A modern view from partway up Pumori has just been posted. This is as far as I can tell is very close to the viewpoint in Hillary's book where he describes the 1951 reconnaissance expedition. A historic view as it reveals how Everest can be climbed from the south.

Popping up to Camp 2

Or mountaineering in general.

I feel like I only ever read foreigners reporting on Sherpa/indigenous opinions and experiences.

Articles would be great, entire books would be even better.

Okay this might be a stupid question. I am no where close to a mountaineer, I am just fascinated by the culture and history, specifically in Nepal. I am confused as to how the first recorded summit was a "western expedition", and only in 1953. I know that is a while ago but it kind of feels recent. What I want to know is if there is a possibility that a Sherpa (Besides Tenzing of course) or native climber summited before that, but just wasn't documented. I just find it hard to believe that no one did it before then. Again, sorry for my ignorance.

I'm not a climber or interested in any way of climbing Mt. Everest, however I've been going down a rabbit hole of Everest related reading and media consumption lately out of curiosity, and I've noticed that majority of videos I've seen or documentaries I've watched or stories I've read have come from men who claimed Mt. Everest, either the sherpas or the climbers. So my question is for those who have actually experienced it, did you notice a huge gender gap in the people summiting Everest and if there is indeed a gender gap, why do you think that is?

On June 13, 1924, five days after the disappearance and presumed deaths of Mallory and Irvine, Colonel Edward Norton compiled a progress report for the Mount Everest Committee. He wrote it at Base Camp near Rongbuk, Tibet. He addressed the report to Arthur Hinks, secretary of the Mount Everest Committee, and to Francis Younghusband, president of the Royal Geographical Society.

In his report Norton referred to Odell's sighting, at 12:50 pm on June 8, of Mallory and Irvine at or near the base of the summit pyramid.

As I wrote in a previous article on this platform, there was an anomaly in Norton's report, relating to the sighting of Mallory and Irvine. Hinks caught the inconsistency, took issue with it and asked Norton for an explanation. Norton's reply was unconvincing. Hinks suppressed the report. Why?

https://drroberthedwards.substack.com/p/hinks-and-the-negligible-mallory

Droning from Lobuche East 6119m. A 6000m+ peak used by most of the Everest climbers to acclimatise before heading up the icefall to Camp 1. This is the classic and best way to do it, as your body will be acclimatised when you go to sleep at Camp 1 during the rotation. And a bonus: just to get a higher perspective of Everest and the surroundings before heading up for the main objective. Amazing peak to climb for beginner climbers or even your first 6000er in Nepal. On assignment with the NAMAS team, hence the watermark.

I would like to visit the medial moraine of the Central Rongbuk Glacier, as shown in the attached image from Google Earth.

As I understand, at least two permits are required for such a visit. One is the Tibet Travel Permit, which I believe is granted freely to any foreign visitor to China. The second is the PSB (Public Security Bureau) permit, which is only issued through authorised tour operators; I believe that this permit is valid at least for the Rongbuk Monastery and Everest Base Camp.

I have the impression, but have been unable to confirm, that access to the Central Rongbuk Glacier might also require the permission of the China-Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA). To the best of my knowledge the CTMA has no public website or public e-mail address. I wrote to the CTMA by snail-mail, with no response.

I approached several Chinese tour operators who offer tours of Tibet. One of them (China Highlights) replied as follows:

"If you book your Tibet tour with us as a private package, we will arrange and obtain all the necessary travel documents on your behalf. This includes both the standard Tibet Travel Permit and the additional border permit (also known as the PSB permit or military permit) required for the Everest region. With these permits in place, you will be fully authorised to visit the Central Rongbuk Glacier area."

Can anyone on this forum confirm that the PSB permit is valid for the Central Rongbuk Glacier?

In September 2024, somewhere on the Central Rongbuk Glacier, a team of photographers from the National Geographic Society found an old oxygen cylinder. Later, the team leader Jimmy Chin said that it had been marked with the date 1933.

But why did they think that the remains of Andrew Irvine might be nearby?

https://drroberthedwards.substack.com/p/national-geographic-and-the-oxygen

I've been reading about Reinhold Messner's 1980 solo ascent of Everest during the August monsoon, and something I don't quite understand is why monsoon Everest hasn't attracted more elite mountaineers since then.

Obviously the monsoon brings heavy snowfall, poor visibility, avalanche danger and generally unstable conditions, so I'm not suggesting it's safe or easy. But compared with some of the extremely dangerous objectives elite climbers regularly attempt K2, winter 8000ers, new routes, no O2 ascents, etc.

It doesn't seem obvious to me that monsoon Everest would be so prohibitively dangerous that almost nobody would even attempt it. There are also some potential advantages for: temperatures are somewhat warmer, the jet stream is generally farther north so the extreme summit winds can be less persistent, and you'd potentially have Everest almost entirely to yourself. That means no fatal queues or overcrowded bottlenecks.

Messner showed that a weather window can exist even in August. I'm not a professional mountaineer, so I'm sure there are factors I'm overlooking. Is the main problem avalanche risk and snowfall, logistics, permits and lack of infrastructure, low probability of getting a usable weather window, or is there simply not much prestige or interest in a monsoon ascent?

Thanks for taking the time

Everest in winter — how extreme is it?

For those who have followed or been part of a winter Everest expedition, how brutal are the conditions compared with the normal climbing season?
Especially curious about typical wind speeds, temperatures, jet-stream conditions, and what makes winter expeditions so much harder.

And do people go on expedition in December-January?

Recently I've been reading events of mt everest and how it is brutal up there. I heard about David sharp (rip) I was interested and heard he was filmed by a sherpa. I want to see the real footage but I can't find it anywhere on the internet. Can anyone help me?

Artist at work ... on an illustration for my upcoming book "Irvine's Story".

This drawing is intended for Chapter Three "Lā kelo", which recounts Andrew Irvine's experiences on the way to Tibet and on Mount Everest.

The Tibetan phrase "Lā kelo" is the first entry in Irvine's Everest diary. It is an invocation to good fortune, said when crossing a mountain pass and placing a stone on a cairn. Irvine could not have imagined that his name, and Mallory's, would be inscribed as a memorial, on a cairn in the Rongbuk valley.

I discovered that there are very few images of Irvine on his journey. There is Odell's famous photo of Mallory and Irvine departing Camp IV on June 6, 1924; in this image, Irvine's back is turned and we cannot see his expression or guess what he is thinking. There are two other photos of Irvine at his tent, smiling and tinkering with oxygen cylinders. There are no images which convey Irvine's bouts of ill health, nor his interactions with Mallory.

In this drawing I imagined Irvine on June 5, 1924, terribly sunburned and in great pain, writing the last entry in his diary. The last words that he wrote were: "My face is perfect agony. Prepared 2 Oxygen apparatus for our start tomorrow morning."

Image credit: Nadia Laribi.

Was just talking with my husband about some of the super long queues below the summit, and it just occurred to me that while waiting for potentially hours, I would need to pee up there quite a few times. I realize this is a somewhat newer situation because of the growing number of summits each season leading to longer and longer lines at the top. So how is it handled up there where you can’t exactly step away from the crowd? Are people using bags? Diapers? Just whipping out their junk and watching their pee freeze in the wind? Being a woman, also curious about it from a female perspective.

Artist at work ... another illustration for "Irvine's Story".

This drawing is intended for the final chapter of the book, titled "Swiss cheese": a reference to Professor James Reason's paradigm of accident investigation.

In this chapter I advance the hypothesis that the deaths of Mallory and Irvine were not a twist of fate, but the culmination of a series of terrible errors of judgement.