Hello again!
Finally, we are off the mountain and some of us are back in Kathmandu. Sebastien chose to hitch a ride on an MI-17 Nepalese Military Transport Helicopter along with a few other climbers from separate teams - Sebastien arrived in Kathmandu on May 29. I walked out a bit early to
Lukla and flew into Kathmandu on May 30
th, while John, Darrel and Erik will arrive tomorrow, June 1st. We're all looking forward to a good party!!
Congratulations to all the Everest climbers who joined Canada West on this adventure, we all achieved an amazing goal - to safely climb high on the slopes of Mt. Everest! Everyone of us reached our personal high points on our summit day, and more importantly, we all came back with great memories, all of our toes and fingers, no losses amongst our team and the satisfaction that comes with having climbed to the best of our abilities while making good decisions (and sticking with them!). It has been a pleasure to have been joined on this journey to Everest by such a positive and truly enjoyable team of climbers!
As for our summit day story...
Our team set out from Camp 4 in the South Col at 8:45 pm on the evening of May 24
th. We had been delayed by one day due to an unfortunate event - another team had chosen to steal and eat most of our food before we arrived in Camp 4, which forced us to delay attempting the summit on the evening of May 23rd as planned. Even though we had over-stocked our food in Camp 4 in order to deal with unexpected delays (weather, fatigue, etc), we had not anticipated such behaviour! The only option we had was to spend an extra day at 7,960 meters in Camp 4, and to send a member down 900 meters back to Camp 3 to retrieve our emergency food from that camp (luckily we had over-stocked that camp as well!).
Phurba Bhote, one of our stronger Climbing Sherpas chose to do this, but as a result of this he forfeited his chance to summit Everest with us, a real disappointment for all of us.
Added to this bit of drama, we also had a n0n-climbing member go missing on our summit day. Our Camp 2 Cook Helper had carried a load for us to Camp 4 on May 23rd, then descended on the 24
th in the morning with a load of empty oxygen bottles. Though not a trained or experienced climbing Sherpa, he had aspirations to being one and was very strong and fit. Unfortunately he did not arrive back to Camp 2 as planned in the afternoon of the 24
th, nor did he radio. This caused us much stress and distraction on the afternoon of the 24
th - instead of resting and getting psyched for the climb that evening, our climbing
Sirdar,
Lhakpa Chhiri Sherpa (
Sonam), and I worried about the whereabouts and safety of
Dhipendra (Jon) our cook helper. When we left for the summit at 8:45 pm, we chose to send Then
Dorjee and
Phurba down towards Camp 3 (again!) in order to search for any sign of
Dhipendra. They gave up this search after an hour as they quickly realized little could be done at that point anyways, and Then
Dorjee caught up with us later on the upper mountain.
It turned out that after all this stress, worry and searching,
Dhipendra had
snuck back to Camp 4 after hiding his load, joined up with his brother who was working for another team. Then, the two had clandestinely climbed to the summit without telling anyone! They were recognized on their descent by Then
Dorjee on the morning of the 25
th as we went up. So, at least no one was hurt in the process, but certainly a lot of wasted and misdirected energy. As for
Dhipendra, well,
Sagarmartha sent him a little warning - he spent 2 days in his tent afterwards suffering from snow blindness (he's fully recovered and is fine now, though very sheepish for his poor judgement that affected so many people.)
As for the remainder of our ascent - myself, John
Furneaux, Darrel, Erik and Sebastien continued climbing along with
Lhakpa Chhiri Sherpa (
Sonam),
Dawa Bhote,
Pasang Ila Sherpa,
Chenden Sherpa and (eventually) Then
Dorjee Sherpa. The evening was wonderful, with a cloudless sky and after the 1st hour we were treated to a spectacular moonrise over Tibet. Winds were light and the temperature was manageable, though still very cold.
At around 8,250 meters both Darrel and Erik made their individual decisions to turn around, each feeling that this would be their high point on the mountain, and that to continue would potentially jeopardize their safety. I had earlier told everyone on the team that while we were below Camp 4, if anyone was feeling like turning around or stopping, we would actively and strongly encourage them to continue (if safe to do so). Once above Camp 4 though, we all agreed that a climbers decision was final. While encouragement and positive reinforcement to help support each of us in the challenge of climbing this mountain was needed, once someone chose to turn back it would be irresponsible to try and talk them out of that decision at such an altitude.
So, Erik and Darrel descended to Camp 4 along with
Sonam, who as Lead Climbing Sherpa chose to go down and spend the remainder of the night with them in Camp 4. Both Erik and Darrel were in fine shape as they descended with
Sonam, and we continued to maintain radio contact with them throughout the night.
John, Sebastien and I continued on without event, until
Dawa Bhote decided to return to Camp 4 as he was having a hard time keeping his hands and feet warm - we certainly did not want to have any member of our team get frostbite on this climb, so we quickly re-distributed his load and continued on.
Dawa returned safely to Camp 4 that evening and on to Camp 2 during the morning of May 25
th. He did not suffer any damage at all to his hands or feet, thanks to his early recognition of the potential for injury and his smart decision to let us know. Though only 21,
Dawa is already a strong and very capable Climbing Sherpa, just as his father
Phurba Bhote is.
This left our team as myself, John, Sebastien, Then
Dorjee Sherpa,
Mingma Sherpa,
Pasang Ila Sherpa and
Chenden Sherpa. At 7:15 am we reached the south Summit in beautiful weather, and after negotiating the substantial challenges of the Hillary Step (at least 1.5 hours of travel on very exposed rock at over 8,700 meters, followed by another 30 minutes of snow!) on May 25
th at 9:15 am (Nepal time) John
Furneaux, Sebastien
Sasseville and myself (Brian Jones) together
summitted the highest point on earth,
Sagarmartha (Mt. Everest). We were honoured to be joined in our ascent by 4 of our Sherpa teammates - Then
Dorjee Sherpa of
Shomare Village in the
Khumbu Valley, this was Then
Dorjee's 5
th ascent;
Mingma Sherpa, also of the
Khumbu Region, this was his 4
th ascent;
Pasang Illa Sherpa on his 2
nd ascent; and,
Chhenden Sherpa of
Pangboche in
teh Khumbu Valley celebrating his 1st ascent of Everest along with John, Sebastien and I!
The picture here (above) that I took shows John
Furneaux (left) and Sebastien
Sasseville on the South Summit of Everest at 7:30 am on May 25
th, with the final summit of Everest in the background. The right side of the picture is the notorious Hillary Step, the final, and technical, obstacle to the actual summit of Everest - you can make out about 6-8 people on the Hillary Step in the image. My next post I will load up summit pictures and videos, I do not have access to all these at this point (sorry!).
After a great 30 minutes of celebrating on the top, we started our descent. Fortunately for us, this was very uneventful and we arrived in the South Col at 2:30 pm on May 25
th, 4.5 hours after leaving the summit.
What a season this has been - starting with the Chinese closing the North side;
followed by threats from Nepal to close the South side; then, Nepal waffling for weeks about how it will manage climbers on the South side; next, we never received our climbing permit
until long after we were in Base Camp; Base Camp was "Occupied" by the Nepalese Army,
apparently acting on Chinese orders, though they never seemed to know from one day to the next what they wanted to do; a
complete blackout on
communication within Base Camp for over 1 month; not being able to climb
above Camp 1 for weeks; and on, and on......
After all was said and done though, we had a great adventure and are happy to say that Canada West will certainly be going back to Everest soon! This is the 5
th expedition to the Himalaya for John
Furneaux, and he'll continue to lead the Everest Expeditions for Canada West in the future.
Once again I would like to thank all the friends and family for all the support and for following these updates. I do apologise for any delays and/or errors that may have been published, any responsibility for these rests entirely with me as I have been trying to get these out by
satellite phone, email and by leaving voice mails for various
people to interpret and turn into a coherent update. Thanks especially to my wife Maureen for putting up with my brief calls and managing to keep the updates happening!
As mentioned, I'll follow up with at least one more post in a day or 2 with links to lots of photos and videos, as well as the final post-party update (and
perhaps some pictures from that event as well!!)
Cheers,
Brian Jones
Canada West Everest 2008 Expedition Leader
