On their second venture up Everest, the Russian team is aiming to progress further along the West Ridge. This time, they will be a team of just three: Natalya Belyankina was airlifted out yesterday due to health problems.
Andrei Vasiliev, Serguey Kondrashkin, and Vitaly Shipilov will climb one of the longest routes of Everest, with no supplemental oxygen, no support team, and no clear idea about the exact line they will follow.
Kondrashkin recently posted details about their previous ascent to the Lho La and the beginning of the ridge last week. As he noted, their route skirts below gigantic hanging seracs. They felt safe traversing the area on the way up because they saw no avalanche debris. However, after they reached the Lho La and pitched their tent on the wide col, the boom of a falling serac below them reminded them of the risks.
The West Ridge next
On the following morning, the climbers approached the first part of the West Ridge.
“[It was] a sharp ascent to the ridge: first, on a 50˚ snow slope and, higher up, more than 100m of 60˚ glacial ice,” Kondrashkin recalled. “Then, climbing over a slight snow cornice, we emerged onto the ridge.”
Shipilov and Vasiliev climbed further up a rocky outcrop, looking for both the most suitable line and a potential campsite on the ridge. They also photographed the sections ahead. As Kondrashkin and Belyankina watched from below, “It felt like we were looking at it from the very foot of the mountain, just how enormous it is,” Kondrashkin wrote about Everest’s upper half:
Everest’s North Face from the base of the West Ridge. Photo: Serguey Kondrashkin
The team returned to Base Camp the following day, finding a better route that involves less time under the hanging seracs.
Over for Belyankina
Since then, they have been resting and preparing for the next foray up. However, the rest was not enough for Natalya Belyankina, who was already suffering from a bad case of Khumbu cough.
Natalya Belyankina in the helicopter back to Kathmandu today. Photo: Natalya Belyankina
“It’s a real pity,” leader Andrei Vasiliev wrote today. “Natasha did so much to make this expedition happen, but it’s impossible to continue in this condition.”
Vasiliev then confirmed that Kondrashkin, Shipilov, and he are heading up again today for about a week.
Ambitious goal
The Russians are the only climbers currently on an 8,000m peak, and their goal is among the most ambitious on Everest in years. They intend to climb the mountain entirely on their own, without supplemental oxygen, in a light style, via the West Ridge.
On Pete Poston’s graph of Everest routes, the Yugoslavian route is #5 in pink, and the 1963 U.S. route is #2 in green.
The West Ridge of Everest has been climbed just three times, each via different variations, all of them epic and sometimes tragic expeditions. Climbing the West Ridge involves two possible routes. First, an endless climb along the ridge from Nepal like the 1979 Yugoslavian team did (Andrej Stremfelj, Nejc Zaplotnik, Stipe Bozic, Roman Benetic, and Ang Phu).
Second, they could cross into Tibet at some point and continue up the North Face via the Hornbein Couloir. This route retraces the steps of Americans Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld, who started up the normal route to Camp 2, then joined the West Ridge and crossed to what became known as the Hornbein Couloir to the summit in 1963.
