Summit Team Named

[Click on the pictures to see larger versions with captions.]

Yesterday, 17 Chinese climbers reached the summit of Everest early in the morning. That brings the total number of people (that I am aware of) who've climbed the North Ridge to the summit this season to 26. The Chinese got up ahead of predicted high winds that are scheduled to hit today and last a couple of days.

Weather data from Meteo Tech of Switzerland, to which Russell subscribes and which tracks jet stream patterns on Everest, predicted this wind spell, but the data show a good weather window in mid-May. That will surely scramble teams back onto the mountain.

The last couple of days have been sunny and warm around base camp. People ate; washed their clothes, hair and bodies; ate again; filmed and were filmed; then gathered in the Pleasure Dome/Tiger Room with the Sherpas to watch a Bollywood film and down a beer.

The line between feeling you are doing something productive in the game to climb Everest and devolving into a state of stultifying boredom has become narrow indeed.

Another film crew — Atlantic Productions — recently arrived at our camp. The cooks are now feeding more than 40 people, said Lachu, head cook, as he stood hand-making 300 momos (a savory pastry filled with yak meat).

The new crew is making a film about the legendary British Everest heroes George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, who disappeared high on the final ridge in 1924. It's long been speculated that maybe (and it's a small maybe) they made it to the summit, thus beating Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's summit in 1953. There's strong evidence that they didn't get to the top, but the tantalizing possibility that they pulled it off has fueled several modern expeditions to search for the bodies in hopes of finding a camera that Irvine carried.

A few years ago one search expedition found Mallory's broken, frozen body near Camp 4. A snapped rope and a broken leg indicated a fall. Conrad Anker, who found the body, is back at Everest on the Atlantic production. Will yet another search of the rocky, snowy terrain up there reveal Irvine's frozen corpse — and his camera? Will the film be retrievable and offer a photograph of the 1924 climbers on the summit? That possibility propels the searchers.

Our own expedition spent yesterday looking inward, as Russell gave each of his clients a "performance review" to take to heart in the coming days. Despite the slothful pace of base camp life, the countdown for the summit has started.

Russell took each climber aside for a private chat in which he gave them a verbal report card about their strengths and weaknesses vs. their ambitions on the mountain.

I asked Russ to sum up his assessments. His comments included these highlights:

Tim must move with the group on the summit push rather than set his own times to leave and return to camps, and he must accept decisions from the guides and Russell. If you've seen Episode 6 of the previous season of Beyond the Limit, you saw Tim ignore Russell's orders to turn around from his slow summit push and descend. Russ wants no repeat of that situation. (It's a running joke here that if Tim ignores Russ, he'll get Tim's mother on the satellite phone.) For a guy who prides himself on having "a problem with authority," this order could be a challenge, but Everest looms so large in his eyes that this biker-rebel promises he'll get with the program on summit day.

Russ advised Mogens to use oxygen on his summit push. It's a touchy subject for the Dane as he's staked his ambitions on an ascent without supplemental oxygen. So far, Mogens is sticking to his guns and leaving the oxygen behind. Russ is coming from a position of safety — he knows his clients are more level-headed and warmer when plugged into oxygen. He’s also aware that Mogens has hit the wall in the past when trying to climb Everest without oxygen, and he’s concerned that his recent hard time going to Camp 2 (the climb pummeled him — he threw up, and he took far longer than his previous times) doesn’t present an ideal scenario for a no-02 climb.

David Tait and Phurba Tashi got the go-ahead to leave ahead of the main group to slowly march up the glacier and then move from camp to camp on the mountain to begin their epic double traverse. It's the green light David has been waiting for, though yesterday he spent hours plugged into his iPod, thinking hard, digging deep and psyching up. He seemed quietly, stoically nervous all day, until he burst to life in the evening, buying rounds of beer for the team at Russell’s bar. As for Phurba, he’s calm as Buddha, enthusiastic to return to the summit for his 12th ascent. He's even joked about walking another day or so down from Nepal base camp to his village to visit his family.

The others got the green light to proceed on the appointed summit day (date as yet undecided) — except for Betsy, who won’t be on the summit team.

Betsy freely admits that she has found the going harder than most up high, but the episode several days back on the way to Camp 2 when she took five hours to get halfway and continuously felt the urge to curl up in the snow and fall asleep, led Russ to hold her back.

Today I spent some time talking with her to see how she has taken Russell's verdict. She seems philosophical and accepting of the decision. She knows now that she’s not destined to climb Everest for very real reasons — namely, a lack of climbing experience and not the right physical stamina for high altitude.

In talking to her, it's apparent there was a strong metaphysical aspect to Betsy's desires on Everest. She felt that by reaching the highest point on Earth that she’d be closer to the religious sense she carries inside her, and closer to the presence of a loved one who’d passed on.

Far from seeming shattered by not getting a chance to stand atop Everest — "I'm over it," she said — she's moved on rather quickly. She now sees the importance of going home alive and in one piece to the family who form her strongest relationships. Although she feels she’s been somewhat of a New-Age-speaking outsider in this otherwise all-male climbing team, replete with its sometimes Animal House sense of humor, she says she remains concerned about the welfare of her teammates. So, she may just stick around at base camp to witness the upcoming action.

Signing off,
Greg Child