It’s now or never for the Russian team on the West Ridge of Everest. Andrey Vasiliev, Sergey Kondrashkin, and Vitaly Shipilov have set off for the summit without oxygen, hoping the weather will hold. They are completely alone on the mountain, and the push is full of risk.
Everest is still loaded with fresh snow after two cyclones, and there are only three of them to break trail and find the best route above 7,500m. That was their highest point during their earlier venture in October. In addition, the wind may rise dramatically on Thursday, Vitor Baia, a Portuguese high-altitude meteorologist, told ExplorersWeb.
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“It looks like we have a weather window of about a week, followed by a significant intensification of the wind,” leader Andrei Vasiliev told Anna Piunova of Mountain Club.
The question is exactly when the wind will increase, and whether the climbers will have enough time to summit and descend to a safer altitude.
“They have three days of weak wind, until Wednesday [November 11], but then the wind will increase sharply,” said Baia.
He says the best summit day will be Tuesday, with clear skies and weak winds. “Then they could use Wednesday to descend,” he added. “[That day will have] some clouds but still acceptable wind speeds.”
The situation will worsen remarkably on Thursday, when the wind will shift from the west to the northwest and increase dramatically to 50 kph at 8,000m and 60kph at the summit.
In addition, avalanche hazards are still high due to the large amounts of snow after the latest storm two weeks ago. Finally, as winter approaches, it’s getting colder every day, the climbers reported.
Second try
After their first trip up ended in a tactical retreat as the cyclone hit, they retreated to Kathmandu to recover from some health issues. Now they are fit again and ready for a second try. They returned to Base Camp last Thursday. Not surprisingly, they found it covered in a thick new layer of snow. Breaking trail, they sank at some points up to their waists, Vasiliev reported.
“Our high-altitude boots were in a cache two hours ahead of us, so we used duct tape to seal our pant cuffs to our trekking boots, trying to keep the snow out,” Kondrashkin reported. They eventually reached the cache and continued up in an exhausting 14-hour-long effort to a second cache (their Camp 1), where they had left their tent and sleeping bags.
Avalanches and food poisoning
They were near an avalanche-prone area and several snow slides swept nearby, prompting them to wait a day before continuing. Meanwhile, Shipilov showed signs of food poisoning. Kodrashkin recalls that Saturday morning started with the following conversation:
I wake up at 4:00 to boil some water.
“Vitalya, how are you feeling? Are we heading up?”
“We’re going.”
That answer needs some clarification. A professional like Vitaly Viktorovich [Shipilov] really only has two modes: “We’re going” and “I’m dying.”
In fact, Shipilov had a fever and acute pain in the lower back, so the team headed down to their base in Lobuche. As this was going on, the snow had time to sluff off from the previously avalanche-prone area.
After just one night of rest, Vasiliev confirmed they were going up again. If all went according to plan, they will spend tonight back in their tent above the Lho La. Unfortunately, the climbers have not shared their tracker showing their current location and progress. On their previous trip up, they reached some 7,500m on Everest’s West Shoulder, near the beginning of the West Ridge and the potential detour to the Hornbein Couloir.
Everest’s North Face from the base of the West Ridge. Photo: Sergey Kondrashkin
