the oppressive heat of the day. Well, I must admit the 'cool' night time temps here are really ridiculously cold so getting out of my sleeping bag was the first crux of the day. From our camp it's about 45 minutes to the first big crevasses. The Icefall Doctors use aluminum ladders to bridge crevasses. On Rainier we also use ladders to cross crevasses the only difference is that on Rainier we'll use two to three ladders in a season, here there is about 35 ladders crossing crevasses and climbing up and down seracs. The Doctors do a great job of making things as safe as possible in the icefall. Of course there's the ladders, but they also place tons of rope on the route so you can always be clipped in and safe from a big fall.
Once in the icefall itself there are precious few places to safely stop for a break. The glacier is always shifting and moving so you really don't know when a chunk of ice may come crashing down. Your best bet for safety is to move quickly and to climb in control. Fortunately our team was able to stay fairly close together owing to our early departure. There were not many people for us to get caught behind and separated. We did manage to sneak in a couple of rest breaks, though we did make excellent time and we arrived at Camp 1 at the top of the icefall just before 7:00 am.
Camp 1 is a tricky place to camp. It is sandwiched in between the steep faces of Everest's West Ridge and the north face of Nuptse. Both sides of the valley are prone to ice and snow avalanches. The trick there is to position your camp so as to mitigate the danger from both sides of the valley. Also the climbing route from Camp 1 to Camp 2 currently avoids the big crevasses in the center of the glacier but passes directly under some avalanche paths on Nuptse. We were discussing the relative merits of two different campsites and where the climbing route will be the safest when a large avalanche came ripping down off of the summit of Nuptse. To our shock there was a large group of people on the climbing route, directly under the avalanche. Fortunately most of the snow and ice from the avalanche landed in the 'moat' between the glacier and the steeper slopes of Nuptse and the folks on the route, including some Sherpas from our team were only blasted with a 'powder cloud' from the avalanche. Still, this was a scary event and a reminder to be ever respectful of the power of the mountains.
Two in the morning rolls around fast over here. It did today, at least. That is when I got up to stuff a few last things in my pack and meet Ed Viesturs for breakfast in our dining tent. I think we both were focused and keyed up for a journey through the Khumbu Icefall and thus were not too picky about breakfast. Instant coffee and rice porridge did the trick for me. We walked a little before 3 a.m., at first in some fog, but then under stars and a big moon by the time we'd gotten our crampons on at the start of the climbing route. Ed graciously allowed me to go first so that I could set a pace I might live with and complain less about.
I'll admit that my natural tendency might have been to be a little insecure over having Ed Viesturs, one of the world's great aerobic athletes, two steps behind me where he could see just how feeble and weak I might turn out to be on any given day. But ...the short sleep, the rice porridge and bitter coffee must have worked the perfect magic, because I didn't feel feeble and weak as we crossed the first ice ridges. I actually felt ready to go climbing ... ready to feel my heart and lungs ramp up, ready to get some sort of burn going in my leg muscles.
The plan was actually two plans that came together. I swear I don't have any great love for the Khumbu Icefall. I wouldn't generally go through it without good reason, but when I hope to guide someone through it, I've come to value previewing the darn thing first myself. It can be wildly different from year to year (and from the beginning of a climbing season to the end), and I like to know where the hazards are and where reasonable rest breaks might be hiding. Ed, with his goal of going for the summit without oxygen, has to continually push himself in the weeks and months leading up to that attempt. He needs and wants all the exercise that he can squeeze in ...preferably at altitude. And even better if he can preview the Icefall route and get a little gear up to our newly established Camp 1 site. So our schedules converged and it seemed to make good sense that we go together, despite his need for speed and my need to not be humiliated. We both had light loads of gear for CI and our standard guide's pack-load of emergency and rescue gear in case we either got ourselves in trouble or came upon someone else inclined that way.
We could see about a dozen headlights some distance ahead of us, but we reeled those in before too long and passed a team of Sherpas that were carrying heavier loads than ours. We didn't talk as we climbed by headlight and moonlight ... I doubt I'd have been capable of talking and there wasn't any need for talk. It was a time for thinking and doing. I thought a bit about how I'd met Ed Viesturs in the summer of 1985 on Mount Rainier. He would have been starting his third year of guiding then, and I was a wide-eyed and fairly naive aspiring climber. I took a five-day climbing seminar with Rainier Mountaineering, Inc. and Ed was the junior guide on the trip. He must have done something bad, because when it came time for choosing rope teams for the summit bid at week's end, Ed got me. I was strong enough, having just spent a first winter working in the ski industry - and before that I'd swum competitively at college ("competitively" being used loosely here), but I didn't know anything about big mountains or how to tap into the strength I had for them. That climb was memorable. We were well up the Ingraham Glacier and taking a break when another guide with a different team busted a big crevasse bridge and took a huge fall. That guide was Eric Simonson, who is camped just a hundred meters away from me right now and who turned out to be a great friend and mentor. I didn't know Eric then though, and so when Ed tried to get his rope team moving in a hurry in order to go up and help with the crevasse extrication, I believe I protested -pointing to the unfinished peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my hand. (I'm sure I didn't protest vocally since, although Ed wasn't famous back then, he was still formidable.) Long story short, Eric lived, I didn't get to eat my sandwich and we didn't make the summit. I was hooked. I became a guide with RMI the very next summer.
Ed and I, although we worked together for some years at Rainier, didn't do a whole lot of climbing together. Partly because before too long, his expedition career took off in a big way; mine took off a little later and in different ways. We come at things differently. Ed relies on hard-won fitness, VO2 Max, pre-trip training, and a legendary ability to calculate and get shrewd in the big hills. I bring mountains down to my decidedly less athletic level through repetition, constant practice, pigheaded determination and never-ending fear of failure. Sometimes the results of the two methods can be similar.
Like today in the Icefall. I thought we made a pretty good team, and I took a lot of pride in that when we rolled into the Camp 1 area three hours after we'd begun. I never imagined, 24 years ago, that Ed and I would be bouncing over ladders and scrambling up icewalls together on Mount Everest all these years later. It was a blast. And it was cold up there at 19,867 ft. before sunrise at Camp 1. We cached our gear and began to beat feet down. It can be tricky to keep up the concentration required so as to not misstep, catch a crampon or poke through a crevasse bridge on a fast descent of the Icefall, but it can be equally dangerous to go slow in a place where big things tend to fall down around you if you linger. We did have to do some lingering though. Ed and I encountered about a hundred of our best friends ... Sherpas from various teams who were either carrying loads or guiding climbers. We'd look nervously at the big ice towers tilting above us, but we'd stop to exchange pleasantries anyway, remembering which trips we'd done together and promising to catch up over tea in some safer place.
Ed and I were kicking off crampons at around 9 a.m. in bright sunshine down at basecamp. We both expressed relief at having satisfied some of our curiosity about the glacier's surprises and our own fitness to tackle it again. We'd come down in time to see the rest of our team suiting up for ice climbing practice and rope technique review taught by Seth Waterfall, Peter Whittaker and Jake Norton on the glacier close to camp. I passed the rest of the day with adrenaline in my veins and a smile on my face. The plan is for a few others to check out the Icefall tomorrow.
Greetings from Everest Basecamp! I still have to pinch myself to make sure I'm really here. To come here and climb has been a longtime dream for me, but it's only been the last four or five years that I thought it would be possible. I never really imagined I'd be doing so as a part of this amazing team.
For me personally, this couldn't be a better opportunity. I get to pester Ed Viesturs with pretty much any question I want about climbing in the Himalaya, and learn how to guide these peaks from Dave Hahn. I can't really see me ever having access to this kind of brain trust again in my guiding career. To add that in with climbing in gear that we have all helped develop from the ground up makes this truly a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
It was just over a year ago that I was doing a normal guiding rotation at RMI. For me, that has meant starting in May on Rainier, then heading to Alaska to work on Denali then back to Rainier until August, then I head over to Africa to guide on Kilimanjaro. When my boss Peter Whittaker invited me to be a part of this team, I had no idea what it would lead to, yet here I am at Everest Base Camp getting ready to head into the Western Cwm.
This is our third day in base camp and I'm still trying to judge the scale of the mountains here. I'm used to the feeling of getting my bearings in an unfamiliar mountain range. It's one of the best parts of climbing somewhere new. With no trees or buildings or anything familiar to give you reference, you can get vertigo trying to approximate distances or elevations. Typically, the novice will underestimate distances drastically. I've spent enough time in the mountains though to have a healthy respect for this trickery.
The difference here is that there is no grander scale. When I first saw Everest from Namche Bazaar, I couldn't believe how big it was or how far away we still were. Now that we're closer and the satellite peaks of the Everest massif block the summit from view, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't even more intimidated.
But if there's one thing I've learned over the years from all of my mentors and climbing partners, it's how to tackle big objectives. In a sense, this one is no different... wait, what am I saying?! It is different. It's the biggest mountain in the world. Step by step, that's how we'll do it. With a healthy respect for the mountain.
In a few days, we'll head into the icefall for our first real physical test of the trip. I'm really psyched to put the boots on and get the crampons and ice axe out. My job on this trip is really just getting started. I can't wait to get going.
We looked like a totally different crew at breakfast this morning. Part of that was because it was still slightly dark when we had breakfast today... we were up early for Icefall training. But when the light happened to hit a face here and there, it showed freshly shaved mugs and clean, fluffy hair. We neatened up yesterday afternoon, testing the shower.
When I first began coming to Everest, in 1991, we wouldn't have dreamed of such an extravagance. Or perhaps back then, we simply thought seventy days of grubbiness was required to properly test a summit wannabe. We all wanted to be Everest "hardmen" in the classic mold. Or maybe with some classic mold. Nowadays, of course, it is clear that we can't possibly measure up to the legends of the Everest game by accumulating filth. Cleanliness is in. And besides, it just doesn't seem all that difficult anymore to set aside one propane tank for an on-demand heater connected to a barrel full of water attached to a tiny electric pump, which all results in a hot stream of water coming out of a showerhead near the top of a tent built for such a purpose.
Our clean team walked out of camp this morning at 6 AM. Ten minutes later, we'd stepped into crampons and were trudging up and over ice rolls and ridges, bound for the start of the climbing route. Our Sherpa team had beaten us to it, having rolled out of camp at 4:30 AM. Seven of them fired up the newly established Icefall route to establish our Camp I at around 19,900 ft. Two more, Tschering and Mingma, went to CI but then continued on all the way up the Western Cwm, claiming some prime real estate up there at 21,300 ft for our Advanced Basecamp (aka ABC, aka CII, aka "Tschering and Mingma kicked butt"). The rest of us contented ourselves with a good stretch of the legs, climbing 90 minutes out of camp to reach the first ladders and fixed ropes, which we practiced on for a bit before returning. It was a good reminder for all that we are new to these altitudes and that it is cold out on the glacier before the sun hits. But nearly everybody came down jazzed and excited to get after the rest of the Khumbu Icefall in the coming days. The Icefall is an intimidating place, but it is also quite beautiful in the early morning light.
Resting up this afternoon, we watched as a number of teams pulled into basecamp. Within a few days, the gang will all be here, but for today we were happy to see the Alpine Ascents team pull in with a bunch of guides we've all worked alongside of for years. IMG got here before us, and they are just a stone's throw away with a bunch more of our friends. Russell Brice came through camp yesterday and reported that his big HimEx team is doing well in their slightly separate basecamp twenty minutes down the trail. There have been a few sightings of the Benegas brothers, Willie and Damian and it will be fun to connect up with them again for some milk tea. Henry Todd is rumored to be on the approach. The season is on and all the usual suspects are gathering.
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