Plans can be altered from minute to minute with any hint of a change in the weather or other influencing factors. Diaries from Byron Smith's 1998 attempt show the plans changed three times. On his 2000 bid, summit day moved from May 6 to 8 and was finally confirmed as May 7, weather depending. Byron made his final choice based on the advice of his experienced Sherpa sirdar, Lhakpa Tshering. Even with that experienced guess, the weather window seemed to close before they planned -- forcing an early descent before the team had even left Camp IV for the summit. The successful summit day wouldn't come for another two weeks.

Covering old ground

For the first part of a final ascent, climbers cover old ground. The Icefall, Camp I, the Western Cwm, Camp II, the Lhotse Face, Camp III -- climbers have seen all these before, during the three to four week acclimatization process. This time, when they depart from Basecamp early on the first morning of the summit push, they climb straight through to Camp II. They cross the precarious Khumbu Icefall for the second-to-last time and go right by Camp I at the top of the falls. This huddle of tents at 6,000 m was only erected as a stop-over for the first acclimatization climb, more than three weeks prior. Now that the climbers' bodies are fully acclimatized to the highest possible altitude (Camp III at 7,200 m), they don't need to spend any longer than necessary getting to the top.

First stop: Camp II

The first stop then, on Day One of a summit bid, is at Camp II at 6,500 m in the Western Cwm. At this Advanced Base Camp, climbers eat, sleep and go over equipment one last time. Depending on the weather they could spend one or two nights here.

At Camp III and above, most climbers breathe on bottled oxygen. Without it, they'd get cold much quicker and they may not think as clearly. It is possible to climb Everest without oxygen, but few people have done it, and most feel it is more prudent to climb with the supplemental gas. Byron and Tim will sleep on O₂ at Camp III and continue using it as they climb higher.

"... [bottled oxygen] really does make the climbing of the summit possible, and it also makes our ability to climb at a pretty good climbing rate possible. Last year for example, I recall that we were climbing from the South Col to the Balcony at about a rate of about 600 plus feet an hour, which is pretty good at those altitudes, and we were not straining ourselves doing it."
- Charles Corfield, Mountain Zone dispatch

"After the Yellow Band comes a long traverse over to the Geneva Spur a huge rocky out crop between you and the South Col ... I remember thinking what Laurie Skreslet had told me about his first time up to the top of the Geneva Spur and how looking back down into the Cwm was one of the most magnificent sights he had ever seen, I could certainly relate to this."
- Byron Smith, 1998 Diaries

"The night had a cold, phantasmal beauty that intensified as we climbed. More stars than I had ever seen smeared the frozen sky. A gibbous moon rose above the shoulder of 27,824-foot Makalu, washing the slope beneath my boots in ghostly light, obviating the need for a headlamp."
- Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air

Want to know more? Headlamps Oxygen Regulator Summit Stories 1999 Mountain High Adventure 1998: Wally Berg's plans for a summit bid 1997 Berg Summit Questioned summits

The general aim is to reach the summit by morning, or just after noon -- no one wants to get caught descending in the dark. Because of the limited daylight, and the finite amount of bottled oxygen, climbers usually set a "turn-around" time. If a climber has used up half the oxygen, and still hasn't reached the summit, he or she may have to make the hard decision to climb back down without having reached the goal.

On Summit Day, Byron and Tim left their tents at the South Col around 10:30 p.m., climbing on bottled oxygen with a team of eight Sherpas.

The Sherpas had already covered this distance, having previously stashed oxygen tanks at the South Summit and co-operated with Sherpas from other teams to fix the climbing ropes up to the Hillary Step. As the team leaves the Col, they first come up against the Triangular Face, a 500-metre snow slope that leads to the crest of the Southeast Ridge. The Ridge, leading up to the Balcony at 8,400 m, is covered with overhanging masses of hardened snow -- what mountaineers call cornices. Once they make it past this stretch, most climbers pause for a drink and a rest on the lip of the Balcony.

Next, they clip in to the fixed ropes set by the Sherpas and climb up to the South Summit at 8,765 m. From there, the route narrows into a crest known as the knife-edge ridge. The ridge leads to the Hillary Step, a near vertical pitch of rock and snow, 18 m high. Getting over this pitch, with hearts pounding and chests heaving, is one of the hardest parts of the Summit Day climb. Once over the Step, climbers still have 20 minutes of strenuous climbing over the Summit Ridge before they can plant a shaky foot on the top of the world. The top of the peak is about the size of a pool table - big enough for about three people to stand at once.

"Reaching the top of Everest is supposed to trigger a surge of intense elation; against long odds, after all, I had just attained a goal I'd coveted since childhood. But the summit was really only the halfway point. Any impulse I might have felt toward self-congratulation was extinguished by overwhelming apprehension about the long, dangerous descent that lay ahead."
- Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air

It's hard to say how long a descent will take. On the trip down, summitters almost always encounter other climbers coming up. The famous "bottlenecks" on the montain occur more often on good weather days when several teams make the push at once. On the fixed rope spots (on the summit ridge, the Hillary Step, and the Triangular Face) only one person can pass at a time, so anyone waiting up above has to sit tight until those coming up the rope, reach the top. This slows the descent but all climbers can do is climb as quickly as is safe. In 1998 Byron took one hour and 18 minutes to descend from the South Summit to Camp IV. On his 2000 climb it took about 4 hours to get down to Camp IV.

Questions Kids Ask
Why do expeditions push for the summit in May?
Answer:
For most of the year, the jet stream (a high, narrow current of swiftly moving air) tears directly across the summit of Mt. Everest. If you were to be climbing Kala Patar, a nearby peak, at the end of April, you would be astounded at the constant roar of overhead jets. In fact, no planes fly overhead in this region of the Khumbu but the jet stream is so loud you would swear there were. More ...

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