Halo above Everest Base Camp

The base camps on both sides of Mount Everest are slowly but surely filling up. For the Nepalese south side, the government in Kathmandu has issued around 275 permits to foreign climbers. The route through the Khumbu Icefall has been already completed. Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, expedition leader and head of the Nepalese operator “Imagine”, is enthusiastic about the work of the “Icefall Doctors”: “The route to Camp 1 is best so far. They used to experience ladders in more than 20 places but this year it is only in three different places with two ladders joined maximum.” As the 32-year-old informed on Facebook, there are still two big crevasses between Camp 1 at about 6,000 meters and Camp 2 at 6,400 meters to be crossed. “It is expected to have at least three to five ladders joined.”

In memory of Ueli Steck

Ueli Steck (1976-2017)

Apart from the commercial expeditions, all of which will ascend on the normal routes, two teams plan to traverse Everest and Lhotse without bottled oxygen. The 26-year-old Tenjing Sherpa wants to complete the dream of his climbing partner Ueli Steck, who died last year. The Swiss fell to death on 30 April 2017 during a solo acclimatization climb on Nuptse. Ueli had wanted to climb with Tenjing via the West Ridge to the summit of Mount Everest and from there via the South Col to the top of Lhotse. The British climber Jon Griffith should then accompany the project as a photographer and cameraman. He is back again now. “I’m excited to be shooting Ueli’s climbing partner Sherpa Tenji attempt to finish off what Ueli had started, and in his style,” Jon writes on Facebook. “For me it’s about honouring the memory of one of my closest friends and bringing the Nepalese climbing community to the main stage.”

Romanian-Slovak duo

Horia Colibasanu (r.) and Peter Hamor (l.)

The 41-year-old Romanian Horia Colibasanu and the 53-year-old Slovak Peter Hamor also want to tackle the Everest-Lhotse traverse via the West Ridge without breathing mask. Both have arrived in the base camp. In May 2017, Colibasanu had been the first climber in the spring season who had scaled Everest without bottled oxygen, having ascended from the north side. It was his eighth eight-thousander. At the same time, Hamor had completed his collection of the 14 eight-thousanders on Dhaulagiri. Only on Everest Peter had used a breathing mask.