#southcol

On top of the world! Great summit day- warm and calm for the duration of our climb above high camp. The night started calm and clear. As we crested the #NortheastRidge we could see across the #KangshungFace to headlamps from climbers ascending from the #SouthCol- one of the most amazing sights I've seen. Clouds built and snow started, but we picked our window to avoid the bitter winds of the jet stream, so we were pleased by the weather (until our descent below C3 😑) We made it all the way back to #EverestABC after the #summit- an 8,000' descent! @adrianballinger made the top without Os and then returned to ABC too- huge shout out for that monumental feat! So psyched everyone made it up and down safely. HUGE thanks to our incredible #Sherpa team: Panuru (sirdar), @dorjisherpa, Phurba, Nawong, @namgye, Pasang Ringi and Mingma. There is no way could do it without you! @alpenglowexpeditions #AdventureDoneRight #Everest #Everest2017 #MountEverest #DarnTough #JulboUSA #strapinventureout #terramartribe (at Mount Everest)

The Big E. High wind at sunrise blows snowdrift hundreds of meters into the frigid thin air. #8848m #everest #nepal #nepal8thwonder #himalaya #himalayan_high #mountainscape #highest #topoftheworld @landscapescapture @landscape_captures @landscapephotomag @himalayangeographic @himalaya_trails @mounteverestofficial @trekkingeverestbasecamp @everest_base_camp_trek @sunrisefantastic @life_spirit_pics #southcol (at Mt. Everest)

It suddenly dawned on me that certain experiences leave behind much more than memories. Sometime during the first week of April, after having claimed lives for two years, #Everest decided to quieten down, and at least 289 brave men and women embarked on that sacred pilgrimage to see the most incredible result of Earth, Wind, Water, and Time. Amongst them, Cory Richards(#NatGeo Photographer) and Adrian Ballinger(Mountain Guide) have been climbing and documenting everything that the Mountain, in conjunction with Mother #Nature, has been throwing at them. And they've been doing it all without supplemental oxygen. At 7,906 m, they have been waiting in #SouthCol, the last high camp before the summit, waiting for news of clearance. Tomorrow, on Thursday, the first of many will begin the ascend. From that altitude onwards, which marks the beginning of the Death Zone, the human body starts breaking down. Oxygen is no longer sufficient to maintain life, and the brain switches priorities, responding by almost shutting down digestive processes. It is simply easier to use reserved energy sources than digest new food. I wanted to talk about all of this because of a little memorial at #ABC, dedicated to Anatoli Boukreev, a Russian Kazakhstani mountaineer, who will be forever remembered for making ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousanders, without supplemental oxygen. It's beyond me to imagine what that must have been like, seeing as even as low as base camps you can't take full breaths without coughing, and allowing time to let your body acclimatize. Where Everest is the most famous peak on Earth, the most infamous for taking lives have been Annapurna, and during 1997, while attempting a winter ascent of Annapurna I, Boukreev was killed by an avalanche. His body remains up there somewhere, swallowed and buried by the snow, never having been found. The quote reads: "Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion." Here's to the mind and body, and to the indomitable spirit of the soul.