원정 개요

Schmidt climbed two mountains: Lhotse first and Ama Dablam afterwards. The plan was for Schmidt and his client Lee Nobmann to go to Lhotse/Everest BC together. While Schmidt climbed Lhotse, Nobmann would remain at BC but take side trips to Kalapattar and perhaps elsewhere not far from BC. And he did not go to Gorak Shep and twice to Kalapattar to get some acclimatization for his climb of Ama Dablam with Schmidt.

Meanwhile Schmidt went to the normal West Face route on Lhotse alone and quickly made his way up the mountain with three bivouacs on the way. He left the highest one at 7200m at 11:00 pm on the 20th, and at 2:00 am on 21 October he reached 7500m (below the Yellow Band). Then 120 Km/hr wind hit him. He turned around and was back in his highest bivouac at 4:00 pm. The weather forecast said strong winds would continued for the next two or three days. He had obligations to his client, so on the 21st he went down all the way to BC.

Nobmann told Schmidt that during his climbs on Kalapattar he realized he was not in good enough condition because of being overweight to attempt Ama Dablam at that time. So instead of climbing the mountain, he and Schmidt trekked to Pheriche, where a helicopter picked them up and flew them to Kathmandu on the 24th. Nobmann had done no serious climbing.

While Schmidt was accompanying Nobmann to the airport on the 27th for Nobmann's flight home, his "heart, body, mind and spirit called (him) to head out to climb Ama Dablam solo in the next few days." So he flew back to Lukla on the 28th, trekked to Ama Dablam BC in one day, and on the 31st climbed from BC to the site of C2, where he bivouacked at 6000m.

On 2 November he went for the top. He left his 6000m bivouac at 7 am on a "beautiful day" and was on the summit at 1:00 pm. He had to slow down at the final 70 meters to the top to join with another team's Sherpa to fix rope on the whole last section.

He then descended to BC, where he arrived at 9 pm. On 3 November, he left BC and trekked back to Lukla. He flew to Kathmandu the next day.

He had done the roundtrip from Kathmandu to Ama Dablam's summit to Kathmandu in seven days.