High Camp in the Western Cwm

The preliminary work on Mount Everest and Lhotse is entering the final phase. According to Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, expedition leader and head of the Nepalese operator “Imagine”, today ten Sherpas were to climb up to Everest South Col at about 8,000 meters to pitch up Camp 4 . “Kilu Pemba and myself will fix Lhotse Camp 4,” Mingma wrote on Facebook yesterday. He wants to lead two Chinese clients to the 8516-meter-high summit of Lhotse. Five more Chinese from his team will tackle Mount Everest, including – as reported – the double amputee Xia Boyu, aged 69. Mingma is known as an early starter at the eight-thousanders. “I am quite sure that we will be the first team on the summit of Lhotse,” he told me in March when we met in Kathmandu. “We are planning to reach it at the end of April or in the first week of May.”

Rather safe route

Route through the Icefall

Most commercial teams have completed their first acclimatization rotation on the mountain with overnight stays in Camp 1 (6,000 m) or Camp 2 (6,400 meters) and are recovering at Everest Base Camp. The team leaders unanimously praise the quality and safety of the route through the Khumbu Icefall, prepared by the “Icefall Doctors”. An incident on Wednesday did not change that. A serac collapsed, two Sherpas were slightly injured. “Incidents like an ice collapse or small avalanches are normal on the mountains,” said Ang Dorjee Sherpa, head of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) to the newspaper “Himalayan Times”.

Camp 2 at 7,000 meters

On Saturday, Romanian Horia Colibasanu and Slovak Peter Hamor want to set off from Base Camp to pitch up their Camp 2 at 7.000 meters and spend four to five days there. The two Europeans want to traverse the summits of Mount Everest and Lhotse, without bottled oxygen, according to their own words on a new route. In 2017, Ueli Steck had also planned to do the Everest-Lhotse traverse. Next Monday is the first anniversary of Ueli’s death. The Swiss top climber had fallen to death during an acclimatization climb on Nuptse.

Update 28 April: “Today we fixed till 8200m on Lhotse(8516m). Tomorrow we hopefully get to Lhotse summit,” writes Mingma Gyalje Sherpa on Facebook.

Alex Txikon

Alex Txikon seems to be euphoric. “I do not feel tired,” writes the 35-year-old Basque, after having descended from Everest South Col at 7,950 meters in one go to Base Camp at about 5,300 meters. “My body signals to me that we will go to the summit the next time. Soon you will have news of the attack.” Before, Alex – along with the Sherpas Norbu, Nuri, Chhepal, Phurba and Pemba – had ascended to Camp 4 for the first time during his winter expedition.

Close to the sky

Txikon and Co. set off from Camp 2 towards the South Col at night, the thermometer shows around minus 30 Celsius. “I’m quite nervous,” Alex describes his feeling before heading out into the starry night. “I do not want to go cold and miss the opportunity to attack the summit during the next rotation.“ The climbers are rewarded by the view. “In a night like this you are so close to the sky that it seems you can reach it.”

200 percent concentration

In the Western Cwm

The six-man team fight their way through the Lhotse flank in the cold that is intensified by the wind. “It is not until 11 a.m. that the sun appears and we finally warm up,” writes Alex. A little later, the climbers reach the South Col. Txikon is depositing 15 kilograms of equipment in Camp 4, a tent, gas cartridges, ropes – and turns around immediately: “Concentration to 200 percent for the descent.” After a short break in Camp 2, Alex decides to descend to Base Camp, without his Sherpa friends who feel too exhausted and want to follow the next day. “Over the years, you learn to measure your strength,” says Alex. “So I knew I could make it unless the Icefall collapsed again.” That was exactly what had happened on the previous ascent, the team had been struggling to find a new way through the ice labyrinth.

Cracked fingertips

This time everything is going well. 18 hours after the start at night, Alex reaches Everest Base Camp. “My feet ache, the fingertips have cracked by the intense cold and the work we have done. The eyes, the lips … I am a mess. But happy.” And ready to climb up to the summit at 8,850 meters the next time. Now, however, it is first of all necessary to sit out the announced storm and to recover.

Rescue flight for Carlos Rubio

Alex Txikon has to re-plan. On Sunday his climbing partner on Mount Everest, Carlos Rubio, had to be evacuated by rescue helicopter to Kathmandu due to a lung inflammation. The 28-year-old Spaniard has meanwhile sent a video message from the hospital. His condition is not serious, but he has to recover for a few days at the clinic. “I know he is fine”, Alex Txikon wrote from Camp 3 at 7,400 meters, “but from here we miss him a lot, since he has worked like a champion and I am really proud of him.” Today Txikon and the Sherpas who accompany him want to pitch up Camp 4 at the South Col at almost 8,000 meters, “for all the force he has transmitted to us”, as Alex writes: “In short, this dream would not be possible without you, Carlos.”

Bitter first experience

Carlos on Everest

For Rubio, the dream of a successful winter ascent of Everest without bottled oxygen is over now. Prior to the expedition, Carlos had been rather new to this game. He had made more headlines as an extreme skier. But Txikon had praised him as representative of the new generation of Spanish climbers, he wanted to give him a chance: “I can not say that Carlos has experience in the Himalayas. But he is super strong, a really good climber.” It’s a pity that Carlos’ first experience on an eight-thousander resulted in a helicopter rescue.

No GPS tracker

Just like the fact that Carlos Rubio, according to Txikon, in the haste unintentionally took the GPS tracker in a bag. We will therefore have to forego information in real time, where exactly Alex and Co. are on the mountain. That’s no big deal, if you keep in mind that before satellite communication and internet were introduced, news from Everest had to be taken by post runners to Kathmandu first and thus had been sent out into the world only a couple of days later. We will not have to wait for news from Alex Txikon for such a long time – even without GPS tracker.