Everest Base Camp

Alex Txikon and his Sherpa team have reached the Base camp at the foot of Mount Everest in sufficient time before the beginning of the expected bad weather period. This is shown by his GPS tracker. The 35-year-old Basque was “exhausted but satisfied and very confident to reach the summit,” the Spanish sports newspaper “Marca” reported on Saturday evening. It has not yet been confirmed how high exactly Txikon and Co. have ascended this time.

Really up to the South Col?

“Marca” claims that the team has already equipped Camp 4 at 7,950 meters. However, this does not coincide with the information given by Txikon’s GPS tracker. The device displays a turn-around altitute of about 7,650 meters, 300 meters below the South Col. However, according to Alex’ press team, the GPS tracker had not shown the correct height in the days before. Today it seemed to work again.

Stormy days

I therefore recommend to wait until Alex himself tells us how far up they have climbed. After the hardships of the ascent without bottled oxygen, he should sleep a bit longer. Txikon will also have time to recover during the next days. The weather forecast predicts heavy storms at least until Thursday. A first summit attempt is out of question until then.

Update 5. Feb., 1 a.m.: “I’m back at the BC! We went up to C4 to equip it, and after we came back to C2, they stayed there and I decided to go down to the Base Camp,” Alex wrote on Twitter.