Our team climbed Everest to try to solve its greatest mystery
To make camps more comfortable for clients, Sherpas and other support climbers carry bedding and foam pads up the steep slope to the North Col. Everything from tents and oxygen bottles to stoves, food, and fuel must be carried above Advanced Base Camp. "The fact is, the weight of every enterprise on Everest rides on the backs of Sherpas," said author Mark Synnott.
"This was the fun part," said author Mark Synnott of the steep, icy ascent at about 22,000 feet from Advanced Base Camp to the North Col. So much of the rest of the Everest experience is trudging up snow slopes with packs. "We were finally climbing."
Just before a storm, tents from several expeditions huddle against the snowy slope in this drone shot of the North Col camp at about 23,000 feet. But the hurricane-force winds that followed proved too strong, blasting down every tent. A couple were blown away; one was lofted hundreds of feet into the air.
Blasted by hurricane-strength winds at 23,000 feet, Nick Kalisz clings to a broken tent after a harrowing storm the night before. A member of the expedition’s film team, he was later evacuated to Kathmandu to be treated for potentially life-threatening pulmonary embolisms.
Jim Hurst, the film team’s sound engineer, races toward a group of Indian climbers who were blown off their feet by a powerful gust at the North Col. To keep them from sliding down the mountain, he plunged his ice ax into the snow to help secure the rope the climbers were dangling from. Everyone was rescued.
Headlamps blaze as climbers ascend the mountain from the North Col in this time-lapse image from the team’s camp. The climbers were Sherpas and other support team members carrying oxygen bottles, tents, fuel for camp stoves, and other supplies to a high camp and back, an incredible feat of endurance.