April 29, 2013
What has gone on up on the mountain yesterday has lowered moral here at EBC. Mountains have no place for egos, you see it time and time again, eventually a price is paid.
The short of the story is that three Western climbers from another organization disregarded the timing and efforts of the Sherpa fixing team who were appointed to place the ropes to Camp 3, they got in the way and conflict arose when both groups returned to C2. Marty and a couple other Western Mountain Guides helped to defuse the situation and no one was hurt.
A mediator was flown into EBC today by helicopter for a meeting, it ended with some hand shaking. The Sherpas continued with their work and the three foreigners involved cancelled their climb and have left the mountain.
I'm sure all the nitty gritty details will get revealed once the press starts doing interviews but this is all I have to say.
THE ROUTE: Was completed today today to Camp 3 and above to just above the yellow band. This is a location between Camp 3 and Camp 4. Big thank you's for that- we can get on with this climb.
OUR MOVE: Peak Freaks will move up to Camp 3, hang out, get used to the altitude, have lunch the retreat to Camp 2 for the night.
Kevin Farebrother who is attempting without oxygen will sleep at C3 tomorrow then go a bit higher, hang out there for the day before descending back to C2 and then joining everyone back in EBC day after tomorrow.
Over and out.... Tim
www.peakfreaks.com
This seems to be a quite biased report of the incident.
ReplyDeleteI have not been there but the sequence of events suggested by Alan Arnette appears to be more balanced. http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2013/04/29/everest-2013-a-time-for-patience/
Three ¨Western climbers¨, who are not tourists but experienced mountaineers and certainly are aware of the written and unwritten rules in the mountains have been severely injured and their lives being threatened. This is completely unacceptable.
And as for their respect (or perceived disrespect) for the Sherpas working on the mountains, it should be mentioned that Simone Moro, one of the ¨disrespectful Western climber¨ spends quite some time on Everest carrying out helicopter rescue operations, free of charge for Sherpas.
Probably the account of Jon Griffith http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=68025, the photographer in the team of ¨disrespectful climbers¨ can give a hint on the real underlying problem: The tensions between the commercial expedition leaders and their sherpa staff.
JP