Everest South Col 2017 Expedition

Hey all, I’ve been pretty quiet since I’ve been back! Looking forward to catching up with John Burke and Terry Kelleher this Sunday as we talk about our experiences on Everest this year. If you are in Dublin and can spare the time would love to see you there.

We’re also still fundraising for our Nepal School Project (virginmoneygiving.com/letsbuildschools) and they will be organising an event in London soon as well.

Wow….it’s nearly a week since we stood on top of the world! Just before 10am on the 26th of May 2017.

Apologies to everyone for the lack of info and photos since we returned to civilisation. First I lost my camera and then we had some beers and then I felt a large dose of lethargy which I’m only just bouncing back from.

Luckily, although I’ve lost some awesome photos, Blake and Dorjee summited at the same time so I still have proof that I’m not faking it!

For the full write up of the summit push, you’ll have to have a little bit more patience and wait for the next Irish time’s article this Saturday but in the meantime here are some pictures from the last week, one of the best weeks ever!

Also, although we lost the video, we still captured a photo of the highest ever frisbee throw ever (we’ll claim it, unless anyone wants to prove otherwise!):

We have to admit it was an incomplete throw, an almighty gust of wind taking the frisbee far into Tibet. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the Chinese government, it was not my intention to litter, and if possible I’d like my frisbee back. It would have been illegal to have crossed into China after it!

Here I am on the right, with legends Galjen Dorjee and Blake Penson. I was wearing my expedition mitts for the first time as we were about to head on down and the cold winds had chilled my fingers to the point they were completely numb during our photo sessions. I soon warmed them up when back moving and with these mitts.

Regrettably, I’ve lost the best photos with the banners but at least we took a few with Blake’s camera! Let me know if there are any good photoshoppers out there who think they can help improving this.

The weather on the summit wasn’t the nicest as you can see from this short video from the summit, don’t think I’m going to be winning to be videographer awards!

https://youtu.be/pHacnPajje0 

And finally, chilling on the golf course in KTM the first day after we came down, what a wonderful afternoon we had, even if we ignored the course manager’s warning on the 15th that if we didn’t come in that the leopards would stalk us. For the record, I beat Jon 6&4 and no golfer has ever been eaten by a leopard in Kathmandu

If you’ve enjoyed the journey please consider supporting our attempt to build two schools in Makwanpur. The first is fully funded and then second is around £6k short. I’m going to match all donations towards the target over the next two weeks as we finish up our fund raising efforts. Your support is massively appreciated. This will make a huge difference in the villages of Thingan and Manthali and I’ve already promised to go back out and inspect the work when it is all done.

See virginmoneygiving.com/letsbuildschools

Thanks also to everyone who has sent in messages of support, followed the satelite tracker during the days and nights of the 24th to 26th of May, and provided support in different ways. This has been an awesome journey, luck has been on my side, now that my brain has selectively remembered only the good memories and deleted all the mundane and negative, I can honestly say I loved every moment!

 

Heading back up Icefall to camp II tomorrow morning, we’re targeting a window around 25/26.

There are a lot of teams looking to summit in the next 48 hours, going to be busy up there so wishing them all a safe climb. We’ve already seen some choppers taking a few people off the mountain in the past 24 hours from some of the higher camps. The winds are then expected to pick up 23/24 before the jet stream again shifts off the summit from the 25/26th.

Latest Irish Times article published this morning in weekend sports section (back page and online)

Everest Diary: Here we go again in summit quest
Wait brings challenges as we witness joy and despair on slopes ahead of our final attempt

Namche Bazaar – where we spent most of last week

We got back to base camp yesterday afternoon in the end as the fog lifted around 5pm and choppers managed to take off from Lukla. The valley was buzzing with choppers as they all frantically tried to make a few flights before dark.

We had to run up to the helipad at Namche at short notice, check out the first chopper coming in to land through the fog in this video:

Sometimes it feels like we’re running around to stand still. After stressing out and legging it back here we spent the evening with Tim looking at the forecasts and ultimately decided to let the main crowds go for the current 20-21-[22] window and aim for the one after. There are a significant number of large expeditions on the hill now targeting this window slowly moving up to the higher camps to get into position and while we wish them well but for sure its going to be busy and there are associated risks. We had initially focused heavily on positioning the early window and now we’re going to be looking at the late ones. This has been a real test of our patience over the past few days, bear with us!

The exception was that the Lhotse weather window and lower crowds meant that Ronny headed up at 2am this morning up to Camp II and will be making for Camp III tomorrow. We’re following him closely from base camp. We’re now just down to the full Everest team of Blake, Jon and myself waiting with Tim at base camp.

Won’t be long now……surely….

 

Arggh

We’re trying to get out of this place and back up the hill for a summit push but the fog has set in and there have been no helicopters flying in or out of Lukla or Namche today.

Feels like Groundhog Day. The same song plays on a constant loop in the background of the Barista Cafe.

One by one each of us go off in a tantrum about one thing or another. At least we take turns.

We’ve had a good rest break here and I now feel like I’ve recovered from a lousy stomach upset but we want out bad. Please someone lift this fog and let us get out of here.

“Not paradise”

Greetings from Namche Bazar where we’ve now been chilling for a couple of days as we refocus our efforts following an initial summit attempt.

For all the info on last week’s excursions on the hill, check out this mornings article in the Irish Times:

Everest Diary: An aborted summit attempt, faulty ropes and R&R
Part eight: Rory McHugh and fellow climbers make their first attempt to reach the top

Once we got back to base camp, and with no clear window available to give it another go in the next few days Blake, Scott and I decided to grab a chopper to Namche, check out this cool video Blake took leaving base camp:

Now in Namche we are enjoying showers and beds and cafes and bars. There is even an Irish Bar here although they ran out of Guinness! 🙁 very annoying

In reality though, a couple of days in, we are already finding that there isn’t much to do here and we’re looking forward to finding the right weather window and getting back on the hill.

Namche Saturday Market

I’ll be back with another post from Namche over the next day or two. I think we’ll stroll up to the Monastery this afternoon and then watch a movie in the Nirvana Cafe after. Nothing too exciting!

 

We’re back in the relative civilisation of Gorak Shep. We’ve got wifi and a bed.

Jonathan Guidry and I came down yesterday to spend the night and we decided to spend another after snoozing all morning in our beds.

The very idea of an afternoon and evening doing the same was too appealing to us. We aim to return to base camp tomorrow, just as we aimed to return today this time last night.

Earlier this week we returned to base camp from our second and final rotation up the mountain to prepare ourselves for the summit push.

On return we also found from expedition leader Tim that we’d be splitting the group into 2 for Everest and that Jonathan and I would be heading up on the first acceptable weather window. Hence our visit to Gorak Shep.

The rotation itself was not particularly eventful – on Saturday we left at 3am and went straight past camp 1 to sleep at camp 2. We took 8.5hrs with a few breaks and a heavy pack as we were bringing up supplies for our summit push.

We then had a rest day at camp 2 and unfortunately we aborted our attempt to get to camp3 at 7200m in strong winds. Our long acclimatisation schedule meant we were comfortable aborting this without needed to repeat before the summit attempt.

The Expedition Charity flag at Camp II, Billy’s shadow cast on the lower right. To support please visit virginmoneygiving.com/letsbuildschools – we’re getting close to funding the second school building in Makwanpur. Thanks to everyone who has supported thus far!

On the way down the icefall on Tuesday we encountered several collapses which slowed us down and maintained a high level of adrenaline – I’ll go into more detail in this week’s irish times article – out in print and online this Saturday (need to get that done this evening as soon as this is posted!)

In advance of our summit bid, we’ve done some training with our oxygen bottles and syringes and spent time with our personal medical kits – this even included giving a shot of Dex to an orange! In all seriousness, I do feel ready to get out that syringe even when wearing high altitude mitts, and to give a hypoxic climber with HACE a life saving shot in his thigh!

Given the last Irish Times article came out while we were up the hill, if you haven’t see please check out here:

Everest Diary: Crossing crevasses and frisbee golf in the snow
Part six: Enduring a hard night at Camp II and trying to acclimatise to the Khumbu Icefall

The next article will be out on Saturday in print and online. Check it out.

 

 

We’re back from our first rotation! Greetings all from Gorak Shep. This morning, we made the hour long walk down from Everest Base Camp to the nearest collection of teahouses (some might call this a village) and decent internet connection.

The last week has seen us pass through the Khumbu Icefall for the first time, reaching Camp I, and then passing through the Western Cwm up to Camp II.

The Khumbu Icefall is by far the coolest mountaineering terrain I’ve been through. If it wasn’t so dangerous it would be a veritable Disneyland. Just think hours of crossing an obstacle course made of glacial ice, with ladders crossing crevasses and up ice walls , abseiling down ice cliffs, towering seracs everywhere. We left base camp at 3am in order to ensure we passed through the icefall early in the day and to ensure it is at it’s most stable, most serac collapses happen in the late afternoon due to the strength of the sun.

We initially were only intending to be at Camp I for 2 nights with a hike up to camp II the day before moving up to sleep there but some instability in the icefall which lead to a Sherpa being evacuated by chopper for Kathmandu (we understand he is recovering well) meant our Sherpa turned around that morning and we instead spent a third night using our spare rations at camp I.

In the extra day at Camp I, we created a massive dart board using crampons, ice axe, tent cord, and climbing slings for a fantastic game of Frisbee darts in the morning sunshine. The afternoon brought snow and winds so we returned to our tents and continued the process of melting snow and brewing up to stay hydrated while reading books. I’m currently reading Shoedog on the kindle.

We then moved up to camp II on Tuesday and settled into new digs:

At 6400m we all had an unsettled evening. I felt like I woke every 10 minutes all night but I know from my crazy dreams I got some sleep between the tossing and turning. Camp II is the other location on the mountain where we have a cook team and heated mess tent and we’ll be back and sleeping better next time!

On Wednesday we legged it back down the mountain, making it back to base camp in under 4 hours.

It’s absolutely amazing to have now experienced these mythical places: Khumbu Icefall & the Western Cwm. Now time to write the next article for Irish Times (check it out on Saturday morning for a more detailed account of our first rotation) and have a well deserved beer tonight in Gorak Shep before returning to Base Camp tomorrow and back up the mountain 3am Saturday.

I was on the mountain when the last article was published, check it out here:

Prevention always better than cure for trusty icefall doctors

Finally found a photo which has justified wearing these red sunglasses! I’m in my Cat 4 Julbo’s for the rest of the climb now.