After yesterday’s 270 summits, today was a slightly quieter day, with only 154 climbers reaching the top of Everest. These two giant days will diminish the crowds enough for the no-oxygen climbers and the FKT runners to have their turn.
Summit videos
Climbers have started uploading their summit videos from May 20:
Marcelo Segovia, who reached the top without bottled oxygen or Sherpa guidance, has also posted a summit video:
Predictably, the most common images are those of traffic jams at the Hillary Step, such as these from Ramesh Gurung:
Triple crown
Kristin Harila of Norway summited Lhotse today in high winds. She shared a picture of herself with an oxygen mask and wrote that she will say more when she returns to Base Camp. Harila was trying to summit Nuptse, Lhotse, and Everest in one season without bottled oxygen. She did Nuptse in that style four days ago, but something seems to have gone wrong on Lhotse to prompt her to reach for the O2.
Story posted on Instagram today by Kristin Harila.
Her guide, Mingtemba Sherpa, who previously achieved the Everest-Lhotse-Nuptse triple crown (with oxygen), also did Nuptse with Harila on May 17. The busy man had already summited Everest on May 13 as part of the rope-fixing team.
Tenzing David Sherpa of Asian Trekking also achieved the Triple Crown this year, in only five days. The younger brother of Asian Trekking’s head, Dawa Steven Sherpa, Tenzing David led the rope fixing on Nuptse on May 17, then guided clients to the top of Everest on May 20, and summited Lhotse today.
Rustam Nabiev of Russia, a disabled climber, and his Sherpa team also summited today. A soldier, Nabiev lost both legs in an accident in 2015. Today, he became the first person with no legs, including no prosthetic legs, to summit Everest.
Now that the crowds have decreased, wind speed will be the main concern for Everest climbers over the next few days.
FKT runners
Both Tyler Andrews of the U.S. and Karl Egloff of Ecuador are keeping their schedules to themselves. We will probably hear news from them shortly before or even after they leave Base Camp. Both are trying to achieve the fastest no-O2 Everest climb to the summit of Everest and back. Andrews is outfitted by Asian Trekking, while Egloff is with Furtenbach Adventures. They insist they are not rivals, although the careful secrecy suggests otherwise.
In the meantime, another FKT attempt has started. Fur Diki Sherpa, 51, set off from Base Camp today at just after 2 pm, hoping to break the speed record on Lhotse for both women and men. She is trying to get to the summit and back in under 24 hours, The Everest News reported. She previously summited Everest in 2019. We presume her current ascent is oxygen-assisted.
Fur Diki Sherpa at Everest Base Camp. Photo: Fur Diki Sherpa
