KATHMANDU: A team of four Sherpas is setting off on Monday to attempt a record winter ascent of Mount Everest in just five days, which would also be the first winter climb of the peak in more than quarter of a century.
“A winter speed climbing expedition has not happened yet and so we are attempting a new record,” team leader Tashi Lakpa Sherpa, who has summited Everest eight times, told reporters.
Sherpa, 34, will not be using supplemental oxygen. Only one climber has previously ascended the peak in winter without supplemental oxygen: a Nepali mountaineer in December 1987.
Sherpa will be joined by three other climbers — Pasang Nurbu Sherpa, Ming Temba Sherpa, and Halung Dorchi Sherpa — who all have at least two Everest summits under their belt.
“I know the mountain … We are fully prepared and we have acclimatized. The biggest preparation to minimize risk on the mountain is acclimatization,” Sherpa said.
As per the schedule, today, they will reach Everest Base Camp by a chopper and on 24 February they will reach Camp 2 from Base Camp.
On 26 February, they will reach Camp 3 while the next day they will be at Camp 4. On 28 February, they will acclimatize at Camp 4 and on 29 they will push to the summit and return back to Camp 2 on the same day.
Similarly, according to their plan, they will return back to Kathmandu on March 1.
The Nepali climbers will be joining two other teams at Everest Base Camp who have been waiting for the right weather conditions.
Spanish alpinist Alex Txikon and his team and German climber Jost Kobusch are also hoping to break the spell of unsuccessful winter expeditions on Everest.
Temperatures near the summit of Everest in winter regularly plunge below minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit), while strong winds make it even riskier.
In those conditions exposed skin freezes in less than five minutes, putting climbers in serious danger of frostbite.
Hundreds of climbers flock to Everest each year but most attempts the climb during a narrow window of calm weather between late April and May.
Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 14 highest peaks and foreign climbers who flock to its mountains are a major source of revenue for the country.
The last successful winter ascent was in 1993 by a Japanese team.
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