Finding the Summit Window
By Marshall Thompson
As I pored over weather reports with our expedition leader, Dawa Steven, searching uneasily for a window of good weather during which the climbers could make an attempt at the summit, I asked him if it was always this hard to decide.
“Every year,” he said.
Choosing the correct summit window is a life or death decision and nobody here is taking it lightly. The decision making process of our team includes meteorological data, past experiences, groups consensus, and gut feelings. It has not, to date, included ego, competition, or the vain ambitions for the glory of men. But I can see how easily that can slip into a process.
The other day I looked at the weather and wondered aloud if the 40 to 60 mph winds on May 17 were acceptable. The reason why I posed this query was partially out of ignorance and partially because I wanted to get back to Kathmandu and then back to Salt Lake City where my wife and two kids are waiting for me. In other words, it was a selfish question and had nothing to do with the safety of the team.
Luckily, Apa and Dawa Steven were unaffected. That level of wind was unacceptable, they replied. The temperatures at the summit were already low to begin with, making the wind chill potentially very dangerous.
After looking over several weather reports and debating, our sirdar (or head Sherpa), Nanga, checked around with other camps to see when they were going to summit. There are a few main weather reports that people use here at Everest. Other climbing groups might have a different date based on divergent information among the various reports. That makes the consensus building all the more important. By sirdars talking to other sirdars and guides talking to other guides, an average summit window starts to develop.
At this point in the process, our team has taken all the weather data, considered the burgeoning consensus, and is honing in on a summit window based past experiences and instinct. We don’t have a solid date right now, but it’s looking like it will be later, probably around May 23.
I will keep you posted on the actual date. In the meantime, everyone is trying not to get too bored.
all the best guys…..i am sure you will make it by 23rd….love you all…god bless
[...] to know what kind of thought and planning goes into finding the proper weather window, check out this blog post over at ApaSherpa.com. It is a brief, but interesting read with some good insights. The post also [...]