First look at Khumbu Icefall Route

Our team arrived in Namche last night after a wonderful day of trekking and then enjoyed the comfort and fine meals at the Panorama lodge. Today we hiked up to the Everest view hotel for clear views of Everest, Lhotse and Ama Dablam, and then to Khumjung to visit the Hillary School. We will spend 2 more nights here in Namche before making our way up the valley towards base camp. Everyone is doing great.

This morning a few members took a helicopter flight, and we had a look at the new route up the Khumbu Icefall to Camp 1 on Everest. We were able to see clearly that the new route is in fact completely new, and veers to the ‘climbers right’ near Nuptse, avoiding the hanging ice on the West Shoulder that buried the 16 Nepali mountain workers last year. It appears that climbers will have to negotiate broken ice as before, and perhaps more vertical ladders. The red line on the right shows the new route (if you look closely you can see the footprints, ladders, fixed lines) while the red line on the left is the approximate old route from last year. There is at least one section that has 4 vertical ladders tied together to ascend up a very large ice cliff.icefall new route2
good ariel view
vertical ladder2

5 replies
  1. Natalie
    Natalie says:

    Very interesting. The new route appears to be more of a vertical climb, steeper. Something new to look forward to….breaking new path for a truly pioneering experience. Enjoy the trek into base camp and thanks for sharing. Namaste!

    Reply
  2. Mariska Lloyd
    Mariska Lloyd says:

    Namaste 🙂
    I just want to wish everyone the best of luck on this expedition!! Remember that everything seems Impossible until its done !!

    Reply

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. […] The Icefall Doctors, the dedicated team of Sherpa that each season establish and maintain the route through the perilous Khumbu Icefall (site of the devastating avalanche on 4/18/2014 that tragically claimed 16 lives), have been hard at work setting the route to Camp I and Camp II.  Reports suggest that they have shifted the route away from the dangerous hanging glaciers on Everest’s West Shoulder (the cause of last year’s deadly avalanche) toward Nuptse.  This should help mitigate some of those risks and make the route a bit safer for all that climb above base camp this season.  However, the new route will pose its own challenges as Garrett Madison points out in his recent post (which includes some great pictures of the new route vs the old that expand if you click on them while visiting his page):  Madison Mountaineering […]

  2. […] den Khumbu-Eisbruch doch mehr als nur eine kleine Kurskorrektur. Die Bilder, die der US-Amerikaner Garrett Madison in seinem Blog veröffentlich hat, sprechen jedenfalls dafür. Mitglieder seines Teams von Madison Mountaineering […]

  3. […] a post on his site at this link,  you can see it hugs the side towards Nuptse and should offer significantly improved protection […]

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