원정 개요

The team consisted of four members: (1) Yuichiro Miura, who was 80 years old and now wanted to set a new record of the oldest Everest summiter; (2) his son Gota, himself an experienced climber; (3) Hiroyuki Kuraoka, who had already summited Everest twice from the Nepalese and twice from Tibet, and was the teams' climbing tactician; and (4) Kazuya Hiraide, their photographer, who had summited once from Nepal. They took ten climbing Sherpas with them.

The expedition arrived at BC on 17 April and then went to Pumori for an acclimatization climb and to avoid Yuichiro Miura's having to go through the Icefall more than once in order to save his energy. On Pumori, they made a camp at 5700m on 23 April and spent two nights there. They made a higher camp at 5850m on 8 May and stayed there for two nights.

They moved from Pumori to Everest BC on 10 May and moved through the Icefall to the top and C1 on 16 May. Now they moved up relatively quickly in the following days: to C2 in the Western Cwm on the 17th, to C3 on Lhotse West Face on the 19th, to an intermediate camp at 7600m on the upper crystal rock before the Geneva Spur, to C4 at the South Col on the 21st, and C5, which is very seldom established, at the Balcony on the 22nd.

On the night of the 22nd only two Sherpas slept in C5 because of the restricted space. They were the sirdar Pemba Gyalzen and Ngima Nurbu. Five other Sherpas remained in C4 for the final summit push.

At 2:00 am on 23 May, the four members and two Sherpas left C5 for top together and were on the summit at 9:00 am together with the other five Sherpas. Yuichiro Miura by now was extremely tired and weak; in his descent, he was short-roped from 8700m to C4, where he arrived at 7:20 pm, ten hours after he stood on the summit.

The next day, the 24th, still extremely weak, Yuichiro Miura took 13 hours to descend from C4 to C2. On the 26th he flew by helicopter from C2 to Kathmandu. The Icefall had collapsed on the 25th, and he would have been in it that day if he had not flown over it.

Yuichiro Miura was on oxygen from the middle of the Icefall on the 16th to the top and down to and in C2 on 24-26 May. The other members used it from C2 to the top and back to C2. Their Sherpas used it from C4 to the summit to C4.

Sherpa summiters:
Bir Kaji Tamang, 10/12/78, Gorakhani-4, Solu, Everest X1
Ngima Nurbu Sherpa, 6/11/81, Tesho, Khumbu, Everest X13, Cho Oyu X1, Lhotse X1
Ongje Sherpa, 22/8/83, Gaurishankar-2, Everest X1, Cho Oyu X2
Pema Chiri Sherpa, Rolwaling, 26 years old
Pemba Gyalzen Sherpa, 22/7/69, Thamo, Khumbu, Everest X7, Cho Oyu X1, Manaslu X1
Pemba Nuru Sherpa, 3/2/73, Pare, Khumbu, Everest X3, Lhotse X1, Manaslu X2
Tshering Wangchu Sherpa, 16/3/83, Thamo, Everest X4, Cho Oyu X1, Manaslu X1