A long line of climbers has been marching toward the top of Everest since early today. More than 70 climbers may summit by the end of Sunday.
Yesterday, ultra-runner Tyler Andrews took the photo below from Base Camp. It says a lot about the number of climbers between Camp 3 and Camp 4.
A line of hundreds of climbers crosses nearly the entire length of the Lhotse Face. Photo: Tyler Andrews/Instagram Stories
Super summiters
British guide Kenton Cool, 52, has summited for the 19th time, giving him more Everest summits than any non-Sherpa. With him was Dorji Gyaljen Sherpa, who was on his 23rd Everest summit. That’s not a record among Sherpas (Kami Rita is about to bag his 31st), but it is a remarkable number nonetheless.
Climbers on the Hillary Step at dawn. Photo: Nani Stahringer/Climbing the Seven Summits
Purnima Shrestha of Nepal is on Everest again this year. She summited today for the fifth time shortly after 3:30 am. Last year, she reached the top three times.
Pema Chiiring, an IFMGA Sherpa guide with 8K Expeditions, topped out for the 24th time at the head of a Chinese team, The Himalayan Times reported. 8K has not yet released the number of today’s summits.
Hard to keep track
It is possible that the 38-member Indian Army team, led by Colonel Amit Bisht, is the biggest group ever to reach the summit in a single day. Outfitted by Seven Summit Treks, the team included members of the National Cadet Corps, some Army senior officials, and 21 Sherpa guides. Besides that group, Seven Summit Treks reported another 17 summits today, and 30% of their climbers still have to reach the top! The outfitter, the biggest in Nepal, has 103 foreign climbers signed up for Everest and Lhotse this year.
Among the Western outfitters, Climbing The Seven Summits had two small groups of five and six reach the top. Chhuldim Ang Dorjee Sherpa, leading an Adventure Consultants team, summited for the 24th time. Chhuldim has dual Nepalese-American citizenship, which makes him the American with the most Everest summits. Adventure Consultants also had three other Nepalese climbers and an American client, Samuel Patrick Ratsch.
Nepalese Himalayan Guides (two British and two Sherpas) and Pioneer Adventure (four Chinese, one Indian, and seven Sherpas) have also succeeded. This is just a partial list. With hundreds of climbers and maybe a dozen outfitters, some of whom post their results and some of whom do not, it’s hard to keep track.
The number of summits will have to wait until Nepal’s Department of Tourism shares an official figure, but so far, the tally should be beyond 200.
No accidents or rescues have been reported so far today.
More to come
Teams are moving up from both Base Camp and the lower camps. Furtenbach Adventures has teams ready to summit tomorrow from both sides of the mountain. Others are preparing to leave Camp 4 on the South Side as we post this story
There have also been summits today on Lhotse.
Meanwhile, no-O2 climbers may wait a couple of days until the big rush diminishes. Then they will have to wait for favorable weather, as the risk of frostbite increases dramatically when climbers without bottled oxygen struggle in the thin air above 8,000m.
