Dire Weather Threatens Everest Climbs

It may be the 50th Anniversary of the first ascent of Everest, but no-one seems to have told the mountain...

Conditions so far this year have been bad with high winds making climbing difficult. Yesterday's Observer newspaper reported over 1000 climbers on the mountain 'including dozens of Britons', with 40 expeditions attempting the mountain at the moment.

The paper reports that the current high winds are forecast to drop a little over the next few days, but then pick up again towards the end of the week. There's also heavy snow forecast which could make conditions on the mountain even more hazardous.

'It is really blowing up there,' says one dispatch from the northern, Tibetan, side of the mountain. '[It's] intense and bitterly cold.'

The worry is that highly motivated climbers will seize on any apparently window as a potential summit day and that the large number of climbers on the mountain could create a logjam on the summit ridge, particularly at the Hillary Step, which could in turn lead to a repeat of the disaster of 1996 when eight climbers died when the weather turned high on the mountain.

The Everestnews.com web site is carrying regular reports and flashes from many of the expeditions on the mountain right now, and the sheer volume of information there, reflects the number of teams on the mountain. What is clear is that large numbers of climbers are moving up the mountain with summit attempts planned for a forecast weather window between the 20 and 22 May - that's Tuesday and Thursday of this week.

So far no-one has summited the mountain this year, but if you want to keep up with what's going on, check out the Everestnews site.

And last but not least, for a graphic description of summit day on Everest, check out this dispatch from Roumanian climber George Dijmarescu who has summited on the mountain four times. He describes counting 11 corpses during his summit day in 1999 from the northern side.