Alex Txikon in high camp on Everest

Danger welds together. When Alex Txikon returned to Base Camp after six exhausting and exciting days on the slopes of Mount Everest, he hugged every Sherpa who had accompanied him. “In this team everyone knows what needs to be done,” the 35-year-old Basque writes in his blog. The appreciation is mutual. In Alex’ words, Norbu Sherpa told him during the descent: “I believe that for more than 20 or 30 years, no westerner has done what you are doing.” Like the six Sherpas, Txikon had carried up loads of more than 30 kilograms through the Khumbu Icefall and further up.

Weaker and weaker

During the six days, there had been several critical situations. At first, Txikon’s Spanish team partner Carlos Rubio had to be flown out by rescue helicopter due to lung problems. The 28-year-old, who – like every team member – had been involved in the material transport, had suddenly become weaker and weaker. “When we walked for ten minutes, it took Carlos five times more,” Alex writes. “One more night at this height would have been very hard for Carlos and I think he would not have had enough strength to descend to Base Camp.”

With courage and luck

In the Western Qwm

After the successful rescue operation, Alex climbed with the Sherpas Norbu, Nuri and Chhepal to Camp 3 at 7,400 meters. After an ice-cold, windy and therefore sleepless night, Chhepal descended, the other three continued their ascent. “Oh my God, what a mistake going out without sun!”, said Alex. At 7,800 meters, the trio turned around. On further descent towards Base Camp, the climbers found that on their route through the Khumbu Icefall some seracs had collapsed. With courage and luck, they made their way back and reached the Base Camp unharmed. I’ve sent Alex three questions. He replied promptly.

Alex, you have now already been at 7,800 meters. How were the conditions on the mountain and how did you feel?

The conditions on the mountain were hard. But fortunately we are a good team with six Nepali climbers: Norbu, Nuri, Chhepal, Phurba, Lakpa and Pemba. With people like them Everest is possible in winter. The conditions are hard but I am super happy with these Nepali climbers, with such an amazing team. We have to say thanks to the company Seven Summits and the helicopter crew because they did an incredible rescue mission for Carlos Rubio.

Dangerous way down

Your companion Carlos had to abandon the expedition due to health problems. Do you have to re-plan now?

Of course Carlos was an important climber. But as I told you before, the other team members are incredibly strong. The most important thing is the friendship. And with these six Nepali climbers I am super happy. We have a very good feeling. Now, of course, we need to check the next plan. Before we try to tackle the summit, we should make a meeting and speak to each other. This is the best team that could happen to me on expedition.

Are you still confident to be able to reach the highest point?

To reach the summit of Everest without oxygen is another step. We do it with passion and our biggest effort day by day. And I think that we can reach the summit. But we will see. I think we will have the possibility. But first we need to relax and to focus, to learn and understand how the winter is going on, how the wind will be. I feel positive. We will do our best, but of course we will have very few possibilities.

Alex Txikon: We can reach the summit

Alex Txikon along with the Sherpas Nurbu, Nuri and Chepal

Taking a breath – this is what Alex Txikon wants to do not only figuratively but also literally. After six days on the mountain, the 35-year-old Basque has descended to the Base Camp at the foot of Mount Everest. “We climbed to 7,800 meters,” Alex tweeted after his return to BC, which is located at about 5,350 meters and where the air is much thicker than in the height just below the South Col. “It’s time to rest,” says Txikon. And, perhaps, to re-plan the tactics too, after his companion Carlos Rubio – as reported – had to abandon the expedition because of a lung inflammation.

Strength management

View down from the Lhotse Face

Alex is an experienced winter mountain climber and knows that he has to manage his strength. After all, he has a very ambitious goal. Never before a climber has reached the summit of Everest in the middle of winter without the use of bottled oxygen. Ang Rita Sherpa – the only climber who has so far reached the highest point without breathing mask in the cold season – had ascended on 22 December 1987, the first day of the calendrical winter. The weather was exceptionally good then. Extreme winter cold usually makes the already low air pressure in the summit area fall even further.

Everest will be measured again

South side of Mount Everest

The exact height of Mount Everest is to be newly surveyed next spring. This was announced by Swarna Subba Rao, head of “Survey of India”. The expedition will begin in one month, said Rao according to the Indian newspaper “The Hindu”. The measurements will reportedly take one month, two more weeks will be needed to evaluate the data. The newspaper “The Times of India” reported that the expedition would set off only in two months. That would coincide with the beginning of the spring season on Everest. Anyway, latest in late May a new height will be published, which also could be the old one.

Shrunk or shifted?

In Nepal and India, the highest mountain on earth is still noted with an altitude of 8,848 meters, in China, since 2005, of 8,844 meters. The GPS measurement of an US expedition in 1999 resulted in an altitude of 8,850 meters. After the devastating earthquake in Nepal in spring 2015 it was assumed that Everest had shrunk by a few centimeters. Chinese surveyors, on the other hand, said that Everest had merely shifted laterally, by three centimeters to the southwest.

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.

Alex Txikon (at Camp 1)

Sunny, but extremely cold. This is what the weather forecast predicts for the next days on Mount Everest. In addition, the wind is to refresh. Temperatures between minus 20 and minus 30 degrees Celsius are expected, Alex Txikon informs. In addition, the wind is to refresh. Nevertheless, the team set off from Base Camp today and reached after seven hours the site of Camp 2 at 6,400 meters. Alex, his Spanish countryman Carlos Rubio and nine Sherpas had previously secured the way through the Khumbu Icefall and pitched up Camp 1 at 6,050 meters, at the entrance of the Western Qwm. It was said, that the team might climb up even to Camp 3 at 7,400 meters within the next days. The climbers are expected back in Base Camp on next Sunday or Monday.

Everything has to fit

Because of the dry winter weather, Txikon and Co. have so far made good progress on the highest mountain on earth. The Basque wants to reach the 8850-meter-high summit if possible in February, but is aware that “a lot of patience, a lot of commitment and luck will be needed” to reach his goal. The great cold in winter normally causes the air pressure in the summit area to fall even further. An ascent without bottled oxygen is then in the absolute limit of the possible. So far, only the legendary Ang Rita Sherpa has managed to get to the top without bottled oxygen. He reached the summit on 22 December 1987, on the first day of calendrical winter, thus much earlier in the season than Alex Txikon is climbing now.

P.S.: My blog was just included in the list of the „Best 100 Adventure Blogs on the planet“ – whatever that means.

Alex Txikon at the entrance of Western Qwm

Winter expeditions are not for wimps. “Today we have climbed up to 6,050 meters to build Camp 1”, the Basque Alex Txikon wrote in his blog from Everest on the weekend. “At the moment, we have less than minus 30 degrees Celsius.” After all, the team of eleven – Alex, his Spanish countryman Carlos Rubio and nine Sherpas, including two “Icefall doctors” experienced in dealing with the dangerous Khumbu Icefall – are quicker than expected. At the beginning of last week, Txikon had assumed that it would take four weeks to reach Camp 2 at 6,400 meters.

“Runner of death”

Steadily threatening Seracs

This could happen earlier because the most dangerous part of the route, the Icefall, is already behind the team. Alex called a passage of about 150 meters, flanked on both sides by ice blocks, “the runner of death”. “An area that makes the breath freeze and our hearts beat even faster,” the 35-year-old wrote. “The truth is that it impresses a lot, since on both sides seracs do not leave anyone indifferent. Undoubtedly, we have made the effort to control and confront our fears.” Txikon and Rubio want to climb Everest without bottled oxygen. This feat has been achieved in winter only by Ang Rita Sherpa, on 22 December 1987, under particularly favorable weather conditions and on the very first day of the calendrical winter. Since 1993 nobody has been on the summit of Everest in the cold season.

Heavy snow on Manaslu

Elisabeth Revol on Manaslu

Snow digging and trudging is necessary on Manaslu. Since the beginning of the year two and a half meters of fresh snow has fallen, wrote the Frenchwoman Elisabeth Revol on the weekend on Facebook. “Each afternoon it’s snowing in Base Camp, so it’s not simple for acclimatization.” Her team mate and compatriot Ludovician Giambiasi “fights with the coldness and discovers what winter means. But anyway it’s hard, but great time on then mountain … alone.” In the past years Revol had tried three times in vain to climb Nanga Parbat in Pakistan in winter. In case she now succeeds, Revol would be the first woman in winter on the 8,163-meter-high summit in the west of Nepal. In winter 2015, the South Tyrolean Tamara Lunger and the Italian Simone Moro had fought in vain against the snow masses on Manaslu.

Txikon with a ladder on his back

At the moment Alex Txikon may feel on Mount Everest a bit like Edmund Hillary. Like the first ascender from New Zealand and his companions in 1953, the Basque must play an active part in finding a way through the dangerous Khumbu Icefall above Base Camp and in carrying material needed to secure the route. For example aluminium ladders to cross the deep crevasses in the Icefall. With a weight of about five kilograms, such a ladder is not too heavy but bloody bulky while climbing through the ice. Real back-breaking work, as the video shows which the 35-year-old sent today from Everest Base Camp:

As reported, Alex, along with his Spanish countryman Carlos Rubio, wants to scale Mount Everest in winter, for the first time since 1993 – without bottled oxygen. The two climbers and nine Sherpas first have to make their way through the dangerous Icefall. Txikon has estimated this work for up to four weeks.

Pretty exclusive experience

As in Hillary’s days, the Spanish expedition is currently the only one on the highest mountain on earth. What a contrast to spring, when year after year several hundred mountaineers from dozens of commercial expeditions turn the Base Camp into a small tent town!

Dangerous Khumbu Icefall

When the clients arrive there at an altitude of 5,300 meters in April, usually the so-called “Icefall Doctors” have already prepared and secured the way through the Icefall. This team of eight Sherpas also ensures that the route remains accessible throughout the climbing season until its end early June. The highly specialized Sherpas are selected and paid by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), an organization that originally only cared about the environmental protection in the National Park around Mount Everest. Since 2000, the SPCC has also been responsible for the route through the Khumbu Icefall on behalf of the Government of Nepal. In spring 2014, 16 Nepalese climbers were killed in an avalanche in the Icefall.

Even if it turns out that Alex Txikon is not able to reach the summit at 8,850 meters this winter – his experience of working as a non-Sherpa as Icefall Doctor is pretty exclusive.

Alex Txikon

It is a long and hard way up to the 8850-meter-high summit of Mount Everest – all the more in winter and if you want to do it without bottled oxygen. And Alex Txikon and his teammates are just at the beginning. The Basque, his Spanish companion Carlos Rubio and nine Sherpas have begun to find and fix a route through the Khumbu Icefall. “Honestly, it’s what I’m afraid of climbing Everest, I do not want us to get stuck and we’re equipping it for a month”, Alex writes in his blog: “We are working hard, we have to climb a lot of stairs. In short, we have to equip a labyrinth of ice blocks. The terrain “is technical, difficult and demanding,” says Alex. I sent three questions to Everest Base Camp.

Alex, after your winter success on Nanga Parbat in February 2016 you now tackle Mount Everest. Which challenges do you expect on the highest mountain on earth and how high do you estimate your chance of success?

In the Khumbu Icefall

We will have very few possibilities to reach the summit, as on Nanga Parbat in winter 2014/15 and in 2015/16 when we were successful. So we’ll try Everest, we’ll do our best. From my point of view, it’s a success to reach Camp 2 (at 6,400 meters), because the Khumbu Icefall is not easy for the eleven climbers.

Ang Rita Sherpa has been so far the only man who climbed Everest in winter without bottled oxygen, under unusual good weather conditions on 22 December 1987. What makes you optimistic that you can follow in his foodsteps?

First of all, Ang Rita is one of my heroes because he summited Everest ten times without oxygen. He was one of the most charismatic and talented climbers in Nepal in the 1980s and 90s. Of course he summited in (calendrical) winter, but he ascended only five hours in winter. They reached the Base Camp in October, that’s not the same as when we start here in early January. The conditions are much harder than in 1987. That’s for sure and we know that. I am 35 years old and have enough experience. And I am not alone, I am here with Carlos Rubio and nine Nepali climbers. So we hope to reach Camp 2 with eleven climbers. And then we will see the next step for the next team above Camp 2. We’ll have not to many possibilities. But we have enough experience. I think that we can do it.

Alex Txikon: I think that we can do it

“Difficult and demanding”

You will climb with your countryman Carlos Rubio. Why didn’t you choose a partner who is more experienced on eight-thousanders, especially in winter?

He is a young climber and so motivated. As they formerly did with me, I give him an opportunity and a chance. I am so proud about the new climbing generation in the Spanish and Basque community. That’s the future because step by step, generation by generation, the challenges will be improved, in the Himalyas, in the Alps, in rock climbing. I think the young climbers have the power and the future. From my point of view, of course, I can not say that Carlos has experience in the Himalayas. But he is super strong, a really good climber in the Alpes, the Pyrenees and the Picos de Europa (a mountain range in northern Spain). Especially in the Alpes he did hard ascents. So that’s why Carlos is here with me.

Alex Txikon in Everest Base Camp

Ready to go. “We are already at the Base Camp,” Alex Txikon writes on Twitter from the Nepalese south side of Mount Everest.  The Basque climber and his companions have pitched their tents in the 5360-meter-high Base Camp at the foot of the Khumbu Icefall. For one week, the team had trekked from Lukla via the Khumbu region to BC. Txikon reported on dry but cold winter weather.

Without breathing mask

New Year’s Eve party in Kunde

This should only be a small foretaste on what awaits him and his Spanish comrade Carlos Rubio in the next weeks on Everest. As reported, the two climbers want to scale the highest mountain on earth in winter, without bottled oxygen. Ang Rita Sherpa was the only climber so far to have achieved this success on 22 December 1987, under exceptionally good weather conditions. For the past 24 years, no one has reached the 8850-meter-high summit in winter. The first winter ascent of Everest – it was the first of an eight-thousander at all – had been made by the two Poles Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy in 1980, with supplementary oxygen.

Txikon is a proven winter expert. At the end of February 2016 he succeeded, along with the Italian Simone Moro and the Pakistani Muhammad Ali Sadpara, the first winter ascent of Nanga Parbat, a milestone of the high-altitude climbing.

Alex Txikon

I was probably too hasty. One and a half weeks ago I had prophesied a quiet winter time on the highest mountains in the world. Now there will be a spectacular expedition. The Basque Alex Txikon wants to climb Mount Everest in winter, without the use of bottled oxygen. This is consistently reported by Spanish media. The 35-year-old will be accompanied by the internationally still relatively unknown 28-year-old Spanish climber Carlos Rubio, who has hitherto made more headlines as an extreme skier. In addition, the two mountaineers Aitor Barez and Pablo Magister will belong to the team as cameramen.

After Nanga Parbat, the Everest coup?

Txikon wants to leave for Kathmandu on 25 December and arrive in the first week of January in the Base Camp on the Nepali south side of Mount Everest. Five Sherpas are to prepare the route through the Khumbu Icefall for the Spanish team. At the end of last February, Alex Txikon, along with the Italian Simone Moro and the Pakistani Muhammad Ali Sadpara, had succeeded the first winter ascent of Nanga Parbat. Now the Basque wants to climb even higher.

Five-star risk

Mount Everest

So far 15 climbers have scaled Mount Everest in the meteorological winter. For weather researchers, the cold season begins on 1 December, while the calendar winter begins with the winter solstice on 21 or 22 December. The Poles Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy reached the summit of Everest on 17 February 1980, succeeding the first winter ascent of an eight-thousander at all. Since the end of 1993 no more climbers have stood on the 8,850-meter-high summit. The only one who climbed the highest mountain on earth so far in winter without breathing mask was Ang Rita Sherpa on 22 December 1987. The weather on that day was unusually good. The great cold in winter normally causes the air pressure in the summit area to fall even further. An ascent without bottled oxygen is then in the absolute limit of the possible. Five-star risk.