Month: May 2022

It has been ten days since I stood on top of the world, and five days since I got home. My body is slowly recovering, I am starting to gain back the fifteen pounds I lost on the mountain, and I have had some time to reflect. In what is likely my final blog post, here is an update.

As was the case last year, the return from base camp to Kathmandu happened quickly. The morning after I got off the mountain, Phil casually announced: “Better get packed. The chopper will be here in an hour.” I scurried back to my tent and began jamming seven weeks worth of gear and dirty clothes into my two large duffle bags.

Two sherpas came to help carry my bags to where the helicopter would land. One of them, Sonam, was the sherpa who led most of the way as we climbed to the summit, breaking trail and freeing the fixed lines from the crust. He was my favorite from day one. In his early twenties, with a young wife and child back in his village, he has a gentleness to him that contrasts with his immense strength and climbing talent. Three years ago, he badly frostbit his fingers when he took his gloves off on Everest’s summit to help a client unscrew a thermos. Phil paid for his subsequent time in the hospital and referred frequently to Sonam’s “fifteen thousand dollar fingers”.

The second sherpa, Kami, is Sonam’s alter ego. Among our stable of climbing supermen, Kami towered above all. He was stronger than pretty much everyone on the mountain, climbed at unfathomable speeds, and had a flamboyant personality to match. If Dennis Rodman were to be reincarnated as a climbing sherpa, this is what you would end up with. Kami was the one sherpa who didn’t climb with us to the summit. He had been eying a speed ascent of neighboring Lhotse, which – for reasons I will spare you- had to be called off at the last minute.

As he pulled my duffles out of my tent, in a rush to get them to the helicopter pad, Kami noticed that my protection amulet, the one given to us by the lama at the puja ceremony, had fallen off of my neck while I was packing. It was lying in the rocks in front of my tent. Interrupting everything, Kami picked it up and carefully tied it back on. “Every year the lama of Pangboche comes to bless us before climbing the mountain”, he reminded me, “every year he gives us these and they keep us safe. You keep wearing this!”

We walked across the glacial moraine to where the helicopter would land. Here is a photo of the group gathered. My duffles are the blue and black ones in the front right. That is Sonam with his hand on them, and Kami immediately to the right of Sonam.

A short while later, we heard the telltale “whop whop whop” of a helicopter coming up the glacier, and moments later it landed on top of the rock pile which served as the heli pad:

I took one last look at the icefall and Everest’s west shoulder. I don’t expect to ever see them again.

The helicopter pilot, an American wearing a “Chugach Powder Guides” sweatshirt, put on his radio headset and asked Phil, who was sitting in the back seat: “Hey Phil, do you have some guy named Tom French climbing with you?” Phil answered: “he is sitting right next to you”.

Remember Bali, our sherpa guide who was injured by rockfall climbing down one of the passes on our trek? It turned out that Brad, the pilot, was flying the helicopter that rescued him. He showed me a screen shot on his phone of the message I had sent on my Garmin device from the top of the pass, requesting a rescue. I told Brad what a miracle it had felt like to see his helicopter appear in the distance, buzz overhead, and then circle the glacier below until he found Bali. It really did feel like a miracle, and I was grateful for the opportunity to tell him so and thank him.

Three hours later, I was checking back into the Yak and Yeti hotel in Kathmandu. It was surreal.

Some questions answered

A number of you asked great questions in connection with my last post. Here are some answers:

1. Why had Pasang Ongchu and Kipa been delayed leaving for the summit? What was the equipment issue? In an example of the dream-like way things play out at high altitude, I still don’t know what caused the delay. If forced to guess, I would say they were probably digging around for a spare oxygen regulator. They had just blown two O rings switching out Kipa’s and my bottles, and I think they realized they needed a backup.
2. On the descent, what happened to the buried section of fixed lines? Did you have to clip back out of them? Dream state again. The lines were back in place on our descent, so we didn’t have to unclip. I don’t know what happened. My guess is that one of the larger, guided groups behind us had ice axes and was able to take the time to free the lines before proceeding. Or else they had extra climbing rope and re-fixed that section.
   
3. Why didn’t Phil climb with you on summit night? Phil has a flexible style. Sometimes he climbs with the group, and sometimes he thinks he is better positioned at one of the lower camps, relaying the latest weather forecasts and tracking progress by radio. In this case, he went with the latter.
   
4. Did my experience of having been on the mountain last year make a material difference this year? Hugely, and way more than I anticipated. Mostly, it was just knowing what to expect each day, and knowing I had already done it once. This removed fear of the unknown and gave me a quiet inner confidence.
5. Is the band-aid in the photo a touch of frostbite? It is actually covering a small cut I sustained somewhere that, because of the altitude, refused to heal. I was delighted to avoid frostbite completely. But, on the summit push, I let my guard down and got pretty badly sun and wind burned.
6. Did you cross paths with the Full Circle team, (the first all black team to summit Everest)? Yes. We were right next to them at base camp, and summited the same day. While I didn’t recognize them when we passed them on the fixed ropes on summit night, I chatted with their leader in the icefall the next day.
7. How did the shower in Kathmandu feel? AMAZING. I stood there for a really long time, neglected to close the shower curtain properly, and ended up flooding the entire bathroom floor.
   

Transitioning, and some reflections

I spent two days at the Yak and Yeti in Kathmandu before flying home. It was welcome time. The first day, I holed up in my room, wrote the blog post about summit night, and reveled in reliable internet and grilled cheese sandwiches from room service. The second day, Phil and I had a long lunch at one of his favorite local restaurants, where he is good friends with the owner. It struck me how people’s personas are different when they are off the mountain. He was the same Phil, but notably more relaxed. Also, with his long hair unencumbered by a hat or climbing helmet, more “aging hippie”-like in a cool way. He retained his irreverent sense of humor. I showed up freshly shaved and showered, sporting some sun and wind burn. “You look like shit”, he happily pronounced as he cracked open a tall beer.

Last year, I spent almost a week at the Yak and Yeti, trying to arrange a flight home amid the Covid lockdown while reflecting on our retreat from high on the mountain. In ways that I can’t capture in writing, it was moving to be back, especially having summited. I had strong emotional associations with the place. The staff remembered me. I had been through a lot over the two climbing seasons, and felt both powerfully impacted by and grateful for it. Somehow, the experience, my inner emotions, and the physical surroundings all fused. It also felt good to have a couple of days to reflect on what I had just been through before heading home.

Last year at this time, I didn’t think I would return to Everest. As I wrote then, I felt I had gotten 90 percent of the experience and that I didn’t need to go back in pursuit of the remaining 10 percent. Then I got home and changed my mind. I am really glad I did. The experience this year was deeply meaningful, starting with the Makalu-Barun trek. With respect to summiting Everest, goal achievement is inherently satisfying, and lifelong dream fulfillment even more so. Climbing to the summit in the moonlight, and having the entire upper mountain to ourselves, was a spiritual experience I will treasure all of my remaining days. The pleasant surprise was how satisfying re-tracing my other steps on Everest ended up being. Places often acquire deeper meaning through repeat experience, and that was clearly the case here.

My initial “gap year” ended up stretching out to a “gap two and half years”. I think it is has just drawn to a close. I am grateful for every bit of it. Now I get to sort out what mix of interests and commitments will see me through the remainder of my sixties. I like all of my options and feel blessed.

On the evening of May 16, I headed to the airport. Early monsoon rains were drenching Kathmandu. As I walked across the tarmac to board the plane, I let them soak me and marveled at the massive piece of modern technology that had just arrived from Doha to take me home. As I have mentioned previously, air travel, particularly internationally, continues to evoke romance for me.

During my layover in Doha, I hung out in the luxurious lounge and happily surfed the internet. Among other gems encountered was Phil’s classic summary of our climb, posted on his website:

We reached the top on May 12 and descended to camp two. The following day we arrived in base camp and the next day were back in Kathmandu. 28 days, Kathmandu to Kathmandu, with no cheesy gimmicks such as home hypoxic tents and not a single Instagram influencer on the team. Old school climbers getting shit done without all the hype. We were the first team on top on the 12th and nobody else was near us all day until we descended and met ascending climbers later in the day. We had the summit to ourselves for the second year in a row.

Remember Sonam the climbing sherpa? A couple of days ago I received an email from him. I don’t know where he sent it from, as I don’t think his village has internet. Here it is, in its entirety:

It warms my heart to hear that Sonam is back with his family and all is well. I am feeling the same way.

Reader alert: this is going to be a long one.

When I last posted, we were heading up the mountain hoping for two things: that the cyclone in the forecast would veer off course, and that the fixed lines would be in place to the summit by the time we reached Camp Four. We were scheduled to head into the icefall in the early hours of May 8, targeting an arrival at the Camp Four on May 10, and hoping to summit in the early hours of May 11.

As we gathered in the dining tent, in an eerie repeat of Robert’s decision to pull out as we launched our first rotation, Teemu announced the same thing. This was not a huge surprise, as he had been thinking out loud about it for the past several days. Throughout the first rotation, he had been moving slowly. This put him in the icefall for longer than he was comfortable with, and made him worry about how he would handle the long days high on the mountain. “I am completely at peace with my decision”, he explained. ” I just don’t feel comfortable. I got to Camp Two and don’t need to go higher for this to have been a great climb. Good luck up there!”

We had already been a small team, made smaller by Robert’s departure, and I liked it in many ways. Now the expedition had become my own private summit push, supported by one of the best expedition leaders and strongest Sherpa teams on the planet. I would miss heading up the mountain with Teemu, but I was fine on my own. I was intensely focused on what I needed to get done in the coming days, and eager to get underway.

The climbing Sherpas on Everest perform a dangerous job because it is the best path available to support their families, but there is also significant status in summiting. They all want a shot at it. Given how committed Phil is to his Sherpas, it was no surprise that he allowed those who had been planning to support Teemu to go for the summit anyway. So our summit team became me, Pasang Ongchu, Pasang Nima, Da Kipa, and Sonam. While the Sherpas were literally and figuratively carrying more of the load , we were a team with a shared goal. It was a neat feeling.

Our team left base camp at 1:00am on May 8. A juniper fire was lit on the stone alter and we each threw three handfuls of rice on it to seek blessing from the mountain gods. Here is a photo of Pasang Ongchu and me in front of the alter, ready to roll:

Speaking of safe passage, in a previous post I described the protection amulets that the Lama of Pangboche gave each of us at the puja ceremony. I still had mine around my neck, as did all the members of our team. I also had my wedding ring. (Fingers swell significantly at high altitude and rings cut off circulation. By the time you notice it, there is no way to get the ring off. Many fingers have been lost because of this.) Here is a post climb photo of my two protection totems:

We headed out, climbed back up through the icefall, stopped briefly at Camp One for a water break, then continued up the Western Cym to Camp Two. As always, it was hard work, but I felt strong and we made very good time. We arrived at Camp Two in seven hours, shortly before the sun crested Lhotse and began warming things up. I had a couple of mugs of tea and then crawled into a tent to hang out for the rest of the day.

Our plan had been to move to Camp Three the following day, but when Phil radioed up the weather forecast, it now called for high winds on May 10 when we would be moving from Camp Three to Camp Four. So we pushed everything back and spent an additional day at Camp Two. I was eager to get the job done and found it hard to hang out for an extra day, but the rest was actually a good thing.

Two important things also became clear at this point. First, the fixed ropes – as we had gambled on – were now in all the way to the summit. Second, the positive energy that many of you said you would direct toward altering the path of the cyclone worked! (My cousin Cecil was the first to call the shift in a blog comment, based on his “Windy” app.) In short order, the cyclone altered course into the Bay of Bengal and was no longer a threat to Everest. We had a double green light for the summit.

As mentioned in my previous post, I knew going in that the summit push, including both the ascent and descent, would involve some of the hardest mental and physical days of my life. I simultaneously was eager to get it all done and dreaded it. In my head, I broke it up into segments: focusing on what I needed to accomplish each day. Then I put one foot in front of the other until I got there. Then I shifted focus to the next day. I knew that a week of such days would fly by quickly, and they did.

On May 10 we climbed half way up the Lhotse Face to Camp Three at 23,500 feet. Here is a photo of the Lhotse Face and Everest summit pyramid that Chase Merriam, one of my team members from last year, took two weeks ago from high on neighboring Nuptse. It does a good job of depicting the terrain we were covering. Camp Three is among the ice bulges on the right side of the face. Then the route angles up and left, across the prominent rock slabs known as the “yellow band”, further up and left across the black rock ridge known as the “Geneva Spur”, to the South Col: the cleft between Lhotse on the right and Everest on the left. If you look closely, you can see a trail in the snow, angling across the yellow band to the Geneva Spur:

The Lhotse Face is 4,000 vertical feet of exposed, sustained climbing at angles of 45-70 degrees. To access it, you need to climb over the “bergschrund”: the large crevasse at the bottom of the face. The bergschrund is also visible in Chase’s photo above. Here is a photo of Pasang Ongchu starting up it:

As I described last year, Camp Three is cut out of the Lhotse Face, with dramatic views out over the Western Cym to Pumori, Cho Oyo, and other prominent peaks. Here is a photo taken from just outside my tent:

More than one climber has fallen to their death when being too casual moving around this camp, so there are multiple incentives to stay in your tent. Pasang Ongchu, Pasang Nima, and I did exactly that:

At 5:00am the following morning, May 11, we left Camp Three to climb the upper half of the Lhotse Face, across the yellow band and Geneva Spur, to Camp Four. From this point on, we were all breathing bottled oxygen. Last year when we climbed this section, we had the Lhotse Face pretty much to ourselves, as most people were dug in lower on the mountain due to the impending cyclone. This year, in confirmation of a good weather outlook, we had lots of company. It was the one time I experienced what you often read about in connection with Everest: long lines of climbers attached to the fixed rope, moving painfully slowly. We did manage to pass a bunch of people, but each time the effort involved at that altitude left us breathless and questioning if it had been worth it.

There were about a hundred people moving moving between Camp Three and Four this day. Not huge numbers compared to most of the word’s great mountains, but made very noticeable by the need for everyone to remain clipped into the same fixed ropes, and by the extreme slowness that people move at that altitude. We were still able to make good time to Camp Four, but it was frustrating. It also was an example of what we wanted to avoid on our final climb to the summit, where knife edge ridges can create severe bottlenecks, with potentially dire consequences if things go awry.

Camp Four, at 26,000 feet, would be the fifteenth highest mountain in the world if it were a summit, but it isn’t. It is an extremely windy col; often described as one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Remains of blown apart tents lie embedded in the snow and ice. It is at the altitude where the so-called “death zone” begins: where your body is decaying dangerously every minute you are there. Bottled oxygen helps significantly, but it is still a place to get down from as soon as you can. Here is a photo of Da Kipa and Sonam outside of our tents:

This is where, last year, we spent two nights lying in our tents waiting for the winds to drop so we could go for the summit. It is where, hours before we were to depart, a cyclone-related snowstorm started which put an end to my Everest dream. It is where we packed up our gear and began a challenging descent back down the Lhotse Face, with two members of our group dangerously slowed by a combination of snow blindness and altitude issues. It is a place that, as I flew home last year, I didn’t think I would return to. But now here I was, and things felt very different. All the pieces were falling into place. After resting for the remainder of the afternoon, we would be leaving for the summit that night.

Climbing toward my dream

Phil and Pasang Ongchu had zero desire for us to get stuck in lines as we climbed the final 3,000 vertical feet to the summit. Displaying their usual mix of pragmatism and creativity, their plan was for us depart the South Col at 7:00pm and reach the summit in the middle of the night. That way, we would have no one ahead of us slowing us down, and we should be off of the knife edge summit ridges before encountering other climbers on their way up.

This plan wasn’t hugely different from what others would be doing. Most Everest climbers these days leave for the summit an hour or two before midnight, hoping to reach the summit around sunrise. This gives them plenty of time to get back down to Camp Four in daylight, in advance of the storms that tend to materialize in the afternoon. So we would be giving ourselves a several hour head start over the hundred or so other climbers who would also be going for the summit.

I bought into the plan completely. While my boyhood dreams and recent expectations always pictured cresting the summit ridge in bright morning light, one of my biggest concerns about climbing Everest was the risk of getting stuck in a bottleneck high on the mountain. That is one way that bad things happen to people up there, and I didn’t want that happening to me.

Around 5:00pm I began getting ready: pulling my climbing harness over my bulky down suit, clipping on my acscender and other climbing devices, zipping two small water bottles filled with warm drink into the inner pockets of my suit, triple checking each item in my pack, putting fresh batteries in my headlamp, confirming the level of my oxygen bottle. I felt like an astronaut preparing for liftoff.

I also thought back to last year, when I had been here and gone through the same steps, thinking it was about to happen, only to have it all suddenly change. I had come back to Everest because I wanted to experience this one day that I had missed: the final climb to the summit. I had read and thought about it so much that I could picture most of the route in my head; all the landmark features.

We emerged from our tents at 7:00pm as planned and walked the short distance across the icy plateau to where the climbing begins. To my mild surprise, Pasang Ongchu suggested that Sonam, Pasang Nima and I start heading up, and that he and Kipa would catch up shortly. It sounded like he had a last minute equipment issue to deal with. So off we went.

High altitude summit days have a dream-like quality. You move slowly in an alien world; the lack of oxygen rendering you semi-infantile as you push onward and deal with the elements around you. Decision making is blurred, and recollections become hazy with large gaps in them. This night had all of that. At the same time, I was intensely aware of what was unfolding. Our climb to the top of the world will remain indelibly etched in my memory for as long as I walk this earth. I’ll try to describe how it all flowed.

For the first couple of hours, we climbed the so-called “triangular face”, a mix of snow couloirs and rock bands. It is relentlessly steep, but I was expecting it. I felt strong and just kept moving upward. It was snowing lightly. My only concern at this point was that Pasang Ongchu and Kipa hadn’t caught up to us. I looked down for their headlamp lights but couldn’t see them through the snow. I kept asking Sonam and Pasang Nima: “where are Pasang Ongchu and Kipa?”, and they kept answering “soon coming, soon coming”. I wasn’t sure they were soon coming. Pasang Ongchu is a superman, but over the past week or two he had been struggling relative to his normal performance. Phil and I talked about it afterwards and we think he may be dealing with some health issues. At the moment, I wasn’t majorly concerned that he was lagging, but I was concerned.

One of the main elements of my plan for Everest was having someone of Pasang Ongchu’s caliber at my side on summit night, in the event that something went wrong. Now he wasn’t by my side. Another critical element was having a fourth bottle of oxygen. Four bottles is a pretty typical number for climbers these days. Phil assured me that, at the pace I move, I would only need three. I agreed with him, but insisted on having, (and paying for), four bottles anyway. Like climbing with Pasang Ongchu, the fourth bottle was my insurance policy in case something went unexpectedly wrong: like a long wait in a queue, a storm, an injury, or a failed O ring on one of my other bottles. You read all the time about people dying on summit night because they unexpectedly run out of oxygen. I was determined to make sure this didn’t happen to me.

I was carrying the bottle I was breathing off of. Sonam and Pasang Nima were each carrying one of my additional bottles, and my fourth bottle was behind us somewhere in either Pasang Ongchu or Kipa’s pack. In other words, the four oxygen bottle element of my summit night insurance plan was also not currently in place as I had intended it. Realizing this, I asked Pasang Nima to reach behind me and turn my flow rate down from four liters a minute to three liters. A four liter flow rate is also pretty standard on Everest these days. I had climbed from Camp Three to Four on two liters per minute and done fine. I had looked forward to cranking it up to four liters on summit night, and had used this prospect as a bit of a mental motivation tool. But I refused to run at four liters if I wasn’t in sight of my fourth bottle. I had to plan as if I only had three bottles. So a three liter flow rate for me it was. We continued upward.

The upper third of the triangular face is a long snow couloir that leads to the actual southeast ridge, for which the route is named. There was a foot of fresh, windblown snow in it. Sonam broke trail, with me and Pasang Nima right behind. This made the climbing far tougher, but we were still making good progress. As we got higher, the windblown snow got crustier and the fixed lines were increasingly stuck under it. At each anchor point, Sonam had to dig around the anchor, find the line, and then wrestle it out of the crust. This was incredibly hard work and slowed us down considerably. It dawned on me: usually when people climb to Everest’s summit they are following a trail well broken in by prior climbers, but now we were the ones breaking trail. A whole different experience and challenge.

The three of us gained the southeast ridge at a prominent bulge known as “the balcony”, a spot that is roughly half way between the South Col and the summit. This is where Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made their final camp before their history making summit in 1953. It is one of those landmarks I have long dreamed of seeing.

We followed the southeast ridge up and to the left. A short ways above the balcony, Sonam stopped and began tugging at the fixed line. I shone my headlamp ahead of him and didn’t like what I saw. The fixed line was submerged in the crust and Sonam couldn’t free it. We couldn’t see where it reemerged from the crust further up the ridge. Sonam kept tugging on the line and digging in the crust, but to no avail. I had the sudden, horrifying realization that if we couldn’t free the line, and if the line was similarly buried further up the ridge, we would have to turn around. In all my mental images of how summit night might play out, this scenario had never occurred to me.

For now, we faced a a seminal decision. If we wanted to continue, we would need to unclip from the fixed line and climb unprotected up to the point where it reemerged from the crust. Furthermore, none of us had ice axes with us. (I carried mine up and down the mountain on all three rotations last year, and on our first rotation this year, never taking it off my pack. Relying on the fixed lines, none of the Sherpas carry ice axes. After a long conversation with Phil about the pros and cons, I had decided to leave mine behind on this summit push.) Again, I thought: “my whole plan involved having Pasang Ongchu at my side in case of things like this”. But Pasang Ongchu and Kipa remained below us, out of sight.

For me, this was the “how badly do you want this?” moment. I had promised myself and my family that I would trade off reaching the summit in favor of returning home safely, and I meant it. Turning around clearly needed to be considered. At the same time, the ridge at this point wasn’t that steep. If I encountered this situation at home in the White Mountains in winter, I would clearly go for it. The difference was that, at almost 28,000 feet, I knew I was physically and mentally compromised. And a slip would result in a 6,000 foot fall.

Mountaineering is all about assessing risk/reward. The risk here felt manageable, and the reward was fulfilling a life long dream. Sonam, Pasang Nima, and I unclipped from the fixed line, held out our arms for balance, and carefully inched up the ridge, making sure with every step that our crampons were well set into the crust. A hundred yards up the ridge, we found the fixed line remerging from the crust. We clipped back in and continued upward. Happily, this was pretty much the last of the issues we had with the fixed lines.

We followed the southeast ridge upward. The snow stopped and the skies cleared, with a full moon illuminating the mountain and its surrounding peaks. We could see lightening storms flashing in the valleys far below. The feeling I had was of climbing steeply up into the sky, in a way I have never experienced on a mountain before. Everest is breathtakingly high, and its summit cone towers above the Himalayan giants that surround it. Climbing in the moonlight, just the three of us alone on the mountain, was ethereal. More powerful by far than any of my lifelong dreams. I will never, never forget how it looked and felt.

About half way between the balcony and south summit, Pasang Ongchu and Kipa finally caught up to us. I breathed a sight of relief and cranked my flow rate back up to four liters. Pasang Ongchu took the lead as we climbed the steep bands of rock and snow that rise to the south summit. It was comforting to follow him.

I could see all the familiar landmarks in the moonlight. As we approached the south summit, I could see the west ridge that Willi Unsoeld and Tom Hornbein climbed in 1963, converging on where we were headed. I knew we had about an hour to go. As I had pictured in my mind for years, we dropped down off the south summit and inched across the narrow traverse toward the Hillary Step. I steadied myself just under the prominent fin of the snow cornice on my right, knowing that on its other side there was a 7,000 drop down to Tibet, with a similar drop into Nepal on my left.

The Hillary Step has gotten easier since pieces of it broke off in the earthquake of 2015. What I didn’t expect was the need to traverse slanted rock slabs with that massive drop under me, crampons scraping to find purchase. It scared me, but you just had to commit to it and keep moving. I crested the Hillary Step, knowing that the summit was close, and kept climbing up the final summit ridge. At some point, Pasang Ongchu and Kipa had dropped back and were a bit behind us again. Sonam stopped to take a short rest. Pasang Nima and I continued upward. The wind suddenly started gusting, causing us to stagger and almost fall. Then it backed off, making it easier to keep moving.

Then we were there. I knew we were there. I could see the small summit in the moonlight, with its prayer flags blowing in the wind. Pasang Nima and I walked the final steps together and clipped into some anchors, to make sure we didn’t slide. The others arrived not long after. We were all alone up there. Just us and the mountain. The highest humans on the planet.

Usually, when I reach the summit of big mountains, I well up with emotion; due to a combination of personal feelings, physical exhaustion, and lack of sleep. Of all mountains, I expected to experience that kind of emotional release now, but I didn’t. I was glad I was there, but was intensely focused on doing the few things I needed to do and then getting back down safely. I reached for my Garmin device to send a message to my family, but found that it had frozen. I then took out the banner I had carried up, the name of the outdoor equipment store my father had as I grew up, and a photo of Jill, John, Holly,Will, and me taken on Jill’s and my 25th wedding anniversary. I asked Pasang Nima to take a photo with my camera. Here is the photo:

Then I reminded Pasang Nima that I needed to change out my oxygen bottle, which was almost empty, and we did. Then I looked around one more time to try and embed it all in my memory. Then I started down.

Our ascent had taken 7 hours, including all the breaking trail and dealing with the fixed ropes, which is pretty quick. A major factor was having the mountain to ourselves; not having to wait behind anyone. I was eager to get down the Hillary Step, across the knife edge traverse, and to the south summit before we started meeting groups of upcoming climbers. We largely succeeded, although we did meet several small clusters on the traverse and at the south summit. We were able to pass each other on the fixed lines without too much trouble. Below the south summit, we began to encounter larger lines of upcoming climbers, but passing them worked ok as well. We had one wait of around 30 minutes on the steepest part of the ridge below the south summit, but that gave me time to dig out my camera and take this photo of the sun rising behind Makalu:

We continued descending though an ethereally beautiful dawn. Once the last of the upward climbers passed us, we again had the mountain to ourselves. Here is a photo of Pasang Ongchu just above the balcony, (not far from where we made the decision to unclip from the fixed line on our ascent):

And here is one of Lhotse in the early morning light. You can see the dark rocks of the South Col, where we were headed, down in the saddle between Lhotse and Everest:

We were back at the South Col around 6:00am and collapsed into our tents. Four hours later, at Phil’s insistence, we were packing up to descend to Camp Two. The lower we got the better. There are multiple instances of people successfully summiting Everest, getting back to Camp Four, and then dying in their tents. And it disproportionately happens to older climbers. I had wondered about this phenomenon. Phil later helped me understand the reason for it.

The 4,000 vertical foot descent down the Lhotse Face destroyed my legs, but we made it to Camp Two by late afternoon. Then I really collapsed into my tent. It had been a long day and a half with no sleep: climbing from Camp Three to the South Col, resting briefly, climbing to the summit and back, resting briefly again, then descending from the South Col to Camp Two. I was thoroughly spent; not only physically, but mentally. Every step of the descent, I was conscious that the majority of deaths on Everest occur while people are descending. You are so tired, and it is so easy to mess up. Every minute of my descent, I kept repeating to myself: “don’t mess up, don’t mess up”.

I woke up the next morning knowing that I needed just one more safe passage through the icefall. Pasang Ongchu and I left Camp Two at 8:00am, stopped briefly at Camp One for a water break, then kept on moving. Here is a photo I took from the middle of the icefall, looking back up at some climbers following us down:

Around mid day, we rappelled down a final steep ice block, walked out of the icefall, and stopped to take off our crampons. Making the sign of the cross is not generally in my repertoire, but I spontaneously made the sign of the cross. Thirty minutes later, we were back in base camp. Here is a photo of me taken shortly thereafter. The smile on my face says it all:

Yesterday, the situation was almost too good to be true. We were looking at a five day weather window between the 10th-15th, and we were ready to launch our summit push. All we needed was for the rope fixing team to push the ropes all the way to the summit, at which point we would start heading up. While it will take three to four days to get from base camp to Camp Four, Phil and Pasang Ongchu were united in the opinion that we shouldn’t leave base camp until we are 100% sure the ropes are fully in.

As background for some of you, fixed ropes are sets of lines attached to the mountain by various screws and anchors. Climbers clip into them with carabiners and other devices. This is what prevents you from sliding thousands of feet down the mountain to pretty certain death if you slip and fall up high. Every year a team of Sherpas is designated to fix the ropes, and a portion of everyone’s climbing permit fees compensates them for their efforts. The higher they get on the mountain, the more they need good weather to allow them to approach the summit. Once the ropes are in all the way, summit attempts by all the climbers on the mountain can begin.

As of yesterday, we were eager to get going and mildly frustrated that the fixed lines weren’t yet in to the summit, but we knew we had a large weather window on the back end. Our departure date was simply a matter of days.

Things are always changing in the mountains. This morning, when I rolled out of my sleeping bag and headed to the dining tent for my first cup of coffee, Phil greeted me with a cheerful: “Good morning, I have some f_cking bad news for you!”

Cyclones were the story of my life last year, and now there is another one forming in the Bay of Bengal. While, just like New England hurricanes, the actual track is constantly getting updated, the current forecasts call for it hitting the mountain on the 13th or 14th, potentially with very heavy snow that could shut the climbing down for some time. If we want to summit before it hits, we have to leave now and roll the dice that the ropes are fixed to the summit by the time we get there.

So that is what we are doing. We will leave tonight at 12:30am, (May 8, Nepal time), targeting a summit on May 11. As usual, things can change, but that is the plan. As the rope fixing situation and weather forecasts become clearer, we have the option to hold up at Camp Two if need be.

Phil will stay at base camp, constantly monitoring the weather forecasts and communicating updates by radio. Teemu and I will head up with the Sherpa team, in whom I have total confidence. These guys are rock stars. Here is a photo of them. From left to right: Kami Neru (nicknamed “Mad Dog”), Pasang Ongchu (Sirdar, and my climbing partner), Sonam (who will climb along with Pasang Ongchu and me on summit night), Pasang Nima, and Da Kipa:

It is impossible to overstate the respect I have for these guys. Their combination of physical strength, climbing prowess, dedication, and good humor is stunning. It is also the bedrock of our expedition.

One issue with our plan is that every other team on the mountain sees the same forecasts and is in the same situation. Those who are ready to launch a summit push will now be pressured to do so at the same time. This will no doubt increase the number of teams trying for the summit on May 11 and 12. While the infamous photo of lines on the summit ridge, which went viral several years ago, is a worst case scenario that generally misrepresents reality, bottlenecks on the narrow ridges high on the mountain are a real concern.

Given this situation, we may well end up trying to arrive at the summit between midnight and dawn, to get up and down off the knife edge ridges before others arrive. This will be Pasang Ongchu’s call, based on how he assesses the situation when we get to Camp Four.

While I liked much better the situation we were dealing with yesterday, I still like our plan and have confidence in it. Safety will always be our overriding priority, and – as last year – we are fully prepared to turn around or otherwise alter course as needed. And the weather forecast may well evolve further. Who knows how exactly the darn cyclone will end up tracking. After two direct hits last year, I feel like I am owed one that veers off course.

In the event the forecast gets worse and we can’t try for the summit, we will descend to base camp, regroup, and hopefully take another shot at it later in the month.

With luck, the base camp internet will allow me to get this out before we leave tonight. Once we get to Camp Four, I will be in touch with Jill via my satellite texting device and she will email out an update on our situation and timing.

Here are two photos I took this morning, right after Phil gave me the cyclone news and right before I filled my mug with coffee. The sun was breaking through the morning mist and the peaks surrounding base camp were increasingly revealed. It was a beautiful sight.

Ever upward. Namaste!

Six days ago, we headed into the icefall at midnight to start our acclimatization rotation to Camp Two and above. We met in the dining tent an hour in advance.

As we forced down pre departure toast and coffee, Robert made a surprise announcement: “I’m not going with you guys. I just had three separate dreams in which I saw myself lying dead on the mountain. I don’t know if it’s fear of the icefall, or if it’s something else, but I’m out.” This from a guy who has been on Everest three times, skied from the summit of Manaslu, and has been on Lhotse twice. By my count, he has been through the icefall more than twenty times.

In a way, it didn’t surprise me. Climbing Everest is a hugely mental game. You can sense when peoples’ heads aren’t fully in it, and Robert’s hadn’t been. You have to listen to your inner voice. When he summited Everest in 2018, Robert had a very challenging descent. More recently on Lhotse, he had problems with altitude that forced him to descend. I had worried quietly about how he would do up high this year, and I think his inner voice was cautioning him as well. He was wise to listen to it.

So, as Robert packed his duffles for the trip down to Lukla to catch a flight to Kathmandu, Phil, Teemu, Sirdar Pasang Ongchu, and I were heading up the mountain.

I need to tell you about Pasang Ongchu. In addition to being Phil’s long time Sirdar, supervising all of the climbing Sherpas and expedition support infrastructure, he is an accomplished climber and certified guide. He has climbed all over the Himalayas, summited Everest eight times, and climbed in Switzerland, Peru, and Japan. For those of you who followed my climb last year, he is a bit like a younger Lakpa Rita.

As I worked with Phil to plan my climb, one critical component was arranging for Pasang Ongchu to be my personal climbing partner. We will climb together at all times on the mountain and share a tent. In addition to giving me the flexibility to move at my own pace and schedule, it assures that someone of his caliber will be in my tent at the south col and at my side on summit night, when if things go haywire the consequences can be severe.

Our climb through the dark icefall to Camp One was other-worldly, as it always is. Phil had suggested a midnight start to assure that we weren’t slowed down by other groups, and that worked perfectly, We paused only once to wait for a descending group to navigate a tricky ladder over a crevasse. That group turned out to be Ben Jones, my expedition leader from last year, and the three climbers who comprise this year’s Alpine Ascents team. Here is a photo of that moment, with Ben on the right. Ben and I clapped each other on the shoulders and exchanged encouragement as we passed.

It began to get light as we reached the upper portion of the icefall. Phil flexed his superhuman climbing speed and, along with one Sherpa, motored ahead to Camp One to get the tents set up. Pasang Ongchu and I maintained a steady pace. Teemu and another Sherpa maintained their own pace some ways back. Here is a photo of Pasang Ongchu in the icefall’s upper section:

And here is another of him navigating one of the steep climbs up the edge of a crevasse:

We arrived at Camp One shortly before 6:00am. It was cold until the sun rose over the surrounding peaks, after which it warmed up quickly. Here is a view of our tents looking up the Western Cym toward Camp Two and the Lhotse Face. That’s the Everest summit pyramid left center.

The following day we hiked up the Western Cym to Camp Two. Here is a photo Teemu took of Pasang Ongchu and me heading out, (me in the back, drafting Pasang step for step):

Camp Two, at 21,400 feet, serves as a staging area for Sherpas carrying loads higher on the mountain. As such, it has a surprisingly robust tent infrastructure. Here is a photo of Teemu (left) and Phil (right) in our dining tent:

A few more words on each of these two.

After a youth full of outdoor sports, Teemu got involved with the European music industry. This led to problems with drugs and alcohol. He went sober and wrote a book about it, which apparently is quite well known in Finland. Putting his life back together, he found salvation in the mountains as a backcountry guide. He explained to me: “Compared to managing Finish heavy metal bands, leading people in the wilderness is incredibly straightforward “. Teemu is an accomplished climber, including climbing Cholatse – a challenging technical peak at the foot of the Khumbu Valley – with Phil several years ago.

Phil is a legend. After growing up in the UK, he spent several years in Lhasa helping found the Tibetan Mountaineering School which has trained a generation of local climbers. He has summited scores of 8,000 meter peaks and now spends half the year based in Kathmandu and the other half based in Woodstock NY, leading expeditions in the Himalayas and South America.

In addition to possessing a sharp and irreverent sense of humor, Phil has a unique approach to his business. “Altitude Junkies” is a loyal band of experienced climbers who keep returning to climb with Phil. He receives frequent inquiries from people wanting to join him and delights in referring most of them to other guide services.

Phil eschews publicity and self promotion, and does not run Altitude Junkies like a typical business. He pays his Sherpa team well above typical Everest wages, and is the only operator who invests in oxygen for his Sherpas when they are carrying loads to high camps. Those looking for expedition updates on his rudimentary website typically find a terse “we have arrived and started ” comment at the beginning, and a “we have summited and are heading home” comment at the end. Anything more than that was probably put there by his wife Trish. When Phil and I agreed that I would join this year’s Everest climb, he never asked for a deposit. Two weeks before I flew to Kathmandu, I was still bugging him for an invoice so I could pay him.

I really like both of these guys, and Pasang Ongchu as well.

In keeping with Phil’ flexible approach to expeditions, Teemu and Phil headed back to base camp after two nights at Camp Two, while Pasang Ongchu and I spent a third night and climbed to 22,500 feet at the base of the Lhotse face. Here is a photo I took of some climbers ahead of us and we approached the Lhotse face:

The next morning, Pasang Ongchu and I descended to base camp. As we emerged from the icefall and stopped to take off our crampons, I thought to myself: “two icefall passages down, hopefully just two to go”, and thanked the mountain gods for safe passage so far.

REFLECTIONS AND OUTLOOK

The rotation went as well as it could have. I am feeling strong and, of critical importance, remain healthy. Once you come down with any kind of bug at altitude, it is very hard to shake. The model of climbing with Pasang Ongchu is working great. I really appreciate the flexibility to move at my own pace, which at least for the moment is quicker than many of the other climbers on the mountain. It is also incredibly freeing to be able to stop whenever you want, to rest or take a photo. Climbing in a group, there is always real or subconscious pressure to maintain pace with the person in front of you, and you can spend more time focusing on their heels than on your surroundings.

At the same time, this remains very hard work. The body gasps for air, and it requires real force of will to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Dangers of various forms always lurk, especially in the icefall. Much of the time, your are uncomfortable and physically exhausted. Some of my least favorite times are the transitions out of my warm sleeping bag in the morning to get ready to exit the tent. Every task is an effort. The cold feels like an enemy. Pulling on climbing boots is a hurdle that leaves me panting. Morning to evening, the overall misery index is high.

Having completed our acclimatization rotation, and being on a “two rotation” model rather than three, we – in contrast to many of the teams here- are almost ready to go for the summit. We just need the fixed ropes to be in place all the way to the top, our high camps to be fully established and stocked with oxygen, and a weather window to present itself.

The fixed ropes are already in place to the south col and should get to the summit within the next few days. Our Sherpas carried a major load to Camp Four last night and our camps are pretty much stocked. Phil is maniacally focused on having us ready to go for the summit as soon as an opportunity is there. On that front, current forecasts suggest that a weather window may open around May 9-12. If it does, we will be launching our summit push in the next few days. Things may unfold very quickly.

If we miss an early weather window for whatever reason, we will hang out here at base camp and wait for the next one. For now, my job is to rest, recover from the recent rotation, and get my head ready for the summit push, whenever it happens.

If we end up leaving soon, I will try to get out another short post with some final details, including how those of you who are interested can follow me on my Garmin InReach. Internet here at base camp, provided by a solar powered cellular relay system, remains frustratingly sketchy, but most days I can pick up a signal at some point.

ADDENDUM

It has been almost two days since I wrote this and I have been unable to post it because the internet is down. Something about a broken relay tower down the valley. Some updates and additions, with an eye toward the internet’s eventual return:

– The near term weather window continues to look very favorable. We are currently targeting May 10-12 for a potential summit. This would mean leaving base camp the night of May 6 or 7.

– In this scenario, we would climb through the icefall and go directly to Camp Two. Then move to Camp Three. Then move to Camp Four at the south col, rest there for a few hours, and depart for the summit mid to late evening: hoping to arrive at the summit around day break. Exact timing on summit night will depend both on the weather and on the number of other people going for the summit. Of course, all of this can change.

– Once we are at Camp Four and have finalized our plans, Jill has graciously offered to send an update out to the blog post alert list. I will be carrying my Garmin locator device on summit night and it will update my position every 20 minutes. For any of you interested, you can follow my progress at https://share.garmin.com/SUO62 .

– While timing can vary widely for all sorts of reasons, I am expecting it to take around 8-9 hours to reach the summit once I depart Camp Four, and roughly 3 hours to return. If you are tracking me and progress appears to suddenly halt, don’t worry. Garmin batteries can easily freeze up there.

It feels like things are coming together, and I am really excited. The summit push and return will be six of the most physically and mentally challenging days of my life, but I feel ready. I did five of them last year so I know what to expect. I hope I now get to experience the sixth.

I keep saying it because it is true: your interest and support mean the world. Thank you!