원정 개요

CBC 28/04 4900m
ABC 05/05 6400m
C1 09/05 7000m
C2 20/05 7800m
C3 21/05 8300m
Smt 21/05 by Crampton at 11:30 pm
Smt 22/05 by Craig Plescia, Mike Brown, Anna Brown, Pasang Nima all at 3:20 am,
Ted Callahan at 5 am.

Team left C3 at 8 pm. Straightforward climb. They spent about 15 minutes on the summit and descended to ABC, where they arrived at about 3:30 pm.

Norris reached North Col.

Anders reached intermediate camp. He had food poisoning 3 times in 5 days and returned to Kathmandu right at the beginning of the expedition.

Oxygen: Taken and used from 7300m by members and Sherpas.


Phil Crampton's blog (24/05/2018)

Our team members along with their respective climbing Sherpas made the climbs to camp one, two and three respectively all in good times as expected. What was not expected, was that they all switched on their turbo switches at camp three before departing for the summit.

Seeing as we were the only team on the mountain going for the top on the 22nd, we had some flexibility with our departure time. We all arrived at camp three between 10 am and 1 pm, so we had plenty of time to rest before leaving for the summit. Around 2 pm in the afternoon the Nepalese side of the mountain started to fill with high clouds and this started to alarm me somewhat, based on what the weather forecast models said could happen. Our original plan was to depart at 10 pm, allowing the slower members of the group to reach the summit at sunrise and the faster members at first light, as it’s light near the summit at 4 am, but with the increased clouds we decided to leave a couple of hours early to get a head start on the departure to ABC. We did not want to spend the night on the Col if there was going to be significant snowfall in the evening.

What happened on our summit day I have never experienced before. All our team members and Sherpa were focused, departed on time, and reached the summit in mad crazy fast times, all before the sun had rose. The first climbers reached the summit in just over three hours and were back at high camp in five hours round trip. The other climbers were close behind and we all reached the summit and descended to advanced base camp throughout the day. The last Sherpa to clear the mountain and descend reported some light snow in the afternoon, just as we had expected. As it turned out, the European model was way off with its prediction, but we were cautious enough to consult both forecasts and make the appropriate summit plans.


From Craig Plescia by email:

Pretty sure Green Boots is still in the cave just recessed very far back and covered in rocks. Australian still in green tarp deceased under tarp. Spaniard with broken leg still there deceased by 2nd Step. Deceased Brit still dangling in ropes beyond 2nd Step. Red/pink down suited deceased climber face down in snow also still there (can't remember if that was before or after 3rd Step).