It’s hard to believe that in less than a week, I’ll be on a plane to Kathmandu via San Francisco and HongKong. This will be my last blog post entry before the trip.
First things first. Before I answer the remaining set of questions people are usually asking me about an expedition, I will answer the most common one I have been asked recently:
How can you track me while I am on the mountain?
Alpine Ascent International updates a cybercast (almost) daily and sometimes adds some pictures too: https://www.alpineascents.com/climbs/mount-everest/cybercasts/
Now, for those who are curious to track me specifically and more precisely during the rotations on the mountain, here is the link to my satellite GPS device: https://us0-share.inreach.garmin.com/tdhers
Let’s wrap this up and address the last set of questions about Everest expeditions…
How do you actually climb a mountain like Everest and why does it take over 2 months?
What type of gear is needed and what is each used for?
Sherpas? Locals? Is commercial climbing a good or a bad thing for Nepalese/Tibetans?
Isn’t the mountain getting super dirty and isn’t commercial climbing becoming a bad thing for the earth?
What then? What happens after Everest?
…and about Splash.org and my fundraiser for Nepalese school kids.
Thanks to your generous donations we have raised about $15,000 with the various company matches and my own match, that should bring us over $23,000. We still have a long way to go to fully fund all public schools in Kathmandu with clean water for a whole year ($62k). I will be extremely grateful for any help you can provide by advertising and encouraging your network to consider donating to this cause.
How do we know whether the Splash program and your donation impact habits and behaviors regarding sanitation and health?
Splash monitors progress in every school, by sending Splash employees locally in every school in every country to observe and survey students and staff twice a year. This data is then sent back to the headquarter here in Seattle where it is aggregated and reported on. This is the project I am volunteering my help for. We are putting in place a scaleable and reliable data pipeline using state of the art modern cloud-based technologies at a ridiculously low cost, thanks to the various Non-Profit licensing programs offered by all vendors, and the goodwill of a few Tableau Foundation service partners.
What have I personally learned working with the Splash team?
I am very impressed by the altruism of the entire Splash team. It is a hard mission, with very little infrastructure support and resources. The team work tirelessly for a great cause, in conditions that are difficult and stressful due to the urgency to deploy their program but with limited resources. Donors most often grant money with specific outcome requirements and application (often focused on in-country activities solely). Very seldom do these grants allow to cover Headquarter resources and infrastructure. Yet these are super critical and are the back bone to support the deployment of these programs in the countries.
I’ve also learned that raising money is a very hard and tedious job. One that requires constant attention and activities to keep the momentum going.
Now, How do you climb a mountain like Everest and why does it take over 2 months?
Well you climb very slowly and you climb the mountain multiple times, following the adage: “climb high and sleep low”.
Once we get to Kathmandu and after we go through an extensive gear check as a team (we’ll talk about gear in a second), we fly to the small village of Lukla and trek to Everest base camp in about 10 days.
We are going slow, so that we can start our acclimatization process as we move from 2840m (9,317ft) to 5364m (17,600ft). Once at base camp, we will rest for a few days and practice ladder crossing, rappelling on ice walls and other useful techniques.
Then we will start our first rotation toward camp 1 and come back to sleep at EBC, rest a few days. Then we will start our second rotation and go all the way to camp 2, then come back down and sleep at camp 1, then EBC. A few days later we’ll do another rotation to camp 3 and come back sleep at camp 2, then EBC. After a final rotation to camp 4, we will rest for a few days at EBC again and wait until the window of calm weather opened up (usually around mid-May) and give us safe passage for our summit attempts. This attempt should take between 3 and 4 days of climb from EBC all the way to the summit.
These rotations are part of a very precise acclimatization schedule built and refined over decades of experience by the Himalayan climbing community. For those interested in reading our schedule and itinerary more precisely, you can find it here.
What type of gear is needed and what is each used for?
It takes a lot of gear to climb such a mountain as we need to have very specific equipment for each type of weather conditions that we can face on the mountain. The full list contains what you would expect from any alpine climb (ice axe, crampons, multi-layer clothing system, harness…) with the addition of some very big (and warm) boots and expedition grade Mitts, down parka and pants.
Oh and I forgot about the -25 and -40 degree rated sleeping bags (one for base camp and one for higher camps).
Again if you are curious to see the full list you can find it here. And this is what it looks like unpacked.
All in all, it must fit in a couple of large duffel bag that will be carried by Yaks all the way to base camp.
Sherpas? Locals? Is commercial climbing a good or a bad thing for Nepalese/Tibetans?
I’m sure there are a lot of diverging opinions on this out there. Climbing and trekking in Nepal and Tibet is a big tourist activity for a country and region that doesn’t have a lot of natural resources and wealth. It helps bring currency in the country both for the government and for commerce in Kathmandu and the villages.
Porters and climbing Sherpas make better wages with these activities than most other type of jobs in the country. However, they have a much higher elevated level of risk taking as well. Thus, the controversy on the activity. One of the reasons I choose to climb with Alpine ascent is because they do treat their porters in Nepal and other continents the best in the industry. They pay them better, they train them better and they provide them with better gear.
Isn’t the mountain getting super dirty and isn’t commercial climbing becoming a bad thing for the earth?
Alpine Ascent International is a leader in the community regarding their climbing ethics. They teach and observe the Leave No Trace philosophy. Everything is packed and brought off the mountain including human waste.
However, it is true that Everest has a reputation of having a lot of garbage left by previous expeditions (tent, ropes, oxygen bottle…). For the last few years the Nepalese government along with several Non profit organizations have taken on cleaning up the mountain by paying climbing Sherpas a few dollars for every old piece of garbage collected and brought off the mountain.
As a matter of fact, the north face of Everest is closed this year due to the Chinese government undertaking an extensive clean up of the entire face.
What then? What happens after Everest?
If I am blessed enough to make it all the way and back, then maybe I’ll consider finishing the 7 summit endeavor and attempting to climb the remaining 4 on my list (Aconcagua - Argentina, Vinson - Antartica, Elbrus – Russia, Carstensz Pyramid – Indonesia).
But that will be the topic for another blog post after my return from this expedition.
