More than a thousand climbers, including dozens of Britons, were waiting yesterday to launch their final assaults on Everest as high winds blasted tents off the slopes of the peak and threatened to force a dangerous last-minute dash for the summit by frustrated mountaineers.
Winds of up to 80mph have been lashing climbers, who have spent the past weeks inching their way up the 29 035ft mountain in a bid to conquer the peak to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary’s successful attempt. The winds are forecast to drop marginally over the next few days and then intensify towards the end of the week. With heavy snow forecast within 10 days, there are fears that climbers anxious for success will try to exploit even a marginal improvement in bad conditions and attempt to reach the summit.
Nearly 200 people, equivalent to more than one in eight of those who have successfully scaled the peak, have died on Everest since 29 May 1953 when it was climbed for the first time by a British-led team.
Forty expeditions are attempting to climb Everest this year. Most are hoping to follow the traditional ‘South Col’ route used by Hillary and sherpa Tenzing Norgay 50 years ago. More climbers than expected are using the Nepalese side of the mountain after the threat of the Sars virus made northern approaches from China more difficult. Reports from base camp suggest that at least five teams aim to head for the summit in the next three days. ‘There will be as many as 70 climbers and sherpas on the summit bid,’ Peggy Foster, a Canadian climber on a British expedition, said in an emailed despatch.
The number of climbers on the mountain has angered Hillary, 83. ‘I find it all rather sad,’ said the mountaineer recently. ‘I like to think of Everest as a great mountaineering challenge, and when you’ve got people just streaming up the mountain … many of them are just climbing it to get their name in the paper.’
There has been widespread criticism of the level of experience of many of those attempting to climb Everest, most of whom have paid around £30 000 to take part in commercially organised expeditions. Sherpa Tenzing’s son has echoed Hillary’s criticism, saying: ‘There are people going up there who do not know how to put crampons on.’ Peter Habeler, one of the first men to climb Everest without oxygen, said that such ascents had ‘nothing to do with alpinism’. One of Britain’s most senior climbers, who did not want to be named, called many of the current climbers on Everest ‘muppets’.
Reports from the mountain yesterday confirmed that many climbers were still heading up to high altitudes despite the winds, which have been caused by the early arrival of jet stream winds associated with the coming monsoon. Alexander Abramov, from a Russian team, spoke of good progress despite two climbers being forced to hold down a tent overnight at more than 24 000ft with nothing but their own bodyweight.
‘The weather is extraordinary this year. The sherpas said that there had been such strong wind only one day last year,’ he said. ‘We are hoping for a summit bid in four days.’
The concern is that even experienced mountaineers can run into problems if the mountain is too crowded. At high altitudes there is little margin for error and delays forced by lengthy queues below obstacles can be very dangerous.
On a single afternoon in May 1996, 23 climbers reached the top of Everest. But eight lost their lives on their return from the summit. Confusion, team rivalry and blind ambition were blamed.
‘There have been years when nobody has been able to reach the summit. Maybe the anniversary year is one,’ said Abramov.
The delayed climbers include Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa, 37, who has already climbed Everest nine times. He is hoping to conquer the peak within 15 hours, setting a new record, according to the Nepal Mountaineering Association. The standing record is 16 hours, 56 minutes set in 2000 by Babu Chhiri, who died a year later when he tried to make his twelfth ascent. Ugdi Tsering, a sherpa youth with no hands, will attempt the summit using hooks. One-armed climber Gary Guller will lead a six-member group to help raise funding and awareness for disability related issues.
A US television company will give 12 people a chance to climb from the north side. They will vie for $250 000 in a new five-month-long series. Hillary’s son, Peter, is aiming to climb the mountain for the third time.
Nepal is heavily promoting the Everest golden jubilee in a bid to draw back tourists who have been put off by violence associated with the Maoist insurgency in the poverty-stricken mountain state.
Hillary and a host of other famous climbers will join the celebrations in Nepal. They will include Junko Tabei, the first woman to scale the peak, and Reinhold Messner, the first man to reach the summit without bottled oxygen. All Everest ‘summiteers’ have been invited.
Even the political parties that have been organising anti-government rallies almost daily have agreed to suspend their protests during the festivities. Today temperatures on the summit were predicted to be at least minus 40 C including the windchill factor. – Guardian Unlimited Â