Even when terrains were not steep, the trek could still be extremely gruelling. -- PHOTO: NATAS SWET
SINGAPORE'S first all-women Everest expedition team escaped a major avalanche and trekked through giant blocks of ice in semi-darkness a week before they finally made it to the top of the world.
This near miss and the hazards they faced in their treacherous climb to the 8,850 metres Everest - the world's tallest mountain - are recorded in their blog entries as they began their ascent to the summit on May 8.
The first three members finally made it to the peak early on Wednesday. The other three members are expected to reach the summit on Friday.
The team missed a huge avalanche by just hours after they returned from their third acclimatisation cycle. The Singaporean climbers were safely back at base camp and waiting for better weather when the avalanche swept down the mountain side, breaking off a massive section of ice.
The team members recorded this near miss in their blog entries about a week before their ascent up the world's tallest mountain. It was their latest entry.
Wrote a team member: 'We're thankful to be safely back at base camp... this is a timely reminder for us that climbing is a humbling sport. Climbers don't conquer Everest, they survive this giant of creation.'
Other hazards they blogged about included ploughing through difficult terrains.
The team had climbed Ihoste Face, a sheer face of near-vertical ice stretching 800m, in late April and had get back down to base camp after that with oxygen bottles, weighing 7.5kg, strapped on their backpacks.
A team mate wrote: 'The terrain on this face is extremely steep and climbers have been known to experience difficulty kicking into the hard and dry ice on this section.'
In a previous entry dated April 23, the team wrote about how they had to struggle against rough conditions during their second acclimatisation cycle.
They had to travel through giant blocks of ice in semi-darkness.
'Climbing in the morning also meant having to endure low temperatures, and it was through this blanket of sub-zero coldness that we journeyed through multiple crevasses and vertical sections with the use of ladders,' said an entry.
Even when terrains were not steep, the trek could still be extremely gruelling.
'Even though the terrain (towards one of the camps) wasn't particularly steep, every step we took was draining because of the high altitude,' wrote a team mate.
