Would it be possible to climb Mount Everest via the southwest face in the winter?

 This has been achieved once, by a Japanese team back in 1993.

Arriving at Base Camp on 13 November 1993, the Japanese team set about reaching the summit of Everest via the treacherous Southwest Face. Porters and yaks had lugged 13 tons of equipment to Base camp to support 50 people. The team was composed of:

• 7 Japanese climbers
• 2 Japanese support staff at Base Camp
• 28 high altitude Sherpas
• 2 head Sherpas (1 BC, 1 C2)
• 3 cooks (2 BC, 1 C2)
• 5 kitchen boys at BC
• 3 mail runners

A team of Sherpas helped lay a route through the Icefall, deploying 50 ladders and 2,000m of rope. They then carried equipment, supplies and oxygen tanks up to the Cwm Valley. As the Japanese and Sherpas climbed higher, they established two camps up on the Face. They followed the Bonnington Route (as pioneered by Chris Bonnington’s UK team in 1975).

The highest Japanese camp (Camp 4) was pitched at 8,350m on December 13, one month after their arrival at Base Camp. The team was able to make such quick progress as they had pre-acclimatised on Cho Oyu and Pokalde, and they also knew the route, having failed on a previous attempt in the winter of 1991.

Photo: The steep Southwest Face of Everest (photo credit: R Devany)

Ten Sherpas carried necessary equipment up to Camp 4. Temperatures as low as -36C were recorded at that camp. The Sherpas then descended, fearing the biting cold and extreme risk of a fall. From there, the Japanese fixed 24 x 50m fixed rope to the South Summit at 8,750m. It was in that section that the climbers had to overcome the most technical climbing pitches. Above that point, they re-used old rope from previous expeditions along the Kangshung Ridge to the summit.

Ordinarily, winter winds on Everest are calamitous. But surprisingly, the team experienced relatively benign winds and almost no snowfall on the Face in mid-December. In the team notes they wrote:

… we had good weather on the face almost every day, which is convex and not exposed to stronger winds of West Ridge, N Ridge and SE Ridge. In winter, face is very easy after route making, although summit parties had strong winds above South Summit.

By “very easy,” I suspect that could be translated for most of us as meaning “barely survivable.”

Photo: The 1975 Bonnington Route up the Southwest Face, which the Japanese followed (diagram credit: Thincat via Wikimedia Commons).

While climbing, the team used 65 oxygen bottles, switching them on at 7,600m. Six of the Japanese (aged 26 – 45) reached the summit, in three two-man teams on Dec 18, 20, and 22. The men who reached the top were:

• Fumiaki Goto and Hideji Nazuka
• Shinsuki Ezuka and Osamu Tanabe
• Ryushi Hoshino and Yoshio Ogata

They observed:

… we could not climb Everest in winter without oxygen because of cold; would lose all fingers and toes.

Their achievement has never been repeated.

Why is it considered extremely difficult to climb Nanga Parbat?

For someone who hasn’t been there it is unfathomable to see the giant block of rock and ice because we do not have anything that is remotely similar in our normal lives.

I have spend a fair time in the Alps and I have seen some impressive sides but this is different. This picture, taken from the so-called fairy meadow national park was taken at an altitude of 3,300 meters. The collossal mountain in the back is 8125 meters high. That is a difference of 5 kilometers and direct line would be some 12 kilometers from the meadow to the summit.

Nanga Parbat is high. Not just high but really high. At this point the oxygen is 7.5% instead of the normal 20% it usually is. You have less than half the amount of oxygen available. (Though the relative percentage is still 21%, there is just so much less air available in total). At the same time you are doing a very demanding tour in dangerous and cold weather. So you have less energy available and need more.

This height ist dangerous because you die from it. You can get altitude sickness from 3000 meters and up.

HACE = High Altitude Cerebral Edema
HAPE = High Altitude Pulmonary Edema

At such altitudes the pressures and not enough to sustain normal body homeostasis. The lack of oxygen in the brain leads to a reflectory vasodilation in an effort to allow more blood flow into the brain but this leads to edema. The brain is obviously in the skull and this results in a pressure increase that damages the brain. The same mechanism happens inside your lung although this starts because some arteries constrict first (A mechanism to prevent blood flow into unventilated areas but if too many do that the pressure will increase and again, edema). You literally drown at 8000 meters.

At altitudes >7000 meters the body is dying on rates. Your entire metabolism shuts down, sleep is impossible, your gastrointestinal system stops working. No more energy gets to you, you can’t recover.

So did you ever try a super high mountain (which takes a lot of energy every time) while your body is dying and you become delusional from lack of sleep.

And that is just your own limitation.

The most common climb follows through the Kinshofer route in the Diamir flank. You do not risk the huge Rupal flank on the other side and do not spend as much time at the altitude than if you were to repeat the Hermann Buhl walk.

That would be #red. It is extremely steep and avalanches come frequently. The weather is extremely unstable and can turn extremely cold and windy.

If you survive all of that, good luck getting down again.

Is Mt. Everest the hardest mountain to climb in the world?

 Not according to informed opinions - not mine, but those of the mountaineering community in general.

K2, only 300 feet or so lower than Everest, is more remote, technically more difficult, especially towards the top, has more fickle weather and the routes are subject to more avalanche danger.

K2 has an infamous reputation for killing climbers.

Nanda Devi is almost inaccessible, hidden inside a ring of high mountains with only one narrow way in, through the Rishi Gorge.

Everything has to come in through the gorge. First climbed in 1934 by Bill Tilman and Noel Odell, and an almost modern lightweight expedition, the ascent was not repeated until 1964.

You can see why it attracts climbers, though.

Mount Vinson is the highest point of the Antarctic continent.

It offers little technical difficulty beyond the usual problems of an expedition to Antarctica. Which are considerable.