Probably 22 May will soon appear in the Mount Everest record list: as the day with the most summit successes to date. Over 300 (!) climbers are said to have reached the highest point at 8,850 meters yesterday, the lion’s share from the Nepalese south side. Among them was also Nirmal, called “Nims” Purja, who according to his own words stood on the summit at 5.30 a.m. local time (with bottled oxygen) and afterwards “despite of the heavy traffic”, as he writes on Facebook, also on the top of Lhotse. He reached the summit at 3.45 p.m., he says. It was his eight-thousanders number four and five this season. In the meantime he has arrived at Makalu Base Camp. Nims wants to scale all 14 eight-thousanders in only seven months. If he succeeds on Makalu too, he will be on schedule with his “Mission Possible”, as he called his project.
Like in the sale
Purja also published on Facebook a picture of the summit ridge of Everest that reminds of a morning in summer sales. A long, almost uninterrupted queue of summit candidates is moving upwards. I still remember the outcry that the pictures of the German high-altitude climber Ralf Dujmovits triggered in 2012, showing a long queue in the Lhotse flank. As a consequence, the number of summit candidates was not reduced, but two lines of fixed ropes were laid parallel to each other – calling that “risk management”. Of course, this is not possible on the summit ridge. According to Gyanendra Shrestra, the government liaison officer in Everest Base camp, climbers reported on Wednesday that they had waited more than two hours (!) at the 8,749-meter-high South Summit.
Continue reading “Traffic jam on Everest summit ridge”
