In the previous 18 months, I climbed over 30 14, Colorado and California mountains with lb packs. Also climbed Vinson and Aconcagua in the prior 4 months. I lost about 10 pounds before coming to EBC then lost another 15 pounds in the early expedition time; which was a bit too much. I thought through the best way to climb Everest.
The standard program is to stay there once, but I found by staying there each rotation, I was able to manage my energy more evenly and not wear myself out trying to go from BC to C2 in one big push. Also, I pushed the envelope a bit by staying at Camp 2 three nights instead of the normal two on the first rotation. She did it with class, dignity and humor. She never let on how much it hurt. In addition, knowing that there were millions going through the same struggle inspired me knowing that many people were watching me.
I simply could not let them down. So perhaps the pace went a little quicker. Most climbers will take 9 to 18 hours for the round trip climb from the South Col. My total time was 11 hours as follows:. I have written a very extensive and detailed recap of my summit experience plus a many exclusive hi-resolution pictures taken during the climb. It is in PDF form and can be downloaded from this link:. Everest Summit of Memories. I saw Mirjam and Minga and three other climbers already on the summit.
They had climbed from the north side and were the first of the season from Tibet. Knowing our time was limited due to the current and impending weather, again I focused on mechanics.
I unzipped my down suit and took out my satellite phone. I wanted to call and post an audio dispatch on my website.
As I spoke with , my emotional wall collapsed. I could barely get the words out as we shared the summit separated by thousands of miles. She had supported me unconditionally for over 30 major expeditions.
We had planned my climbs, shared in the successes and cried together. This was her summit as much as mine. Another button called a blogging service to record a message for my Blog.
I had to enter the 9 digit ID code and took off my mitten. Immediately, I felt my finger tips go from slightly cold to a tingling freeze. But knew what I wanted to say. We love you and miss you. I had more to say but could not go on. Kami had taken my camera and was clicking pictures as I made my calls.
More than climbers set out for the summit on the weekend of May alone. The crowded conditions led to congestion in the death zone. Six people died, with four of them perishing on the popular South Col route. They lost their lives because all of the adventurers, those who wanted to experience a moment of accomplishment at the highest point on earth, got in each other's way. Nepal's Tourism Ministry is housed in a large brick building in downtown Kathmandu. Biking to the Summit of EverestIn mid-April, a slender man with bushy eyebrows and a deeply wrinkled face turned up at the ministry.
It was Aydin Irmak, and he told officials that he wanted to register an attempt to set a record. He wanted to be the first person to carry a bicycle to the summit of Mt. There are many officially recognized Everest records: the first blind man to reach the summit, the first leg amputee, the first person to descend on a snowboard, the first overnight climb, the first wedding.
The record for the longest time a person was able to last at the summit with his upper body exposed is three minutes. The official sitting behind his white desk doesn't ask any questions. Irmak, born in Istanbul, is what one might call a connoisseur of the art of living. He emigrated to the United States as a young man, studied finance in New York and then opened a shop selling designer furniture. When the shop went out of business and Irmak's marriage fell apart, he ended up on the street, sleeping under bridges in Queens.
In , he began repairing old bikes he found in the trash and selling them. A year later, Irmak began a trip around the world by bicycle. He arrived in Kathmandu in November While having dinner at a restaurant, he hit upon the idea of climbing Everest while carrying his bike. There are about companies in Nepal that organize expeditions to the top of Mount Everest, and 40 of them are headquartered in Kathmandu. To lower the cost, they cut corners with personnel and equipment, such as ropes, carabiners, radios and oxygen bottles.
Fit and Experienced. The owner of Thamserku liked Irmak's bicycle idea, knowing that it would be good PR for his company. It didn't matter to him that the client had never even been on a mountain and didn't know how to put on crampons. Some outfitters only accept clients for Everest expeditions who have already climbed a 6,meter peak. There isn't anything we can do about that. In the end, we simply have to trust them," says Dawa Steven Sherpa, the head of Asian Trekking, one of the biggest agencies in Kathmandu.
Dawa Steven had no concerns about the two German climbers who had contacted Asian Trekking and arrived in Kathmandu in early April. They were sophisticated men, in good shape and looking for adventure. Schaaf, a wiry man with a full beard, used to run marathons and even did kilometer ultra-marathons. They were experienced mountain climbers. Thelen and Schaaf wanted to climb the highest mountain on each of the seven continents.
Now, they wanted to take on Mt. Thelen and Schaaf were sponsored by a German brand of food supplements called Doppelherz and had prepared well for Everest. They ran stairs at an abandoned factory -- steps, ascending 80 meters -- carrying backpacks filled with soft-drink bottles and canned goods.
On the deck in Thelen's yard, they arranged aluminum ladders to span between tables and climbed across them with climbing boots and crampons. This was to prepare for the Khumbu Icefall on Everest, where climbers have to cross giant crevices on ladders. To test their thermal underwear, they had themselves locked into an indoor ski slope in the Netherlands, where they spent the night in a tent at minus 5 degrees Celsius.
They performed regular lactate tests and stress EKGs, and for an entire year they took fresh water algae supplements, which are supposed to strengthen the immune system.
For both men, Everest was the ultimate challenge. On April 7, they left for base camp, located in a national park kilometers from Kathmandu, at an altitude of 5, meters.
At the camp, there are hundreds of tents set up in an area of about one square kilometer. There is a medical station in the middle, there is cell phone reception, and in some of the food tents, guests are handed moist napkins after their meal. There were about people staying at the camp in late April. They included professional athletes like Swiss high-mountain climber Ueli Steck, as well as alpinist Simone Moro.
For the last three years, Moro has had a second job as a helicopter pilot, and he has built himself a landing pad near the base camp. He picks up climbers from Everest who have had accidents. For the business, he obtained a Nepalese pilot's license and uses a Eurocopter AS B3, with an horsepower engine. Business is good.
Some 90 percent of the mountain climbers at the base camp were amateur alpinists. And, as usual, there were several would-be record-breakers in the group. They included a year-old Nepalese girl who hoped to be the youngest woman to climb Everest, as well as a year-old Japanese woman who wanted to go down in history as the oldest woman to climb the mountain.
There was also a former soldier in the British army who had lost his left arm in Afghanistan. He had had a specialized, carbon-fiber prosthetic arm with a built-in ice axe.
Irmak arrived at the base camp on April 19, after having ridden his bicycle from Kathmandu. The higher he went, the worse the roads became. Eventually they turned into narrow paths and coarse gravel trails, and he often had to carry his bike. He usually sat by himself under a boulder on the edge of the camp. The other climbers referred to him as "that crazy guy," and they were concerned that they would end up having to rescue him on Everest if he ventured up there with his bicycle.
The ascent from the base camp to the summit of Everest takes four-and-a-half days, but first climbers have to spend weeks accustoming their bodies to the extreme altitudes. They do this by making repeated trips to one of the three camps at higher altitudes, where they sleep and then return to base camp.
Schaaf and Thelen tried to eat as much as possible, hoping to counteract the adverse effects of high altitude on metabolism. On average, mountain climbers lose about 10 kilograms 22 lbs.
In early May, seven officials with the national park's environmental authority turned up at base camp, looking for Irmak. They had heard about his record-setting ambitions. The men took away his bicycle, which he had been keeping in his tent the whole time, saying that a bicycle didn't belong on Everest.
Irmak waved the Tourism Ministry permit in their faces, but the officials were not to be persuaded. Irmak was furious.
He painted a picture of his bicycle on a small flag, so that he could at least plant the flag on the summit.
There is no weather station on Mount Everest, because the cold temperatures would cause the equipment to malfunction. Since , expedition leaders have been able to use reliable weather forecasts sent to them from halfway around the world. A company called Meteotest has its offices on the ground floor of an old, brown building on Fabrikstrasse in the Swiss capital Bern, where seven meteorologists sit in front of their monitors. They use software that can predict weather at 10 different locations in the Everest region.
The system spits out new data twice a day, and the Swiss experts then send emails and text messages to Everest base camp, providing expedition leaders with the latest forecast for the coming days.
On May 14, extreme climber Ueli Steck had a new message in his inbox. Stable means little wind, good visibility and no snowfall. Fourteen minutes later, Steck replied: "Great, I'll get going right away. Word quickly spread through base camp. They included Irmak and the two Germans, Schaaf and Thelen. They crossed the Khumbu Icefall. Like a giant procession, the climbers worked their way up the mountain, from Camp 2 at 6, meters to Camp 3 at 7, meters, and on to Camp 4, the last before the summit.
The march kept coming to a standstill at the Yellow Band, a steep passage on Lhotse Face, above 7, meters. There were simply too many people climbing that day, leading to congestion and friction among the climbers. At times they had to wait more than 30 minutes for the climb to continue. Passing other climbers was almost impossible, because it would have cost too much energy.
Besides, it's dangerous for climbers to disconnect themselves from the fixed rope. The average gradient along the wall of glacial ice is 35 degrees.
The march from the base camp to Camp 4, at about 8, meters, takes three days. Sherpas had already stocked the camp with oxygen bottles, where they sat waiting for climbers ready to take on the last stage to the summit. Almost all climbers at that altitude wear oxygen masks, which draw in ambient air and mix it with oxygen from the bottles, making it easier to breathe. Normally, climbers reach Camp 4 at about noon. They rest a few hours, and then they leave that evening so that they'll be at the summit in the morning.
Hopefully their return journey was a safe one. Continual assessmenxt of the Swiss and American meteorological forecasts for the next seven days has highlighted a window of opportunity. This window will allow a summit bid early on Sat May As previously indicated the jet stream will be out the region for the next seven days, this is an incredibly important factor, negative jet stream means less wind and therefore less wind chill!
Potential of snowfall over this period is low and what with the Sherpa rope fixing teams currently progressing towards the summit, all systems are go. So who will be ready? Who has acclimitised in time for this summit bid? Firstly the Brazilian team will be ready, having arrived back in camp today they are rested and ready. The Americans Chris Shumate and Deke Williams have proven fit enough and acclimatized well enough to attempt a summit bid.
Finally Bruno, Bruno has acclimitised quicker and easier than most but for Bruno it will be a climb without supplemental oxygen and will undoubtedly be a considerable physical achievement. Whilst Bruno is resting at C2, the rest will leave at tomorrow from BC, good luck to all. Finally the Sherpas, they will be with the climbers every step of the way and have been carefully selected through experience and strength.
Lead climber for this summit bid will be Apa Sherpa. Apa first summited in and has carried on to summit a world record 20 times, his experience, knowledge and leadership is unquestionable. Having worked with some of the worlds greatest climbers this will be his fifteenth season with Asian Trekking.
Apa only missed the fatal season due to his wife ordering him to stay at home and finish building their lodge in Thame, this lodge is currently run by his sister in law as Apa now lives with his wife and three children in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Yesterday and today, Members of Eco Everest Expedition team accompanied by high altitude Sherpas reached Camp 3 at an altitude of m and spent the night there and some of the Members are returning to Camp 2. There are two other expedition teams supported by Asian Trekking, who are also an autonomous part of the Eco Everest Expedition.
Ken is a veteran mountaineer with a fantastic track record in the past of having cleaned Mt. Everest, Mt. Manaslu, Mt Fuji and running many environmental campaigns in his home country. This year, Ken has joined forces with the Eco Everest Expedition and plans to clean in the extreme altitude at and above C4 m.
Ken is climbing up to C2 tomorrow for 5 days to clean up at C2. Everest for the 21st time. Everest, as a Climbing Leader of the Expedition. Since , the Eco Everest Expeditions have collected and brought off the mountain nearly 12, kgs of garbage and over kgs of human waste produced by Eco Everest Expedition.
Also four died bodies recovered and brought down from the mountain for a dignified burial. The Eco Everest Expedition plans again to collect and bring down garbage from high altitude. Furthermore, together with Japanese Mt. Everest Summiteer and Environmentalist Ken Noguchi, the expedition aims to bring down another 1 thousand kilos of garbage between Camp II and the Summit. The aim is to clean up a total of Kilograms of garbage from Mt.
Everest this year. We are using sleeping tents for members and staffs, 7 big dinning tents at BC and Camp II, 5 kitchen tents, 2 storage tents, 4 shower tents, 1 communication tent and 6 toilet tents for this expedition. To manage this huge expedition is a very professional task, which will be done by Dawa Steven Sherpa Managing Director of Asian Trekking and My Son who has the experience of handing a huge team like this.
This year also, Apa Sherpa will be our climbing leader, whose world record of 20 times summit of Mt.
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