There are some pretty substantial permanent structures at base camp. I don’t know how they got the materials up there, probably by helicopter. But year, getting anything up higher would be just about impossible (through the icefall.
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In this high res picture, they’re way to the right of the climbers tents. They have blue roofs.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/Gigapixel_Trees/Pumori_Spring2012_EBC_Full/EBC_Pumori_050112_8bit_FLAT.html
Maybe yak trains?
As I understand it, they used to regularly haul cargo up to base camp in the huge Mi-17 helicopters until two of them crashed in fairly short succession. The Nepalese military still has some, though, and they used some of them to evacuate survivors from base camp after the earthquake.
Mi-17’s can haul something like 5 tons at sea level. I imagine they would want to be significantly underloaded at the altitude, but getting something like a little 1-ton diesel generator up there shouldn’t be a big problem.
That’s one cracking picture.
I was at Everest Base camp Christmas 2012, I didn’t notice any permanent buildings, there weren’t even any tents there at that time of year. I think the buildings with the blue roofs are actually at Gorak Shep, it’s about a 2 hour trek to the base camp from there.
Wow, so I was trying to figure out where the crashed helicopters are in that high-res picture and found something that underscores how very entirely possible it would be to haul at least some big equipment up there. Here’s a picture of Sherpas hiking out the wreckage of one of the crashed Mi-17’s (!): http://www.suluk46.com/images/Nepal%202007/IMG_3064%20(Small).jpg
(From here)
I saw some other references to the wreckage being removed by helicopter, so I’m guessing maybe they hauled the really heavy components like the engines off and then cut up the rest into Sherpa-sized loads.
Greasy, I know exactly squat about mountain climbing or Everest, but even I know that comparing a hike down from base camp to absolutely anything else you an do above base camp is ridiculous. Getting a piece of paper down from the near-summit is incomparably harder and more dangerous than getting a helicopter down from base camp.
Note: The helicopter was being carried down in pieces because it crashed. Near base camp. The “easy” part.
I mean, come on.
I was reacting to Mangosteen’s claim that even getting equipment up to base camp would be prohibitively difficult. It’s certainly not easy or cheap and may be fraught with peril, but it’s clearly something that has been done before many times.
Obviously getting anything up past base camp becomes significantly more difficult and dangerous, but Sherpas haul enormous amounts of supplies up to the high camps each season in support of the commercial climbs. Provided there’s no one piece of equipment that can’t be broken down into a small enough load, it simply becomes a matter of throwing (substantial amounts of) money at the problem.
You might want to consider going to Kala Patar (18000’+) rather than EBC. There really isn’t a lot to see at EBC. Kala Patar is a few hours hike from Lobuche and gives you an extraordinary view of Everest. Many of the photos one sees of Everest are taken at KP.
Yes it’s well worth the hike up KP, but IMHO base camp is not to be missed. The Khumbu icefall is pretty spectacular.
There are several cities on the North Slope of Alaska (such as Barrow) where people do live year-round. The major differences are, of course, that the North Slope communities are at rather low latitudes (often, at sea level), and most of the people who live there have lived there for years and are well-acclimated to the climate. There are also doctors up there and also planes and helicopters that can take sick people to Fairbanks or anywhere else in a reasonable amount of time.
The icefall would be a big reason to go to EBC. I’d like to be there in late afternoon as the sun hits it, to hear the crashing seracs.
No plans yet to go, but I’m adding it to my bucket list! A couple of former co-workers went to EBC. They said the 17,600’ altitude makes for very thin air!
I haven’t been to EBC, but I have been on the Annapurna Circuit and it’s pretty amazing. Don’t restrict your Nepal travel plans to the Everest region; there’s more to the Himalayas than that.
I’m not suggesting people live up at the South Col, just that you could put a few pieces of equipment up there that would make things safer. My point with the North Slope is that it isn’t as if machinery just spontaneously breaks in cold weather. There’s lots of remote oilfield equipment and such that works just fine with minimal or no maintenance in temperatures that are colder than you ever see on Everest.
Anything you put up there for emergency use will be overwhelmed by climbers, who are always in dire straights. It’s happens in mountaineering all over the world, you place equipment or shelters in dangerous places and they become more popular for unprepared climbers.
Cool pic. Took me a while to grasp the sheer size and scale of it until I found the tiiiiny blue roofs.
What are the green squares for though ?
If you click on them (not inside them, but on the green lines themselves) it zooms into the location and shows you a closeup picture of whatever point of interest is there, taken at that location. Unfortunately on my browser the interface to zoom back out seems broken.
ETA: Ah, if you scroll to the side in the close up there’s a “Home” button.
I know nothing about mountain climbing, but I’ve had an idea for a great business. I’d call it Everest Rescue. I’d get a group of good experienced mountaineers and Sherpas, ant get them all equipped and acclimated, rotating them through some of the lower camps.
When some inexperienced idiot gets in trouble on the mountain, there family can deposit between 500k to 1mm in our account (depending on the difficulty) and then my team will go get the rich asshole. After expenses we’ll donate half the money to the poor of the area. I wouldn’t feel guilty about preying on people in their moment of need. Anybody that, willingly goes up that mountain doesn’t deserve any pity.
My team would never summit, or help people summit, or do anything like that. We would just rescue rich people.
If you click on the borders of the green squares, it will zoom in and give you a super closeup of the area, from which you can zoom in even more and really look around. There are more green boxes from that view that do the same thing. The lowest one at base camp can even take you inside one of the tents.
I only found the exit button on one of them, though, although one one of the others clicking on the green box took me back to the original view. You just have to mess around with it, I guess.
One box will allow you to see a Sherpa sitting on a huge pile of trash (it appears.)
Would you self-insure the 10% of your team that will die on the mountain? Will you return the money if your clients die on the mountain after contracting your services?
My dream, if I was, say, Howard Hughes, would be to design a build a hybrid aircraft that could hover and/or land at the top, and have the ability to carry a couple people’s worth of weight, so I could either take supplies, or carry out people in need of rescue. I could also drop off rescuers at the high elevations who would be rested and ready to go.
Of course, said aircraft would be incredibly expensive, and costly to operate, but hey, I’m Howard Hughes. It’s what I do! Plus, I get to land at the summit.
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