Bugaboos Part 2: Warming Up
PigeonNatalie and I got a casual start to our trip. Pigeon Spire is the gold standard easy alpine outing in the Bugaboos. A straightforward ridge of perfect granite rises out of the glaciers to an airy summit. After a trip up the loose, steep and icy Bugaboo-Snowpatch Col we made quick work of the glacier and flew up the ridge with views of the Howser Towers, Snowpatch and Bugaboo Spires and the heart of the Purcell Range.
McTech
That evening, Alex (who I’d had the pleasure of getting to know well on Peaks Korzhenevskaya and Communism last summer in Tajikistan) and Vincent arrived. Both meteorologists and snow scientists, they’d just flown in from France. Natalie and I decided to join them on a climb of the legendary McTech Arete on Crescent Spire. This route didn’t require much of an approach, but presented the hardest technical climbing of the trip. Fortunately, rope-gun Natalie led all the hard pitches.
Did Grassland Expansion affect North American Climate?
A major component of my graduate work is out in this month's Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Here's an attempt to translate some of what I think about into English...bear with me because I simply can't spend the time to cover enough background material. Some of these are actual figures so sorry for the compexity.
The first chapter of my graduate work involved compiling and analyzing all of the existing records of climate change in western North America. Our research was motivated by the need to understand the topographic evolution of the Rocky Mountains and their effects on climate. My research group, along with several dozen other groups around the world, collects records of ancient climate using the chemistry of sedimentary rocks. By analyzing the ratios of isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen in particular minerals such as calcium carbonate, mica, clays, hydrated volcanic glass, and even fossil mammal teeth, we can decipher the climatic conditions of the past. 
One of the things we noticed during this work was a variety of explanations for stable isotope paleoclimate records in the last 20 or so million years. Nearly all of the records, except those in the rainshadow of the Cascade Mountains, increase in the amount of oxygen-18 in ancient precipitation. Over the last several years, I've worked on solving a set of questions exploring the possible contributions of grasslands to this climate change.
Despite the 3.7 billion year history of plants on Earth, the development of grasslands happened quite recently in the geological past, with grass-dominated landscapes appearing in North America over the last 25 or so million years. Grasslands rapidly expanded to their current extent (roughly 30% of Earth's land surface) mostly in the last 15 million years, coincident with global cooling, aridification and an increasingly seasonal climate. We figured that an ecological transition this large must have been accompanied by corresponding changes in climate. Plants recycle water through evapotranspiration...they all take in water from their roots and lose water through their leaves during photosynthesis. This effect is so great, some regions can practically create their own rainfall. Though grasses transpire less water than forests, they recycle more relative to the amount of precipitation in their region.
To test the idea that the rise of grass-dominated landscapes could have dramatically changed North American climate, we built a model to gain a mechanistic understanding of how different vegetation types would recycle water and affect climate downstream. In short, our findings were that grasslands indeed could have produced some of the most profound changes in climate and ushered in the modern climatic regime.
Best. Trip. Ever. Bugaboos Part 1
I'm continuing on my work from a coffee shop, sleep by a dirt road summer. My research work has been quite good and productive, more on that shortly, and the climbing has been nothing short of stellar. With all of my summer expeditions, I've never really had the chance to go to a lot of the areas in North America that have been on my mind. I've also been able to develop quite a bit as a rock climber.
After my fieldwork in BC finished up, I headed to Squamish, just north of Vancouver for some rock climbing. There, I met up with Hamik, who I'd climbed with in the Alps, and Natalie, a mutual friend of some of my climbing friends and a complete animal in the mountains. After a couple days of climbing on the perfect granite of Squamish, Natalie and I headed out and geared up for the long drive to the Bugaboo Provincial Park, located in British Columbia's Purcell Mountains.
The Bugs are one of the most picturesque places I've been, and are relatively civilized despite their true alpine character.
After a long drive over narrow dirt roads, we packed up, making sure to line our vehicle in chicken wire to prevent porcupines and other critters from chewing on anything or hitching an unauthorized ride down to civilization. We'd booked a stay at the beautiful Kain Hut, so we were able to pack light without stoves and camping gear and splurge on delicious food for our stay.
The hike up to the Kain Hut was steep but relatively short and we settled right in cooking dinner and sorting gear for the next day's climb.
I have too many photos from last week, so I'm gonna milk this over a few posts. Next major outdoor stop will be Wyoming and Montana where I teach a field course for Stanford sophomores.
Running in the Olympics
For nine years, a great deal of my time and energy was focused on one running fast and turning left. Track and field, especially at its upper levels, is all consuming and requires steady effort. It can take quite a bit of time to return to form after even a couple days off. When my back started acting up over the last three years of my running career, I denied the reality as long as I could, but eventually needed to confront my own limitations...I simply wasn't consistent enough to perform at a higher level. It took a while to be comfortable leaving running behind, but I see my ability to carry a pack and move fast in the mountains as a sign that I made the right call to drop the 90 mile weeks. Now I'm a happy member of the cheering section for my friends and former teammates as they chase the dream.
A few days ago, we wrapped up our fieldwork in British Columbia and I found myself with about 36 hours of freedom in Washington's Olympic Peninsula. I quickly schemed up a plan to climb Mount Olympus. No small undertaking, Olympus is one of the most remote peaks in Washington, requiring 45 miles and over 8000 vertical feet of elevation gain. My only exposure to what was possible on the route was coming from my friend and speed fiend Leor Pantilat, who holds the record at an insane 11 hours, 6 minutes. Leor is still the only partner I've ever had to leave me in the dust on the trail, so I knew I was in for a big trip.
I started out a bit late, around 5:30PM and got to running up the trail. I went as light as I thought I really should...no tent, just a small sleeping bag and pad, just a few clothes, minimal food and of course crampons and ice axe for the crossing of the Blue Glacier. The route ascends the Hoh River valley, through spectacular rainforest.
I ended up not making it quite as far as I'd liked...about 15-16 miles in, before I found a nice bivy site and settled in for the night. The next morning, I realized that my alarm had died in the night so I didn't have the alpine start to my advantage. Needing to be back at the trailhead by late afternoon or so, I realized I simply didn't have enough time to finish the remaining 30 or so miles of the route, so I slept in before hiking and running back down to the trailhead. Mountains aren't the same as track, but I'll take these Olympics any day.
On the road (again)...and Generation Anthropocene Interview
Greetings from British Columbia! I've been out doing fieldwork with my research group. We're all collecting samples that will help constrain the climate in western North America during the particularly hot and humid Eocene (33-55 million years ago). We're visiting some of the most amazing plant fossil sites on the continent and collecting samples for our isotopic work. The fishing is amazing, both for us and the bald eagles. Bugs aren't (so) bad.A few weeks ago, I sat down with Generation Anthropocene, a podcast started by fellow Stanford students Michael Osborne, Miles Traer and Leslie Chang that confronts the reality that we, humans, are a force driving global-scale change. In the first ever two-part GenAnthro conversation, Miles, Leslie and I discuss mountains, science and beyond in a somewhat biographical piece:Part OnePart Two
A Petit Epic!
The second half of my time in Colorado has been characterized by iffy weather. After a couple days up in Rocky Mountain National Park, we headed south hoping to try a small loop of climbing around the state. On a rest day of sorts, we climbed the Kelso Ridge on Torreys Peak and traversed to Grays for a nice half-day excursion before driving south towards Crestone. Once there, we realized just how grim the forecast was for pretty much the entire state. We spent the next day catching up on some work in Salida and heading back north to the Front Range where the forecast seemed best. On a day where the alpine certainly would be out of commission, we went up the First Flatiron before getting drizzled off any other climbing.
Yesterday, we headed back up to RMNP with the idea of capping off our trip with something memorable. Well, we got what we bargained for!
James and I got another pre-dawn start, this time with the intention of climbing the South Face of the Petit Grepon, one of Roper and Steck's 50 Classic Climbs of North America.
The five mile approach was spectacular, and having ironed out a few route-finding issues from our climb on Spearhead to start the trip, things went smoothly.
Once at the base of the Petit, we roped up for some steep pitches on spectacular rock. James led through the crux, a perfect hand crack.
We enjoyed the spectacular setting with views of the Continental Divide and the Loch Vale. Every belay had a perfect ledge better than the last.
We summited just as the sky started to turn. We quickly rigged the first rappel and were on our way down as hail and graupel began to pelt us. Down at the second rap station is when our luck turned. Our ropes were completely stuck. Several hours of desperate attempts to reorient the ropes, change our pulling angle, use brute force, even a 9:1 pulley system I set up thwarted our efforts. The mind turned to somewhat dark places. Thankfully, the brunt of the bad weather passed, and after some more thinking and roughing the worst of the shivering cold, James prussiked the entire pitch (major major kudos to the thrashing effort!). Despite the lousiness of the situation, we were able to keep things light between bouts of cursing, joking that at least James would get to work on that six-pack.
After some discussion about what could have gone wrong, it appeared that it was merely bad friction that was stopping us. James reversed the orientation of the main line and my now super-stretchy 6mm tagline and rappelled again. Fingers and toes crossed, we pulled the retrieval line, again without luck. Our hearts sunk. After traversing far to the right, we both set up a brute force scheme where bodyweight was able to get the ropes moving.
After probably another hour of serious effort, we were down the first rappel with all of our gear, but fading daylight. We crossed our fingers for the remaining five rappels and vowed to test each one before James left the station. Just as we reached the bottom of the descent, darkness befell us and we hiked out by headlamp. A twenty minute drive took us straight to the last thing open in Estes...Subway never tasted so good!
Pilgrimage
A brilliant combination of work and play has me living on the road for the next couple months. After a last minute climbing trip to Tuolumne, I packed my bags and headed off on the first leg of a trip that will take me to Utah, Colorado, British Columbia, New York, Wyoming and Montana before returning to California for fall quarter.
I headed out with my good friends Zach and Brad initially aimed at some big objectives in the High Sierra. With an iffy weather forecast, we opted to stick around Tuolumne for some world class rock climbing. On our second day, we managed to climb the West Ridge of Mount Conness which had turned me back just a few weeks earlier.
Following a conference in Utah, I made my way to Colorado where I met up with my friend James for a week of climbing, hiking and 14er peakbagging. We started off with a couple amazing days in Rocky Mountain National Park and are headed on a quick loop over the next few days.
Yesterday, we hiked up Glacier Gorge and climbed the beautiful yet moderate Spearhead.
Today, we got an early-ish start to try Kieners, the classic mountaineering route on the East Face of Longs Peak. At the base of the route, James decided to rest his legs for later in the trip. Unable to contain my love for the peak that started it all for me, I climbed up and over Mount Lady Washington and soloed the North Face. On the descent, I bumped into Tommy Caldwell and Jonathan Siegrist, who were projecting a wild route on the Diamond. I ran the whole way down with Tommy, whose intimate knowledge of all the shortcuts had us in the parking lot an hour and a half after topping out.
High Sierra Fun
I definitely needed a break after getting back from Nepal, but I was eager to spend a few days out in my beautiful backyard--California's High Sierra. I spent some quality time with my good friend Mike in Yosemite's spectacular high country over July 4th weekend that included top-notch dirtbag camping, homemade fajitas and perfect granite climbs. We spent our first day on Matthes Crest, one of Tuolumne's classic adventures.
The next day, we started hiking early to attempt the West Ridge of Mount Conness. We had a challenging approach that went up and nearly to the summit of Conness before dropping down its west face to the base of the route.
As we were ready to rope up, puffy cumulous clouds turned more menacing. After a tiny bit of contemplation, we shouldered our packs and hiked back up and over the peak, unwilling to risk a thunderstorm on an exposed ridge. On the hike back over, I quickly tagged the summit but we'll have to return to try one of Yosemite's best routes. Aside from being a bit of a buffet for the mosquitoes, the trip couldn't have been better.
I also had the chance to spend a weekend at Courtright Reservoir on the western side of the Sierra. It was great to get to a part of the range that I've never seen and have been eager to explore for a long time. There was some fun climbing, a hike of Eagle Peak, and swimming in the surprisingly warm reservoir.
Lhotse: Full photos and video
Hey everyone,Thanks for following along this spring! I've finally had a chance to get through all of my images. Here's a look back at the best of Nepal:Best of Lhotse [embed width="420" height="315"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3sFlAaw5EA[/embed]
The Lhotse Debrief
I'm back in Kathmandu and have had a tiny bit of time to reflect on what happened the last few days. Here's a bit more on the summit attempt and my last week breathing warm, oxygen-rich air:The Summit BidWe left base camp for the summit around 3AM on the 18th. This was the first of a series of alpine starts. They're designed to get us up through dangerous sections early and to keep us moving before the heat strikes. We went all the way up to camp two that morning. The icefall itself was much different than it had been early in the season, and much more convoluted. It's clear how much the icefall changes as the spring progresses and temperatures warm up.With my lighter summit pack, fully rested legs and complete acclimatization, I was faster than ever. Subtracting out time for mandatory breaks waiting to regoup, I could have made it to camp two in under four hours. In the dicey parts of the icefall, I literally ran from anchor to anchor and darted across the ladders.
We spent the rest of the day and all of the next day resting and hydrating at camp two. During this time, our thoughts were dominated not only by our own summit preparations, but on a Taiwanese climber high on Lhotse in desperate condition. The helicopter flew by many times in record-breaking high altitude attempts to pluck the man off, but without success. I was quite upset by the circumstances and tragic lack of organization that led to his death.
We set out early on the 21st for camp three. It was such a warm night. I was glad I had cached my down outerwear items up there and didn't have to suffer in the excessive warmth of a down suit until later. I took a steady and pleasant pace to the bottom of the fixed lines, then motored up to camp three in just an hour. My pace exceeded that of our Sherpas, so that when I arrived, I immediately got to work on our camp, helping Lhakpa and Nima pitch a tent and get started brewing up some drinks for our team. Camp three was much more hospitable than last time. First, we were acclimatized. Second, we had only two to a tent as opposed to the claustrophobic nightmare I experienced earlier, with three climbers and all of our equipment crammed inside. During the afternoon, the rest of the team went on oxygen, while I hung out, read and wrote.
The day up to camp four is where things get interesting. I was awoken by Pemba Rita who had brewed up some black coffee at 2AM. The rest of the team, heading all the way to the South Col, Everest's final camp, were going to get an earlier start, while I would wait to climb with Nurbu who was climbing directly from camp two. My morning preparation was botched as some miscommunications had me expecting Nurbu much earlier than he arrived. So I wound up fully dressed and ready to go, but just waiting in my tent without a sleeping bag. After a while I got cold, unfurled my bag and crawled in to rest. Being out for that long without moving had made my feet cold, so I cranked on my electric boot heaters to low. This worked like a charm, and when our Sherpas from camp two arrived, I again went into action. I quickly repacked, put my boots, harness and crampons on, and got ready to climb. After some warm greetings and brief conversation with the Sherpas, I clipped in and moved up the lines. Like the day before, I sprung upwards, quickly passing some sherpas and climbers, even those on oxygen. But I wasn't able to climb fast enough to warm my frozen toes--in the sleeping bag, I'd imperceptibly sweat into my socks and now it were as if I had a set of thin wool icicles wrapped around my feet. After half an hour, I reached upper camp three and dove into an empty tent, ripping off my socks and swapping them out for a fresh pair. I rubbed my wooden feet until they stung again and set off with the heaters activated. The cold toes plagued me no more as I steadily ascended towards our team on the lines. Despite their oxygen use and 1.5-hour head start, I was soon within earshot of our team.
Above camp three, the lines ascend straight up the icy Lhotse Face for a few hundred meters, then traverse left towards a rib of marine rock called the Yellow Band. It was here that I began to feel dehydrated and anticipate an energy "bonk." I begged Nurbu for a break, but he was intent on going to a safer location above the Yellow Band. Climbing through the Yellow Band was quite fun and interesting. It's fairly steep, and the scratch marks of thousands of crampons show that you're on a truly historic part of the route. Finally, as we exited the Yellow Band, I threw down my pack, clipped it to the lines, and had a rest. By this point, I could see the tents of Lhotse camp four and I knew that we had only an hour more of hard work at a slow pace. I ate some fruit chews, pounded some water and Nurbu graciously gave me some tea. After a few minutes we continued, my strength renewed. Shortly thereafter, we reached the junction in the fixed lines, picked up an oxygen bottle that had been cached there for us and ascended to camp.As I approached camp, the first tent I encountered on the right was clearly the site of tragedy. Empty bottles and trash were scattered around a tattered tent. I sat, looked out hundreds of miles into Tibet and sipped some water as I contemplated the demise of the Taiwanese climber just a few days before. Looking back on it, I think that the fate of this climber may have affected my (perhaps overly) conservative decision to descend.Unfortunately, it became clear that we wouldn't be able to use an existing tent platform. That right there made my heart sink. If you've done any winter mountaineering or snow camping, you know that chopping a tent platform is can be the hardest part of the day. In this case, unlike Everest clients who arrive to a pitched tent and a Sherpa who's been making tea all day, Nurbu and I arrived to a duffel bag, strapped to a rope at the top of a 5000 ft ice face. This is one of those things that made me want to try Lhotse--it's definitely still a bit more off the map than its bigger neighbor, but in that moment, oh what I would have paid to crawl into a sleeping bag and grab something to drink!
It took us a bit more than five hours to climb from camp three to four, and it was another five hours of chopping, pitching a tent in the wind, and stove setup before we were in our tent and sipping juice. Just some highlights from that process--the chopping/shoveling...it wasn't so much snow as it was ice and frozen urine and feces. Second, around noon, I started hearing chatter on our radios about how bad the weather was going to be. It sounded downright scary--over forty knot winds and peaking in the early morning, just when we would be highest on the mountain. And the winds did start to pick up that afternoon. When we were ready for the tent, we reached for our duffels which contained oxygen, fuel, stoves, tents and food. They ended up being padlocked, and Nurbu didn't have a key. Nothing an ice axe couldn't fix! Pitching the tent was harder than normal, as we discovered mismatched and broken poles for our tent, so it took more effort to figure out what was going on and how to fix it (all this at nearly 26,000 ft). By the time we were able to get into the tent, spindrift was slapping us pretty hard. Nurbu, who had carried a monster of a pack all the way from camp two without oxygen and chopped like a champion for a few hours, was absolutely exhausted. When he came in the tent, he just laid there. I felt like a bit of a jerk, but I kept applying a bit of pressure so that we could stay on top of our tasks...I knew that if we just went to sleep without making water that we would run a huge risk of developing a serious illness. After a couple hours of eating and drinking, Nurbu finally asked if he could go to bed. He put on his oxygen mask and conked out. During this time, I was in and out of radio conversations with the Everest team on the South Col and our team in base camp. It was appearing more and more likely that we needed to shift our focus from summiting to getting through the night safely, and in my opinion, escaping when we had the chance. I find that many people take too much comfort in these high campsites. They're not really places to stay, even if you're looking around and you have plenty of food, fuel and oxygen bottles. I've always had more of a speed is safety ethic, and if the mountain would give me a chance to get down, I was planning on taking it.
That night, the weather worsened. Around 9:30PM, I had another radio conversation with my expedition leader--they would not be climbing the next day and would be waiting a day on the South Col for better weather. We decided it'd be best if I slept on oxygen in case the weather worsened. That way, I'd be stronger and thinking clearer in the event I needed to get out in a hurry. Nonetheless, we agreed that I'd wake up, observe the weather and check in on the radio a few times throughout the night. At this point, I was all but certain I would descend in the morning. I had planned on climbing without oxygen, so going on Os to sleep seemed like a prelude to my departure. Oxygen was super annoying--learning to relax with a mask on is definitely an acquired skill, and having your own condensation drip down on your face isn't the most pleasant sensation. Even on 0.5-1 liter/min, it's still hard to breathe up there, so short coughing fits left me in a claustrophobic panic, ripping off the mask to gasp even thinner air. At midnight, I woke up to uneasily calm weather and the muffled sounds of climbers getting ready in tents nearby. Despite the fact that other climbers were getting ready to go, I knew that the forecast was predicting particularly unstable weather just before dawn and I was worried about getting lured up the mountain...a trap if you will. After violently shaking Nurbu awake, we groggily discussed our options and went with sleep. Around 1:30, I awoke to cold feet, and took an hour to boil water (the hot water bottle in the bottom of my sleeping bag had become a cold water bottle!).At 3:30, we repeated this process, this time, a couple more climbers were getting ready to set off. I again roused Nurbu, but he thought it was too late to go for the summit, and my gut was still to go down. At 4:45, I got up for good. Nurbu, who only needed to go to camp two was trying to convince me to wait and go down slowly, but I was intent on going all the way to base camp. I looked out of the tent and saw the glow as the day began to dawn. The outlines of peaks and the vastness of the Tibetan plateau were all before me. From these altitudes, it's as if you're viewing the Earth through a fisheye lens. The curvature of the Earth is apparent. I scrambled to get packed and dressed, but everything took longer than expected. By 6:15, I was descending rapidly without oxygen, zipping down the empty fixed lines towards the Yellow Band. I looked back to see the summit pyramid of Everest blasted by violent winds. It was then that I really felt good about my decision to go down. Sure it was calm down in camp, but the upper reaches of Lhotse would have faced the full force of the jetstream. Even in these ideal summit periods in late May, the jetstream waves around like a whip, and it had made a rapid move southward to hit the Himalaya--too fast to be picked up by even our high tech forecasts. It's somewhat reassuring to know that even in this modern era, we can't really turn climbing mountains this big into a formula.
I raced down towards camp three, stopping several times to meet with friends on their own summit bids. I made it down to our camp three in 45 minutes, stopping to pack up, change some clothes, eat and drink. I waited for Nurbu for a while before continuing my descent. I knew that I was racing the clock and needed to get through the Icefall before the temperature rose too much. In camp two I did a complete change out of my high altitude clothes into my "bake in the western cwm" clothes, and packed up all of my things into a monster sized load. I made quick work of an ice cold Coke that I'd left in my tent as a summit reward.I started down with a group of Sherpas from a neighboring team. At this point, most westerners were off the mountain, leaving Sherpa groups to break down their high camps and return to base camp carrying absolutely absurd loads. This meant that I moved faster than most groups, but with some of their packs weighing in at over 130 lbs, I had a hard time maneuvering around several of these teams. As I entered the top of the icefall, things were warm, particularly unstable and the traffic became bad. I desperately tried to get around a weak Japanese climber and a group of Sherpas before taking some extreme shortcuts (staying clipped in whenever possible) and running whenever I had the chance. Fresh avalanche debris was evidence that this upper "gauntlet" was particularly bad, and whenever I had the chance I would race, taking breaks only when I encountered traffic. It took me only 10-15 minutes to get through what I consider the worst of the icefall, but there were still sections of overhanging ladders (as loose and rickety as ever), crevasse crossings (with awful, melted out "anchors") and short stretches with ice blocks teetering overhead. After I made it down to the "Football Field" I radioed base camp that I was safe and dispatched Jacob to meet me at the base of the ropes. Half an hour later, I was greeted with a hug, a waffle and a Coke. Soon, I was back in warm and sunny base camp, stretching out and eating a hearty lunch.Departure and KathmanduThe last week has been a bit of a whirlwind. The day after I descended from Lhotse, our team went on successfully to climb Everest. They were pinned down for a day on the South Col weathering high winds before being granted a summit chance during the final weather window of the season. That day, our base camp researcher Susannah came down with a sickness and I spent the day taking care of her and arranging a helicopter for the next day.
The next morning, we made our way to the helipad and were met by Maurizio Folini, perhaps the world's top mountain heli pilot. Maurizio, along with elite climber/pilot Simone Moro, have been performing daring and record-breaking rescues all season. So when we hopped into Simone's stripped down (no seats even to save weight) Eurocopter B3+, I knew we were going to have a special ride. What I didn't realize was just how incredible Maurizio is. In the same way that a virtuoso musician has complete command of his instrument, the heli became an extension of Maurizio's body. After hovering sideways for a second, he turned and dove, the machine buzzing the tops of base camp tents, and playboating over crevasses down to Pheriche. There, giggling and looking over his shoulder as he swooped into town, Maurizio dropped us off as he fetched another load of passengers and duffels. Within another 15 minutes we were all the way in Lukla.
The monsoon was approaching, and flights to Kathmandu were completely booked. Faced at the prospect of being stranded in Lukla for up to a week, Susannah and I desperately asked around, and jumped at the chance when two seats on a charter flight opened up. Lukla is home to one of the most infamous airstrips in the world, and the number of planes in Nepal that can make the trip are dwindling. They're down to just a handful at the moment. An hour later, we were in a luxury hotel in Kathmandu--eating a comical variety of delicious dishes (and desserts!) at the lunch buffet.
In our room, I stepped on the scale, revealing that I'd lost 25 lbs in my ordeal. Fortunately, things are going well here in Kathmandu. I've had a lot of research work to do, but I've been eating well and it's amazing what instantly doubling the amount of oxygen you breathe can do for all of those little aches and pains. Cuts heal like magic down here.
The monsoon has hit in full force and it's been pouring rain every day. Today, I set off into "tube-world"--the several days of flights and layovers back to the US. No Thailand beach--my schedule just wouldn't fit it--but I can't wait to get back to California, land of fresh guacamole!
Take care,Hari
The Mountain Decides
The mountain always decides. Last night, lying without oxygen at nearly 26,000 feet, Lhotse's wind and snow made the decision for me...slide down the 8000 vertical feet of fixed ropes to base camp and GO TO THE BEACH IN THAILAND! Details to be determined...Well, the story of the last few days is long, but I don't have time to go into it at the moment. No summit, but the mountains aren't really about that. It was a pretty amazing few days, and I ended up reaching the highest camp on Lhotse, nearly 26,000 ft, healthy and without oxygen. Not the slightest headache took away from the beauty of the surroundings and the privilege of visiting this wild place. Long story short, we got a really freaky forecast during the day which sent me into "serious decision" mode despite my excellent physical health and conditions the whole trip. It got a bit nasty early last evening and at my expedition leader's urging, I switched to sleeping on a tiny bit of oxygen partway through last night in case I needed to descend in serious conditions in the morning. It turned out to be fairly reasonable last night, but I stuck with my gut and didn't reverse my decision to descend. A bit after six this morning, I zipped down the route to base camp in a bit over five hours--absolutely flying without oxygen. It was a great day in the mountains.This trip has been amazing, and I'm happy.I'll have more soon,Hari
Fear, Reflection, Anticipation
I’ve often felt an amplified sense of emotion in the high alpine. My experience this spring has been no different. While much of this trip has been filled with engaging research, enjoyable and relaxing times getting to know my teammates and our wonderful Sherpa staff, the last few days have been defined by a different character.Things are getting serious and the mood around base camp has changed. Gone are the days of socializing without preoccupation. Everyone who’s still left here is consumed with their summit bids—sneakily asking around about weather reports, route conditions and the timing of everyone’s attempts. I also have to add that the recent death of Alexey Bolotov has really affected me. I’m not going to comment more on the fifth fatality of the season other than to say that I’m filled with sadness and thoughts for his friends and family. Summit Plans
We’re still eyeing weather forecasts daily, but things seem to be centering on a May 22nd or 23rd summit day. That means we’ll likely depart base camp tonight at around 2AM and climb straight to camp two. Then we’ll take a rest day before continuing to camps three and four in the following days. There has been much discussion about my use of oxygen and the accompanying risk and logistical challenges to make my summit bid as safe as possible. Safe, in this case, is a relative term. More on that later. 
Meet NurbuThe biggest part of my safety net is my partner Nurbu, a 42-year-old Sherpa who is the most experienced member of our staff. Nurbu, originally from Nepal’s Rolwaling valley, now has a wife and seven year old daughter in Kathmandu. He describes his climbing history in broken English, the heavy smell of cigarettes apparent on his breath: “Fourteen times Everest, Lhotse, Cho Oyu, Shishapangma…” In a single year, he climbed five of the world’s highest mountains: Everest, Gasherbrum I and II, Broad Peak, and the North Ridge of Manaslu. Anyhow, despite his age and smoking, Nurbu is still strong as ever, and I trust his experience and judgment immensely. We’ve been hanging out a bit to get to know each other better, and I look forward to our partnership.Opportunity Oxygen does a lot of things. Fortunately, we usually don’t have to spend too much time wondering what they are. On the uppermost slopes of the world’s highest peaks—those few escarpments of rock and ice that jut well above 8000m—the effects of supplemental oxygen are enormous. Almost immediately after strapping on an oxygen mask and cranking their regulator to a liter or two per minute, climbers report feeling warmer and moving faster, not to mention improved mental function, appetite and ability to sleep. Going without this aid reveals these huge mountains to be the unforgiving and inhospitable places they truly are. It seems all too easy to forget these realities with the comforts of base camp and the support we all receive from Sherpas, experienced staff and modern technology.I’m not sure what my motivations are or what my decision regarding oxygen will be. At the moment, I’ve committed to climbing to camp four before making any calls. If I feel mentally and physically capable of trying Lhotse without oxygen, that’s what I’ll do. It may be strange to put a priority on something so arbitrary as artificial oxygen over such tangibles: summit chances, comfort, fingers and toes, life itself. In this case, I place more value and ultimately derive more fulfillment in trying something that is genuinely challenging and uncertain for myself than to have it all figured out. I don’t always have these priorities—certainly not in climbing. Most of my climbs are well within my comfort zone and are more about experiencing cool places or sharing them with friends. In this case, the few times a year that I try something big, I’m exploring deeper things about myself that are harder to explain.Around my junior year of high school, I started trying to win big races in cross country and track. By that point, I’d won a fair number of junior varsity races and had been around the block at the district and regional level. Winning states was the holy grail, but that demanded a different level of competitiveness. For one, you couldn’t just run away from the competition…you had to be extremely fit, outsmart the field, and get lucky. After high finishes in a few state championships, I started trying to make moves that defined the race instead of just letting things happen to me. After enough big cracks at a state championship, some filled with excruciating heartbreak, I was ready to execute. As a senior, I pounced with 400m to go in the indoor two mile. The race was fairly fast paced and had become a duel. My move was strong enough to suppress even the slightest response from my only remaining competitor. I crossed the line in 9:06, recording just 59 seconds over my last two laps.It’s easy to get paralyzed by doubt, especially when the consequences for your actions are worse than embarrassing yourself at the state championship. This isn’t a contest, and I want to be clear that I don’t treat my climbs as athletic events, but I’m still ready to give myself a chance at something special and meaningful to me. That indoor season, I overcame shin problems, a concussion (!!) and during the state championship race itself, an agonizing stomach cramp that bothered me for a week after the race. My preparation during this expedition hasn’t been perfect, but I’ve been healthy this whole trip and I’m in a good overall state. I’m not ready to give up on a dream before I’ve given it a fair shot. I’m here to go into my personal unknown and make mature decisions. Steve House, perhaps the greatest alpinist of the modern era, described some of his routes not as death defying acts, but rather as relationships between himself and the world that were true, just yet to be revealed. Today, I have the tremendous opportunity and privilege to discover my relationship with the Himalaya, the greatest mountains in the world.
Waiting Game
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The mood has shifted dramatically around base camp. Nearly everyone, certainly those teams using oxygen for a conventional ascent of Everest, have made their final acclimatization rotations and are resting and waiting for their shot at the summit. Our team is no different. After a long acclimatization climb, we hiked down the valley to Pangboche, rested for a few days, and have finally all returned in good health to base camp. We are checking several high-end custom forecasts daily and will be making our decisions regarding summit day very soon. Yesterday, a team of rope fixing sherpas made the first ascents of the season. They report good conditions, with lots of snow. This is particularly good news for me, as I'll be climbing the steep, narrow and often rocky Lhotse couloir. The more snow, the better the footing and the less rockfall, both auspicious for my summit bid. Unlike Everest, Lhotse doesn't have fixed ropes the whole way, so I'll have to do some serious climbing near the summit.
Today, we had a welcome surprise. Reinhold Messner, the living legend who first climbed Everest (and all the 8000m peaks) without supplemental oxygen, visited our camp. He struck up a conversation with fellow researcher Susannah and I, and we even did an interview with him for German television about our research and the cooperation necessary to climb these big peaks. It was an unbelievable set of events, one that I won't forget. It's not often you get the chance to spend time with someone who has shaped the world in such a powerful way. It was his book, The Challenge, that first lured me into the world of big mountains. He continues to be a larger than life figure in alpinism, and is a strong advocate for ethics in climbing and stewardship of the mountains.
Here's some more of the spectacular Western Cwm!
The Grandest Valley
"Sooner or later, it all gets real, Walk on!" -Neil Young
I’m back and I’m safe after nine days up on the mountain. I haven’t had enough time to write anything more than a brief update, but I’m going to include a huge photo dump and some highlights of the trip.
The trip up into the Western Cwm (a Welsh word for valley) means clearing the infamous, chaotic, somewhat senseless trip through the Khumbu Icefall. It’s unlike any climbing I’ve done…the most surreal landscape. For hours, you feel like an ant wandering aimlessly through a maze of giant popcorn. Any movement too rapid out of fear or desperation is quickly reprimanded by a fit of panting. After several hours of effort, you emerge onto a flatter labyrinth of snow marking the gateway to this grandest of valleys—higher than anywhere in North America, but two Grand Canyons below Everest. It’s incomparable in scale. Avalanches thunder off the horseshoe of peaks around the upper reaches of the Khumbu Glacier. The bright snow radiates light from all directions, making the lower reaches of the Cwm boiling hot (upper 80s Farenheit!!) during the middle of a sunny afternoon. When the mountain gods are angry, the wind and cold are of a violent, adversarial nature.
My trip went like this…we spent our first night (and brutally hot day) at camp one, then moved on to advanced base camp (two) the next day. There, at around 21,000 ft, we spent some time doing acclimatization climbs and moving around even on our rest days. Our team made an acclimatization climb and spent one night at camp three. There, at 23,000 ft, we were higher than any peak outside the great ranges of Asia.
I then returned to camp two for a day and headed back up the mountain for another night at camp three, hoping to climb even higher in a summit day simulation of sorts. A few hours below camp three, the jet stream scraped down on Everest and Lhotse and quickly made the decision for me—turn around or get shredded by the high wind. That day, I saw quite clearly how the character of these mountains can change, as the wind and snow battered camp two all night.
The last day, I packed up and RAN down from camp two to base camp in two hours, my crampons making tracks over fresh avalanche debris, my carabiners sliding down safety ropes along bent and broken aluminum ladders. In the week I was gone, the Icefall changed substantially—there may be just a few birds and mosses, but this landscape is alive!
Speaking of plants, I sampled what may be the highest plant ever collected—a moss near camp two. Willie Benegas, an Argentinean guide, had previously collected a similar sample, and I was tasked with gathering another for a scientist partner through Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation. In addition to my plant work, I created an altitudinal transect of snow samples all the way from camp three to base camp to study the thinning Himalayan glaciers. I also recreated some photographs from the 1952 Swiss expedition, documenting the effects of climate change on the Roof of the World. More on all that stuff later.
To wrap up, after running down from camp two, I took a few hours to rest, shower and hang out in base camp with our Sherpas before I rolled about twelve miles down the Khumbu Valley (in just 4.5 hours…great to breathe oxygen again!) to the beautiful village of Pangboche. I’ve been resting and eating a ton of delicious food here the past couple days, and tomorrow I’ll begin trekking back up towards base camp. From the looks of it, the winds will be pretty nasty for the next week or so, so I have plenty of time to hang out and prep for another trip up the mountain.
More coming soon!Hari
Finding Solitude on the Khumbu
THWAP-THWAP-THWAP-THWAP-THWAP. A chopper stirs me from my early morning slumber. I graze the edge of my tent, unleashing snow flurries of my own moist breath frozen to the nylon through the night.This is the second morning of my spring at Everest base camp. It’s a scene.Base camp is smeared over a mile-long stretch of the rubble-strewn Khumbu Glacier at 17,600 ft or so. A collection of over a thousand mountaineering tents, communications domes and dining rooms are perched on makeshift rock platforms on the constantly crackling glacier. In the era of commercial mountaineering where peaks are sold as commodities, companies compete with each others’ base camp perks, from big screen TVs and couches to open bars. My base camp, for the record, isn’t absurd but does offer respectable modern accommodations: a shower and a spacious carpeted dining tent. Good times!
With all the amenities, daily heli flights and ample testosterone-fueled posturing, I’ve found it easy to forget about this place and why I actually decided to show up. I require a strong personal connection to the mountains I choose to visit. In this day, it may be harder than ever to establish that relationship, but I find it essential to meet the mountains on their own terms.
Where am I? What’s the mood of the Khumbu this early spring?After dinner, I stumble out of our dining tent and head out onto the glacier. The Khumbu is a giant river of ice, flowing downhill at one to a few meters per day. By the end of the season, I’ll have drifted perhaps a quarter mile. I stand over a precipice of ice and rock. Penitentes, giant pillars of ice formed by the intense low-latitude sun, catch the moonlight to form ghostly shapes. As a mist rolls in, I gaze up at the base of the route—a chaotic pile of ice known as the Khumbu Icefall. It’s grand, if not completely uninterpretable chaos. This year, the route trends to the left side up teetering blocks of ice and beneath overhanging glaciers clinging to Everest’s west shoulder.I often hear people back home lament about places such as these. ‘UGH, the [Yosemite] Valley is so crowded these days. I’d never go to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, the North Rim is way better,’ and so on. It’s not the places’ fault. Let’s not make Everest apologize for being the highest mountain in the world. It is we who should approach these fragile and magical places with humility and respect.I wander out further onto the glacier through a maze of ice ridges not unlike cresting waves on a stormy sea. Some of these fins of ice reach forty or fifty feet high. In the icefall itself, they’ll be the size of apartment buildings, teetering over bottomless crevasses. The mist briefly parts to reveal the flanks of Everest and stars above. As snow begins to fall once again, the orange and yellow tents are like glowing candles guiding me back to shelter.
Lobuche East
Just trying to knock these out in a few separate posts. Here are a few more pictures and stories from our acclimatization ascent...
One interesting twist in my climb was that I've continued to work with Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation to do some climate science projects on these trips. As long as I'm a scientist and heading to these wild places, the least I can do is help some of my peers who need data. Just below the summit of Lobuche East yesterday, I rappelled off the lip of a crevasse to get some snow and ice samples for Natalie Kehrwald, who's work focuses on the thinning of Himalayan glaciers due to climate change and the role of dust and other particles in accelerating the melting. A huge thanks to Chris Klinke, our expedition leader, who helped me set up our anchor system, and Markus Hallgren, the head of our TripleED research project on how teams are organized. Markus let me take the time off from my main research duties to pull this off. I'll continue doing some science projects on Everest. I hope to collect the highest plant life ever and also create an altitude transect of smaller snow samples as high as I can. I'll just say that carrying 15 1L Nalgene bottles up to 20,000ft was plenty hard!Take care,Hari
Lobuche and the Everest trek
I've been out of touch for a while (obviously). And it's not for a lack of effort. I even lugged the laptop to the summit of 20,000ft Lobuche East in the hopes of a shaky cell connection to send an update. Anyhow, here's what we've been up to:Since my last post in Namche Bazar, the largest village of the Khumbu, we continued trekking higher and higher. We went through Tengboche and visited the famous monastery there before spending the night at Deboche, the last village in the rhododendron forest before the trek turns to the alpine. We then trekked up through Pangboche, where we were blessed by Lama Geshe, and continued on to Dingboche at 14,250 ft. Dingboche, in general, wasn't the best to our group, with several team members suffering from altitude sickness and GI issues. The rest day there seemed only to worsen the problems. From Dingboche, we trekked up to our Lobuche base camp.Our acclimatization plan is a bit different than early expeditions. In order to minimize trips through the dangerous Khumbu icefall, we opted to try gain a more thorough acclimatization on nearby Lobuche East (20,000 ft). Lobuche base camp was a very clean and comfortable home for last week. We spent some rest days, a day acclimatizing to high camp, and then the Everest team members and I even went up and spent a night on the summit. It's actually the first time I've camped on the summit of a peak, let alone a 6000m peak in the heart of the world's highest mountains. We had beautiful 360 degree views and it felt like we could just reach out and touch Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Pumori, Ama Dablam and thousands of other giants.Overall, I've been acclimatizing extremely well, and took a single tylenol, my first medicine of the trip, to subdue a mild headache on the summit. Our team is getting along really well and we have some great characters from Sweden, Indonesia, Poland and the US.
