Tyler Andrews is back at Base Camp after attempting to climb Everest without supplementary oxygen faster than anyone else. The American won’t take it easy for long. He told ExplorersWeb that he is ready for a second try at the Fastest Known Time, perhaps even this week.
The skyrunner left Everest Base Camp on Saturday night, with minimal gear and no oxygen. His regular running partner, Chris Fisher, kept him company through the Khumbu Icefall. Everything went great on that technical section, and the next two: across the long Valley of Silence and up the first half of the Lhotse Face. But when he reached Camp 3 at 7,200m, he had, he explained, a “catastrophic” problem with his boots.
Things going south
“It took me about an hour to come up with an attempted solution,” he told ExplorersWeb. “By then, I was cold and had lost a lot of momentum.”
To make things worse, when he looked out of the tent door, a large plume of snow was peeling off Everest’s summit ridge. “The wind had come on much earlier than forecast,” he said. “At 8 am, it was already blowing hard.”
A big plume of snow sweeps off the summit of Everest, seen from Camp 3 on the South Side. This is the second and last picture Tyler Andrews took during his FKT attempt on Everest, in addition to our Featured Image.
Nevertheless, Andrews resumed his run, but the long delay had affected his performance.
“I never felt like I got back into the rhythm above Camp 3.”
Eventually, the repairs he made to his boot also started to fall apart. At Lhotse’s Camp 4, located at 7,650m, he decided it was not worth losing toes on the attempt.
“I decided to [turn down] and try again another day,” he said.
All well
Rather than feel frustrated, Andrews was encouraged after checking his split times during the climb.
“I made Base Camp to C1 in 1 hour 56 minutes, and then took another 57 minutes to C2,” he revealed. “The distance between Camp 2 and Camp 3 was…1 hour 39 minutes. That is a great moving time.”
He also reported no problems with crowds. “I only passed a few Sherpas in the Icefall, no one between Camp 1 and Camp 3, and then maybe 20-30 Sherpas from Camp 3 upward, but I had no issues at all passing them.”
Careful planning
Crowds on the final sections of the mountain may hinder him the next time he tries, so Andrews and his team are carefully planning that second attempt. It may even come in a couple of days.
“We are considering a tiny weather window, expected to open on May 15-16,” he said. “Otherwise, we will wait until the big groups [finish], and fix a date around May 18-20.”
