원정 개요

Cleo checked into the Hyatt Hotel in Kathmandu on 17 April, then flew to Lukla to spend a few days (20-24 April) visiting Sherpa friends in Thamo village. She knew nothing about the fatal icefall disaster of the 18th. A lama came from a village above Thamo to bless her climb, and he told her to go to the mountain.

Cleo reached BC on 28 April with her regular Sherpa, Pema Tshering. Now they then learned about the Sherpas' deaths in the Icefall. The following day a small group of Sherpa agitators enforced a boycott of climbing into and thus above the Icefall up Everest and Lhotse. They threatened Pema with broken arms and legs and his home being burned down if he violated their boycott. On 29th he went to SPCC, whose "Icefall doctors" make the route through the Icefall, installing ladders and ropes along the route, and then Pema left, presumably after being informed that the Icefall route would no longer exist.

On 30 April Cleo went alone through the Icefall (with ladders still in place) to C1, where she left some gear. The next day, 1 May, she returned to BC, the same day the ladders were removed.

A very angry Cleo posted a defiant statement on Facebook. "This is just to let you know that my climb on the Everest massif will continue with or without ladders. I have climbed some of the world's most dangerous mountains without them and this mountain is, actually, very tame compared with the likes of Nanga Parbat, Annapurna I and Kangchenjunga. I refuse to give in to the pressures of the Everest mafia. I'd like to decide for myself when I have reached my limits."

So on the 2 May at 1:00 am, Cleo packed up and called up Fishtail Helicopters to fly her to C1. She collected her gear and the same chopper then flew her, still alone, to C2 in the Western Cwm.

On the 3rd, she searched for a route to the bergschrund, the crevasse between the Cwm and the beginning of the Lhotse face, and on the 4th and the 5th she managed to make her way to the bergschrund past crevasses and an ice ridge making use of old ropes still in place from previous expeditions.

Next she began to reconnoitre Lhotse's West Face. Meanwhile the American embassy became aware of the fact that one of its citizens was attempting all alone to climb Lhotse against the wishes of the Sherpa boycott organizers and asked Fishtail Helicopters about her. A few days later, Fishtail flew Pema to C2, where he joined Cleo on 12 May.

On 14 May, Cleo and Pema established C3 on the Lhotse face with the aid of old Chinese ropes. The next day Pema fell into one of the many crevasses on the face, but he was not injured, and they continued on up.

Although she now had a Sherpa with her, she went to ask for more help with fixing the difficult Lhotse face route at Jing Wang's camp, where the cook tent was occupied by some of Jing Wang's Sherpas. They declined to be of assistance.

Jing Wang said that "when were at C3, I saw her camp; at that time it was already ragged from wind blowing and wearing (it) down. We were quite concerned that her tent would be blown away by the wind. The next morning she departed first; when we passed by her later on, we exchanged a few words, 'be safe, kind of thing', not a lot of communication." That was the sole encounter between the only foreigners on the mountain.

On 17 May, Cleo and Pema were at about 8000m on the face and set about digging a platform for their tent for C4. During the digging, they found the body of a Taiwanese climber who had died the previous year. They cancelled their digging because of the constant rockfall and retreated to C3 and on the following day to C2. Now there was very strong (perhaps 90km/her) wind, which forced them to stay pinned down in C3 for four days.

On the 22nd, they decided to try to resume climbing once again and reached C3. The rockfall, crashing down the couloir and threatening Cleo's helipad, drove them back to C2 on the 23rd. Finally they gave up in the face of such serious continous falling rock. They were not bothered by much snow on the face, which was mostly exposed rock or rock covered by ice. It was the falling rock that stopped them.

On 23 May, Cleo concluded that they would never be able to claim the summit. With chopper flights required and no summit in sight, "it was not worth it" to continue. On 25 May, they flew from C2 to BC to Lukla by their final helicopter flight and from there to Kathmandu.

Sherpa:
Pema Tshering Sherpa, 16/6/70, Mathilow, Walung, Makalu-9, Lhotse X3, Makalu X9,
Dhaulagiri I X4, Kangch X2, Annapurna I X2