Climbing from Camp I
Chip and his team make a climb from Camp I. A surreal world of ice dwarfs the climbers as they make their way through the icy expanse. One climber is working his way up a sheer cliff of ice. The striations of layer upon layer of ice can be seen on the side of the cliff. (Learn more)
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Teams of climbers spend many days acclimating to the altitude and conditions at each camp before pushing ahead toward the summit of Mount Everest. As Chip’s team worked their way to Camp II, the wind was blowing hard, making the frigid mountain feel even colder. From Chip’s journal:
The route to Camp II goes like this: Rappel into a wide crevasse, cross it, climb its opposite wall, cross the top, and… do it all over again. Less scary than the Ice Falls but with the hard blowing wind and the altitude (over 20,000 ft) it was not easy. We caught up with the Icefall Doctors who were fixing the route. They are amazing how they run up the wall with the ladder behind them. Amazing Sherpas! We got to be the first to test a freshly installed ladder over a crevasse! Somebody has to do it. With that we ended up ahead of the doctors. We moved on the glacier until we spotted the best place to cross the next crevasse. Sure enough, the doctors showed up a few minutes later with the ladder. The wind was chilling us to the bone so we decided to return to Camp One and let the doctors find Camp II, which will be the second acclimatization rotation.
Learn more about Mount Everest, Nepal, ice cliffs, and mountain climbing.
Photographs and text by Ciprian Popviciu
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