Everest Base Camp is ever-changing. The weather, the comings and goings, new world records — and the ice beneath.
The night is punctuated by the sharp crack of avalanches as the hanging seracs calve off on Nuptse. After a week or two, the floor of the tent tilts, and my head is lower than my feet. Base Camp itself is on the move.
After Ang Tsering sets off for his summit push, other climbers arrive. Purnima Shrestha, a photojournalist for Karobar relates how after her first summit, it just became one peak after another.
She is at EBC after having climbed Kanchenjunga earlier in the week, and was now going for Lhotse. Last year she climbed Mt Everest, Dhaulagiri, Manaslu and Annapurna. Everyone expects her to do 14 peaks a la Nims Purja, but she has not made up her mind yet.
“I don’t know, I want to keep K2 for when I’m in my 50s or 60s,” she laughs. “I don’t know what my life will be like then. There’s some poetry in leaving something unfinished, a challenge for me to pick up later on in life.”
Kristin Harila has a much more immediate ambition. The Norwegian climber is sponsored by a watch brand, and is taking the help of Lakpa Sherpa and 8K Expeditions to fulfil her dream of conquering all 14 eight thousanders in record time. Not only will she be the fastest woman to do it, but she might even be the fastest human being to climb all 14 true peaks in record time.
She adds, “I am completely beholden to the 8K Sherpas who help me up there. They are the backbone, without them I would not be able to even dream of doing what I am setting out to do.”
“Nowadays individuals get too much credit, and make too much of their achievements,” she continues. “The real story is that it is a collaborative effort from fixing ropes to carrying oxygen and making sure that survival is possible at such altitudes.”
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Dawa Sherpa has come out of retirement to help Kristin beat the record of 14 peaks, and has seen how climbing has changed in the last few decades.
“Before you were truly going into the unknown, nowadays they can tell us precisely when a weather window will open. It is much easier,” he says, but adds that the mountains still have plenty of surprises.
Dawa and Kristin had a tough time in April on Annapurna 1 when they got lost in a complete whiteout with fierce winds. “It was the first time that I was in that situation. Annapurna 1 is truly the most difficult mountain in my experience,” he says.
All activity at EBC also revolves around the weather. The conditions in Lukla for the ferry flights, weather here, and high up on the mountain. Nature has to be an ally for any progress from Kathmandu to the high camps, and the summit.
Purnima leaves for her Lhotse ascent, and we head up to Pumori High Camp to get a better perspective on things. It is the day of Ang Tsering’s summit, maybe it will be possible for our lens to capture him on the southeast ridge more than 4,000m above us.
These mountains are taller than anything else in the world, and even here we are already higher than all mountains in Europe. Be humble, the mighty mountains silently implore.
Far off to the south, Ama Dablam is a swirl of vanilla ice cream, gleaming like gold in the first rays of the sun, even as the crags below us are in shadow. A shroud of fog blankets the Khumbu Glacier, drifting up the valley. It is movement in stillness in these mountains.
