And up to the Lhotse Face

April 27/28/29

On Saturday we started our second 'rotation' on the mountain with the aim of reaching the bottom of the Lhotse Face at 6700m. As every foray into the icefall it starts with a very early wake-up call at 3:30 in the morning. Some teams even start at 2am to avoid the hard to imagine sweltering heat in the icefall once the sun hits around 8ish and as well as the risky combination of walking through ice cubes in the heat.

While the exertion of the ascent felt comparable to our last trek to C1 when we checked our watches we were up in 4hs instead of the 5:15 it took us last time. Clearly a sign that more time at altitude helps as well as knowing the track (even though the track seems to changing day by day...).

Unfortunately this time the day didnt stop here but we were going on to Camp 2 so another 400m of altitude gain up the Cwm. The mountains being the mountains the weather didnt stay sunny but clouds started rolling in and the wind picked up so that it was soon hard to make out the person ahead of you as the snow drift blocked sight and covered the 'crunchy' trail of a few days ago in a layer of powder snow making it twice as hard to progress. Exhausted we reached C2 which is located on the left side of the Cwm directly under the rocky face of Everest about three-quarters up.

The next morning was a short day pushing the boundaries further of our altitude gain. A hike towards the foot of the Lhotse Face. 300m altitude gain over a gentle snow slope up to 6700m. While that sounds like a stroll at this altitude there's 40% of the sea level oxygen available so one soon reverts to counting the steps until a mini break is required. I settled on 30 steps with 15 breaths recovery stops. Sure the ratio will reverse pretty soon..

If the photos made it through: the first shows you the view from Camp2 towards the towering Lhotse face which starts from 6700m and extends all the way to the summit of Lhotse at 8500m; the second is a close up showing that the angle actually isnt near vertical but closer to 45 degrees. The route heads up on the smooth bit on the left towards Camp3 (about a third up c7300m) and then swings left to cross the Yellow Band (the thin horizontal rock strip) and then upwards behind the Geneva Spur (the rocky outcrop on the left) towards the South Col.

A word on the 'fighting' on Everest that made it to the global press. Despite having been at Camp2 on the day we werent directly aware of the hostilities between Uli Steck and Simone Moro and a group of Sherpas. Hard to imagine the Sherps showing any aggression but there was significant tension on the Lhotse face were rock fall caused lots of injuries last year. Uli and Co were climbing above the rope fixing and (apparently) ice came down and injured the sherpas. Typically the slope is left solely to the sherps for the time of the fix. The police wants to the see the sherps in Namche but all parties met in Base Camp yesterday avoid that by to signing a 'peace agreement'. unsurprisingly they couldnt agree the wording. Some drama on the mountain which will likely have no impact on our endeavours.

Yesterday we went down directly to EBC for some recovery time. The weather is still holding up so the ropes should still be fixed up the Col by tomorrow (May 1st) and we will likely head up again on Thursday to 'touch' Camp 3. If the weather is supportive we will stay up at Camp 2 to wait for the winds to clear to make an attempt at the summit end of next week. Fingers crossed