원정 개요

This expedition skipped the usual C2 site and made their bid for the summit from their second high camp at 6250m which they called Camp 2.7. It was "significantly" above the normal C2 and just below the old C3 site at 6300m. Ballinger said it doesn't make sense to use the old site: there is nothing falling from above now, "but the potential is still there." It took an hour to dig platforms for tents at C 2.7, but in addition to the greater safely at 6250m, this site "was used only by us and is clean and near fresh water" from clean snow; C2 and C3 sites are "disgusting" from rubbish and polluted snow.

On their summit day, 6 November, all the members and their three Sherpas set out from C 2.7 at 6:00 am. Half an hour later Gessert dropped out at 6300m because of exhaustion. He descended to C1 that day and down to BC the next day.

The five remaining members, Ballinger, Harris, Suzuki, Tamura and Toyama, and Sherpas Dorje Sonam Gyalzen, Phurba Tashi and Rita Dorje reached the summit between 9:10 am (Toyama) and 10:00 am (Suzuki). The weather was "perfect, windless, gloves off." All returned to C1 that evening between 5:00 and 7:00 pm.

Suzuki was the one who came in last because she had twisted her ankle descending from the top. Although it was painful, she got down to BC and walked two days to Lukla, and was still walking (with a slight limp) in Kathmandu the day after had she landed.

All members were in BC on the 7th and left for Lukla on the 8th.

Oxygen was taken with the team, but they didn't use it. It was however used when Ballinger took two Sherpas with him on 30 October up to 6300m, where he administered it to Christian Hotter, a member of an Austrian expedition led by Franz Kroell, was in trouble from cerebral edema and serious frostbite after having spent the previous night out in the open.

The necessity of helping to rescue Hotter put an end to Ballinger's plan at this point, after his team's acclimatization period, to do a one-day round trip alone from BC to summit to BC.

Sherpas:
Dorje Sonam Gyalzen, 24/5/81, Phortse, Everest X11, Manaslu X1
Phurba Tashi, 24/5/71, Khumjung, Everest X15, Cho Oyu X5
Rita Dorje, aka Ang Rita, 24/10/77, Phortse, Everest X5