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 March
31, 2003 - More
details have just come in about The Italian Everest Speed expedition.
Fabio Meraldi and Olympic medallist Manuela Di Centa will both be going for
records this year on Everest. Di Centa hopes to be the first Italian woman on
the summit and Meraldi wants to do a speed ascent/descent without oxygen in less than 24
hours - base camp - summit - base camp. Fabio goes lightweight From base camp to the South Col at 7950 meters Meraldi will be wearing lightweight clothes and trail running shoes. Above this point, however, he will don traditional mountaineering attire that has been especially designed to be extremely lightweight. Certification of the ascent will be carried out by the Federation of Sport at Altitude with timekeeping endorsed by Sector Official Timing. Previous to the expedition, Meraldi has been training hard and has paid special attention to proper nutrition. Previous story about this year's speed attempts on Everest Fabio Meraldi, holder of several World ascent speed records will attempt to climb Everest, base camp to base camp - within 24 hrs. Along on the expedition is Manuela Di Centa, who holds 14 Olympic medals in Nordic skiing, and now is a reporter and journalist in Italy. She will be climbing and reporting on the expedition. Previous ascent records for Fabio Fabio has the speed ascent records for Mount Blanc, Monte Rosa, and Shisha Pangma with a 12 hr ascent. He has also recently climbed Muztagh-Ata during the summer of 2002. Sherpa attempt with oxygen This spring Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa will also attempt to set an Everest speed record. He plans on climbing Everest from the south side in just 15 hrs breaking the previous record set by the late Babu Chiri Sherpa. That record stands today at 16 hours and 56 minutes. Lhakpa has summited Everest 9 times and will be using oxygen for the speed attempt. His brother Lama Jangbu Sherpa is going to support him on the climb. Lama Jangbu has summited Everest 7 times himself. Lhakpa has climbed Everest both from Nepal and Tibet. He has climbed with French, British, Spanish, South African, and Canadian Himalayan expeditions and has summited Cho Oyu and Ama Dablam as well as Everest. This year he will be the Sirdar for Bob Hoffman's American Commemorative expedition and lives in the village of Juving, located within the Khumbu. Yet another in there to mix it up There is also another climber who might possibly go for a speed attempt on the South side without oxygen - like Fabio. More details about this will not be known until the climbing actually starts on Everest. To O2 or not to O2, that is the question One issue that we have had enquiries about has been the use of oxygen on Everest speed attempts. To O2 or not to O2, that is the question. Currently the record for Everest set by the late Babu Chiri Sherpa was with the use of supplemental oxygen, but only at the very last part of the climb. This year Lhakpa Gelu will be using oxygen while Fabio and the possible third climber will not be using oxygen. As it is with normally climbing Everest, the supplemental oxygen is a great advantage tot he climbers. Below is a short timeline of the notable Everest speed ascents. Recent Everest speed ascent timeline October 5, 1990 - Marc Batard (without oxygen) - 22 hrs 29 mins October 17, 1998 - Kaji Sherpa (with oxygen) - 20 hrs 24 mins May 21, 2000 - Babu Chiri Sherpa (with oxygen) - 16 hrs 56 mins It looks like Lhakpa will be gunning for Babu's record, while Fabio and the possible third climber will be shooting for Marc Batard's oxygen-less record. Fabio's goal is 24 hrs, however, if he manages to shave 1.5 hours off his goal, it looks like the oxygen-less speed record will be his. Also of note is that from the list above and the speed projects going on this spring, Western climbers are more apt to go for Everest speed ascents without oxygen, vs. Sherpas who opt to use it. Speed climbing blowing up Come summer time, the Asia Tourism group will be organizing the second International Khan Tengri festival. Included in the events is a speed climb competition on Khan Tengri - the winner will win 3000 USD. Back in the 90's the late Alex Lowe crushed the competition by almost 4 hours on one of the first Khan Tengri speed climbing events open to international climbers. Another American, Conrad Anker, came in second. More recently in 2000, up and coming Kazakh climber Denis Urubko also shattered the competition coming in 4 hours ahead of the nearest competitor. You may recognize the name Denis Urubko from this past winter's K2 North Ridge expedition. Denis was one of the stronger climbers on the team and was consistently breaking trail and up in front fixing lines. All in all, this spring there will be a handful of folks going for speed ascents on Everest, Denali, and possibly other 8000 meter peaks. There are also contestants already signed up for the Khan Tengri speed climb event. As the saying goes, "bigger, better, taller, faster!" Resources: Everest Speed Expedition Website... Speed climbing article... Khan Tengri speed climbing competition info... Back to MountEverest.net.... |
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