Lhotse 8516m; the mountain with a view
In spring 2012 Mountain Consult organizes another Lhotse expedition; the fourth highest mountain in the world and is located opposite of Mt Everest’s South face
The famous South col at around 8000m actually connects Mt Everest and Mt Lhotse to eachother, which means that expeditions to both mountains follow the same route across the Khumbu Ice Fall and the Western Cwm to camp 3 at the Lhotse face. On the way to Everest’s Camp 4, just above the Yellow Band, the Lhotse route takes another direction. From here, the Lhotse climb becomes much more difficult due to the very steep ice and rock sections in the Lhotse couloir. But the result is amazing, without doubt, you’ll get the best view on Everest from this 8516m high viewpoint. A great expedition if you’re a fit and experienced climber. Oh, there are a few extra advantages, Lhotse’s climbing permit is much cheaper than Everest and there will be no crowds on the mountain from Camp 4 to the summit!
Interested to join? Have a look at our webpage with much more information: http://www.mountainconsult.com/programs/expedition/nepal_lhotse_expedition.asp
Join our Everest Expedition 2012!
Join Mountain Consult’s upcoming Everest Expedition 2012. This expedition will be guided by Namgyal Sherpa, Mountain Consult owner and one of Nepal’s best Everest Guides, mountaineer and mountain manager who has summited and guided Everest expeditions already 9 times. Besides Everest, Namgyal has been operating high altitude expeditions within the Nepal and Tibetan Himalayas for more than 15 years. Namgyal is a very friendly, charismatic well connected Sherpa with excellent leadership skills and extensive mountaineering knowledge and experience. The expedition is Western led by at least one of Mountain Consults co-owners and high altitude climbers Armand Dirks or Eveline Wessels.
For spring 2012 Mountain Consult has put together another strong and experienced team of climbing Sherpa’s, all with extensive climbing experience on Everest and other 6000, 7000 and 8000 mountains in the Himalayas.
Start date: 1 April 2012 / End date: 5 June 2012 / Summit Pro package / Maximum members: 8 persons / Cost: € 20.000,00
What you need to know: it’s small, professional and environmental friendly
From the beginning we have pushed ourselves to organize our expeditions as environmentally friendly as possible. This means that we only operate in small teams that hardly impact the environment and cooperate as a family. We only use professional equipment used in a very friendly and relaxed base camp setup or high camps, designed to operate without leaving a trace.
The food…, my god!
Mountain Consult’s food menu’s are designed by Eveline Wessels herself, Mountain Consult’s own food scientist and almost professional cook! Eveline and our Sherpa expedition cooks have designed a wide variety of tasty and energetic meals that are well balanced, nutritious and healthy. In case you have special food wishes or demands, you are always able to discuss it with us so we can make arrangements for your specific wishes… It’s also good to know that we love real food! Nice, fresh, organic, local vegetables, fruits, cheeses and meat all from the clean and healthy Sherpa land. Off course we also need a few imported items, but even these are chosen for its quality of health and taste!
Keeping it clean, reducing our impact
The past is gone! While expeditions in the past just left their equipment and food behind in base camps or higher up the mountain, we make sure to bring everything down. No matter if it’s equipment, food, oxygen bottles or even our personal waste. Besides that, we also contribute our share of equipment, man power and money to establish the fixed ropes and to clean up the old ones. Another thing to minimize our impact is the use of solar equipment instead of generators. For us this all is just a very logical thing to do, as we really love to climb in a clean mountain area.
Less is more
Like we said, we only operate with small teams. We truly believe that ‘less is more’. When it concerns safety, overcrowding, atmosphere, personal attention, contact with local people, Sherpa crew and summit success, small groups definitely are in favor. Your chance to stand on the Everest summit in a pleasant way increases in a small team. Smaller teams are more flexible and because of that, better able to make use of the weather windows as they may open quickly and only for a short time. To get the most out of your expedition, we believe that everyone should be able to make a second summit attempt. That’s why we operate our Everest expeditions in 65 days time, we stock our camps with sufficient gas, food and spare equipment and off course enough oxygen, with buy back guarantee!
Climbing Everest at realistic costs
We understand that nobody wants to spend more money than necessary. Any Everest expedition is expensive, no matter how you organize it. There are very expensive and luxurious expeditions, there are very basic, cheaper expeditions. We believe that it’s all about the total climbing experience. The experience should be a safe one, well organized, guided by friendly and experienced people, good equipment and great food in family atmosphere. Off course, this has a certain price, but definitely not the highest! We pay decent salaries to our staff, but we try to keep things realistic as well. We’re not aiming at high profits ourselves, we aim at client satisfaction, at a positive Himalayan experience that will last forever! That’s more important to us than anything else. As climbers ourselves we know exactly how it is…
Climbing for Water’s Everest High Tea
Two years ago, Eveline Wessels and Armand Dirks decided to use their climbing expeditions to spread awareness about water problems in mountain areas and the areas downstream. During their last expedition to Lhotse they organized a real High Tea at the Everest South Col (8000m) as a special kickoff event for their 7 Summits for Water project. Mountain Consult is the logistic partner for this kickoff event and for Climbing for Water’s Everest Expedition in 2015 as part of their 7 summits quest. As soon as the expedition is finished we’ll publish some more information and pictures about this special event at our blog!
Climbing for Water kickoff handeled by Mountain Consult
Climbing for Water kicks off its 7 Summits for Water project at the Everest South Col. It’s a project in which they try to spread awareness about water related problems in mountain areas, and in which they try to raise 500.000,- Euro to support local water projects.
Mountain Consult is proud to be the logistic partner for Climbing for Water during the kickoff and the Everest Expedition in 2015.
For more information about Climbing for Water: http://www.climbingforwater.org
Age limits for climbing Mt Everest
Recent summit attempts of teenagers have caused a lot of debate in the climbing community. In 2001, sixteen year old Temba Tseri Sherpa (Nepali boy) became the youngest climber to summit Everest, although he lost a few fingers and toes because of frostbite. Last spring (May 2010) the record was taken by Jordan Romero, who ascended World’s highest mountain at the age of 13!
As a response to the tendence of taking very young climbers above the Death Zone (plans were already there to bring a 11-year old next spring), the China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA) has issued new regulations since 2 weeks for climbing Mt Everest. As from June 10th (2010), two age limits will be set to climb Everest from the north side: a minimum age of 18, and a max of 60. Exceptions can be made for climbers providing positive medical records but 16 will still be the absolute lowest limit according to CTMA.
The CTMA’s decision was welcomed by the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), who already set a minimum age of 16 after Temba’s summit push. In Nepal the maximum age to climb Everest is not restricted.
Pro or con? Let us know…
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First steps towards Everest BC
Stuck at the national airport for 30hours, we finally were able to fly to Lukla; the main start of expeditions and trekkings in the Khumbu/Everest region. Starting to feel very unlucky at that time, we now can say that we must have been very happy to actually have been able to fly, finally! All our possible flights were cancelled, some of them while boarding (how demotivating…) because of too much wind, cloudy weather, a nonfunctioning radar system and a broken antenna. Not a good thing if you ask me… 
!
, although it’s everything but a burden to have to be around here, mandatory! Besides learning to breath again, these weeks will be used to spread the word for the activities of the Climbing for Water Foundation (www.climbingforwater.org / http://climbingforwater.blogspot.com ).Some numbers for this Spring climbing season!
In total 547 persons (480 men and 67 women) have received permits to attempt 21 peaks above 5647m.
Among them:
- Adopted from the Kathmandu Post, April 8th 2010
Everything packed for Everest!
I’ll give you some… 
Base camp blues…
Administrator
Eveline Wessels
