Blume

Beginning with the usual southern route on Everest, they will continue up the Lhotse Face. After climbing Lhotse (27,920'), they intend to follow an extremely rough traverse over the yet unclimbed Lhotse Middle (27,600') to Lhotse Shar (27,500') and descend the east ridge to the Imja glacier. Before leaving to acclimate and fix ropes for their climb, Nickoli Cherni, second in command on the expedition, talked to AAI team scientist, Freddy Blume in Base Camp.

Nickoli Cherni

Cherni: Hello, I'm Nickolai Cherni form the Russian Lhotse Expedition.

Blume: Is it true that your team plans to attempt the first ever traverse from the main summit of Lhotse to Lhotse Shar, a very technical ridge entirely above 8,300 meters?

Cherni: We hope that one small team of four or five men will be able to make this traverse.

Blume: Will Anatoli Boukreev, who just led the first Indonesian expedition to the summit of Everest, be part of this team?

Cherni: No. He has a permit to climb Lhotse, but plans to return to the summit of Everest and do a "speed traverse" from there to the main summit of Lhotse, but not to Lhotse Shar.

Cherni: No more than two days. Spending a long time at that altitude is very difficult.

Blume: That means you are planning to make a camp on this exposed and rugged ridge! How will that be accomplished?

Cherni: The men will carry with them one tent like this one here [gesturing at a tent that my cat and I could not fit in together]. Four or five men, no more. In what place they will sleep we don't know. They will decide when they find the route to descend to the Imja glacier.

Blume: So you will not be returning here to Everest Base Camp?

Cherni: No, we will descend to the base of Island Peak. We see this route as being quite difficult technically, but it will make it possible to descend more quickly from the summit of Lhotse Shar to 7,100 meters [below 24,000'], to avoid the problem of staying to long at very high altitude. After this point, we expect a steep and dangerous ice route as far as a possible camp at 6,200 meters [20,300']. From there we will be rappelling from fixed ropes on rock.

Blume: What is your current target date to reach the main summit of Lhotse to begin this historic traverse?

Cherni: We hope to do it between May 18 and 25, at least two weeks from now.

Blume: How has your team fared so far?

Cherni: We've had no problems with health at all. Our leader, Vladimir Bashkirev, is currently resting in Kathmandu after summiting Everest with the Indonesians and will return to Base Camp shortly. Today, six members are moving from Camp II to Camp III, and tomorrow they begin fixing the ropes up the couloir to the main summit of Lhotse. Tomorrow the rest of us here [four more that I could see] will head up to Camp II, and then catch up the next day to help establish the route to the summit. We'll talk to you when we come back to rest next week.

Blume: Thanks, Nickolai. Dosvidanya and good luck!

-- Frederick Blume, Team Scientist