Everest West Ridge: The First Traverse of Everest Fifty Years Ago

The West Ridge of Everest with the climbers below - Photo Courtesy  Everest, The West Ridge by Tom Horbein

On 21^st May 1963 at six o’clock in the evening two climbers reached 27,205 feet (8300 metres) to set up Camp 5W on the west ridge of Everest. Tom Horbein a US anasthetologist then 32 years old and Willi Unsoeld , a mountain guide then 36 years of age were poised for the final push to the summit of Everest by a new route.

It had not been easy for these two men. The 1963 American Everest Expedition led by Norman Dyrenfurth had squarely set its sights on a first American ascent by the South Col route. On May 1^{st 1963}, Jim Whittaker accompanied by Sherpa Nawang Gombu, Tenzing’s nephew, made the first American ascent to become the fifth and six men to stand of the summit after the British in 1953 and Swiss in 1954.

But Horbein and Unsoeld had other ideas. Working doggedly with the meager resources including limited oxygen the duo set up camps on the virgin west ridge route.

On the day of their summit climb, Barry Bishop, a National Geographic photographer, and Lute Jerstad were also attempting the summit by the South Col route. Bishop and Jerstad reached the summit around 4 pm but did not find any evidence of the west ridge team who were still two hours below the top.

Three Passes of Everest Trek

The top of the Rhenjo La pass - one of the three passes crossed on this trek 

THE INFORMATION

GETTING THERE

There are a number of flights every morning from Kathmandu to the mountain airstrip of Lukla, the start of the trek. Tara Airways (www.yetiairways.com) is the airline of choice and runs the maximum number of flights. The fare is presently USD 280 for foreigners and NPRs 16,280 return for SAARC citizens.  In bad weather, Lukla flights get disrupted and the only option then is to take a seat on a helicopter (www.simrikair.com.np) back to Kathmandu (USD 450-500 one way).

PREPARATIONS

The best season for the trek is April to Mid May and again from Mid October to early December. Though the passes are crossed later in the season as well, there is always the possibility of heavy snowfall closing down the route. If there is heavy snow during the trek, the passes are best avoided and the route can be done by following the valleys instead. We trekked in late April and were rewarded with a riot of mountain flowers including the rhododendron in the valleys capped by the soaring peaks. Bottled mineral water is available but very expensive, so please carry iodine/chlorine water purification tablets. You need to carry enough water with you at least one litre at a time and this can be refilled at the lodges. Trekking poles are a must as there are three passes to cross with slippery trails and scree.  The tea houses (lodges) will provide beds and quilts but a warm three season plus sleeping bag is essential. The trek crosses 5400 metres so do not underestimate the effects of the altitude or the walk. This is a difficult trek and you need to be fit and properly acclimatized to succeed.

Mark Horrell: When Trekking becomes Mountaineering

M ark Horrell, climber, writer and photographer has written an excellent post on his blog about trekking and mountaineering and the fine line between the two. Do visit Mark's blog for more articles and photos on the mountains.
http://www.markhorrell.com/blog/2011/when-does-trekking-become-mountaineering/

Photo by Sujoy Das

MIntokling Guest House: Gangtok

One of the better guest houses in Gangtok and located in a quiet part of the town below the gates of the Palace, Mintokling is run by the brother and sister duo of Pema and Tenzing. The guest house which was started in 1986 has twelve rooms overlooking a lovely garden rich in hydrangeas, rhododendrons and other exotic flowers. The personalised service given by the family ensures a high standard of hospitality and comfort.  Rooms are clean with plenty of hot water and fine views over the valley. To contact the guest house please do visit www.mintokling.com

The Mintokling Guest House with a view over the valley 

Rhododendron in bloom

Himalaya: Rocks, Ice, Clouds & Mountains

Denzong Regency: Gangtok

On a recent visit to Gangtok, I was fortunate to stay for two nights at the Denzong Regency. This Welcome Group property owned by Thinlay Densapa of Bermiok is perched on a ridge above the Densapa house, Cherry Bank.  Commanding possibly one of the best view points in Gangtok it is only 1 km from the town but quiet and secluded. This mountain retreat  has 25 well appointed rooms all facing  Kanchenjunga.  Personal care and attention is a hall mark of this property. Very often the owner Mr Densapa makes his rounds of the hotel interacting with the guests and ensuring that they are comfortable and looked after. The young and dynamic Operations Manager,  Bikash Ghemraj spares no effort to ensure high standards of hospitality and service. To contact the hotel please do visit www.denzongregency.com.

Some of the rooms and part of the garden below

The portrait of Rai Bahadur Densapa, the father of the present owner of the hotel

The  spacious restaurant Mayal 

The lobby with large portraits of the Chogyals of Sikkim and other Sikkim memorablia

View from one of the room balconies overlooking the garden and a view of Gangtok town in the distance

Nikon D600: Hands on Review

As mentioned in my earlier post Santa Cruz Downtown  ,  I rented a Nikon D600 body in the USA and used it for a few days. I wanted to get a hands on experience with the camera before deciding whether to buy it.  I was especially interested in the D600 as it was a compact full frame FX DSLR of moderate weight and size. I had a gut feeling that this could be the camera I could use for all my treks and photo expeditions and best of all it would work with all the full frame lenses I had from my film days. I tested it with my Nikon 50 F1.8AFD and the 24 F2.8AF.

Here  is the one of the images in full frame:

Nikon D600, ISO 640, 1/125 sec  f 2.5, 50mm F1.8D, matrix maetering

And here is the 100% crop of the same image. Please do see how the f2.5 wide aperture has affected depth of field- the left eye is sharp but the right eye is not! What do you feel about the resolution at 100% crop?

Pros

• Large big full frame viewfinder - a joy to use 

• Good weight for a full frame body - the lightest in the Nikon stable so far!

• Spot on exposure - no need to adjust the EV to -0.3 or + 0.3 using matrix metering for most situations 

• At 24 mp you would expect excellent resolution at 100% crop and the camera did not disappoint!

• High ISO performance was great - I would say that ISO upto 1600 is good and 3200 is also usable given the correct exposure. I regularly used 800 or so indoors without any noise issues.

• No problems with Nikon's earlier lenses - I used the 50 F1.8 AFD and an old 24 F2.8 AF ( not D) and got great results from them. Neither of these lenses is VR but a low shutter speeds (1/30 sec etc) it was possible to get perfectly sharp images! I would imagine that the new VR lenses would also give some amazing results at low shutter speeds hand held provided the subject was not moving!

• The built in flash is quite good especially in daylight to remove harsh shadows caused by the sun especially when shooting people! In most situations outdoors I did not have to compensate the flash and shot it on program mode with good results.

• The camera accepts two SD cards in Slot 1 and Slot 2 so the second card can be used as a back up; or a combination like NEF(Raw) in Slot 1 and JPEG in Slot 2.

Cons

• I sometimes had difficulty in using auto focus in very low light conditions - the camera was hunting for focus and then switching over to manual focus made things much easier. I am not sure if this is due to the 39 focus points bunched around the centre of the screen as opposed to the 51 points in the D800 and the new D7100! This issue has also been mentioned by other photographers

• I would have liked to have an instant 100% zoom button to review the image as in the D300 series but Nikon has not given us this feature!

• Sloppy technique wont work with this camera - if there is camera shake due to low shutter speeds etc this shows up very easily and you dont have to go for a big print either! None of the lenses I used for the test was VR with VR you should get a couple of stops advantage - I have been able to hand hold down to 1/10 sec with a Nikon 16-85 VR lens on a DX body!

• One of the major "cons" is the dust issue on the sensor. On internet forums this has been hotly debated and many have stayed away from buying the camera until this issue is resolved by Nikon. The body I received fro m the rental company was clean and in the three days that I used it there was no dust problems. Some photographers report that cleaning the sensor after 2000-3000 shots helps in reducing further dust and spots. The issue also varies from body to body - some have not reported the problem at all!

Conclusion
If you are a DX body owner and are looking to migrate to a full frame sensor this could well be the camera for you.  If you are already using the full frame D700 or D3 or D4 series then perhaps this could be a second back up body for you. Many pros are contemplating the D600 as a light full frame back up body. If like me you have a full array of FX lenses and are looking for a light weight full frame body then this is the choice. When you have to  carry your own equipment up and down the mountainside every day of a trek then every ounce of weight becomes important - that's was what kept me away from the D700 all these years a fine camera that it is!

The Final Frontier : India Today Travel Plus April 2013

Ranjan Pal trekked with South Col Expeditions to Kala Pattar in November 2013. In this photo essay for India Today Travel Plus April 2013  he describes his iconic trek.

The Final Frontier : The Trek to Kala Pattar