Conrad "Radster" Anker’s specialty, simply put, is climbing the most technically challenging terrain in the world. This quest has taken him from the mountains of Alaska and Antarctica to the big walls of Patagonia and Baffin Island and the massive peaks of the Himalaya. Conrad's Antarctic experience spans a decade, with first ascents in three regions.
Learn more about Conrad Anker.
Click play above to listen to an audio message from Conrad Anker who was surveying a glacier after summiting Mount Everest.
Well, they say you’re not done till you’re done and, this is Conrad here. I’m at the 5,700 meter elevation. I’m in Nare glacier on the south face of Ama Dablam and I’m here with Subhash, Hey Subhash.
Subhash: Hello
Conrad: Have you been walking?
Subhash: Long time walking
Conrad: Oh yeah, long time walking. We started out this morning walking at 3 a.m. and we gained 2,000 meters of elevation in probably 20km distance. This is the fifth of the Extreme Ice Survey cameras that we’re switching the cards out and doing maintenance on. Everyone else is headed to Kathmandu and I’m enjoying one last moment down in the mountains. There’s nothing like walking slowly after summiting Everest without supplemental oxygen to feel the effects.
We’re happy, it looks like the card came out ok, the battery and computer are all working well and the glacier looks a little anemic from here. It’s one that we are studying and we’ve got two years of data on it now. Yeah, you’re not done till you’re done, we definitely had work left, we saved the best things for last. So, this is Conrad calling in from the Nare glacier, in the Khumbu valley, and take care!
Click play above to listen to an audio message from Conrad Anker who was at Base Camp after summiting Mount Everest.
Greetings folks, this is Conrad calling from Everest Base Camp and just back here after descending the Khumbu Ice Fall. On the 26 of May I managed to reach the summit of Everest at five minutes after 10 a.m.
I climbed with myself. I made a decision with about two hours notice in the middle of the night. I wasn’t feeling too well on the 25th so I declined to climb with my other teammates and the weather, the wind died and it was time to go and it was game on and we had fun. So, that was that. It was a trip to Everest.
Today is the third day of Everest ascents for the 2012 season. Camps clang oxygen cylinders as makeshift bells in honor of their Sherpa climbers and members reaching the apex of our planet. We are quite excited for each of the teams and wish for safe passage back to base camp.
With less than 48 hrs to departure the team is readying for an ascent later in the week. We reviewed the medical devices and procedures today and will follow up with the GPS and sampling procedures tomorrow. Then it's game time. A quick and safe passage through the icefall to Camp 2, a day of rest, a short day to 7100m and then onto she South Col and the summit the following day. If everything goes well we will be back in base camp in a week.
As a way to soothe the apprehension of the unknown I recount the food I'll be needing and recheck my harness. There is only one day to have a go at the final 3000 feet of the 12,000 feet above me. Regardless of it being relegated to a trade route it is hard and as we learn today, lethal.
My favorite food is tucked away and my harness and gear rechecked. What might the next week bring? The route is a known entity, and we are hardly pioneers in any sense of the word. Yet the unknown, if we allow it to be part of our motivation, can transport us in our minds to the moments of discovery that define being human. Finding these moments keeps us in the spirit of exploration.
More to come via sat phone.....
Greetings Friends, this is Conrad with the 2012 National Geographic, North Face Everest expedition. I'm here at 6400 meters, which is approximately 21,000 feet.
2,000 feet above me we've got Hills and Chris and Sam and Emily and Mark Jenkins. They’re up at Camp 3, and that's about 7,000 meters approximately 23,000 feet, and they’re camping up there to acclimatize.
Conditions are great. We've had periodic snowfall in the afternoon, which is great. It's just keeping the snow... The snow is keeping the rocks, cementing them in. So we're experiencing less rock fall, and we're hoping that sometime in the next, ohh, 10 days or so, will have a summit window when the winds abate and we have clear whether.
Thanks for following, and have a pleasant day. Take Care.
Hello from Everest Base Camp!
After a busy week with the Bruce Johnson MD and Mayo Clinic team we are settling into a bit of tranquility. Teams are working between 7000 m and 7900 m. The overall spirit in camp is upbeat, despite the challenges with the dry and windy weather.
Life is precious and there is nothing like a demanding environment to remind us of how insignificant we are. Our bodies are challenged by the paucity of O2. Sleep is fleeting, we naturally shun calories and we loose muscle mass. Yet above us is the summit of the planet. The draw is powerful and is our source of inspiration each day. Keep an eye on the horizon, stay calm, be patient and be positive.
Click play below to listen to an audio message from Conrad Anker who is at Basecamp on Mount Everest.
This post is excerpted from a message Conrad sent to the Mayo Clinic.Click play below to listen to an audio message from Conrad Anker who is at Camp 2 on Mount Everest.
Posted on behalf of Chris Figenshau, Tapovan Base Camp Manager
October 2nd, 2011. 3p.m.. (The climbers rest before their summit push.)
“You don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.”
Bob Dylan said that. He must have been at sea level. In the Himalaya, it seems, only Shiva can say for sure.
Upon receiving the predictions of no precipitation for the next five days, I decided to pack up my most Spartan overnight kit, with camera gear, and head up to a vantage point near the base of Shivling’s West flank. From here one can see the NE Ridge of the Shark’s Fin from base to summit. After a three-hour hike through Teton like talus,( minus the trail part), I reached the advanced base camp of a group of British climbers led by Simon Yates. They are intent on climbing Shivling. Tea with the “Poms(sp?)” is a proper tea experience, and after being slightly ‘knackered’ from the hike, a very welcome one. (Thanks again Simon.)
As the sky grew dark I made my way to my bivy spot. Carrying two cameras, a beefy tripod and all the big glass we brought to India, I was set to crush, kill, and slay the coverage of a much anticipated summit day.
But wait. What is this white stuff? Falling light at first, then steady. SNOW.
I scavenged a ratty blue tarp from an abandoned camp/trash pile and dug in. Wrapped in a snow-covered burrito at 17,000 feet I radioed the team. It was snowing on them too.
“It’ll blow out of here,” I said, trying to impart confidence in the unknown.
“It just started snowing harder when you said that,” replied a dour Jimmy Chin. He was probably mired in an unpleasant flashback to the storm that thwarted their previous attempt.
“We’ll just wake up at midnight and see…” Jimmy said. “Wall Team clear."
The scratching of new snow against stiff, frozen plastic set the cadence for what was to be a comfortable, but sleepless night. An inch of snow on my blue burrito, ten feet of visibility, and the pitter patter of new snow getting louder.
OhmmmmmmmmmmmmmnamaaaaaaaaaaaaaShiva! Not now.
October 2, 2011. Midnight.
“The path to light often begins in darkness.”
-Unknown quote from The River Why.
One star, two stars, twenty stars, a million. The clouds part and settle low in the vast canyon between Shivling and Meru. The high beam of a lone headlamp tears through the night sky across from me. The team is awake and moving.
By 2 a.m. three lamps are spread evenly across the snow ramp leading up from Camp 3 heading towards the fixed line on the ‘Montana Ice Pitch’. It is clear, but cold. In the pre-dawn light I can see something I cannot feel. Wind from the Northwest is carrying snow off of the ridge.
The first radio transmission of the day is from Conrad who is now at the anchor above the ice pitch.
“This wind is eating me alive!”
His tone is startling.
“What do you want to do?” asks Jimmy.
Given their utterly exposed position, the possibility that wind chill could shut this climb down seems very real.
“Send up my down Jacket., says Conrad.
The team’s progress stops momentarily to weigh their circumstances. Then the sun hits.
A newly invigorated Conrad leads the first pitch of the day and ends it with a shovel in hand, trenching his way through the cornice that separates the team from the summit ridge. Blocks of snow whiz by Jimmy and Renan at the belay as Conrad burrows his way to ridge. Within an hour the team reaches the highpoint of their previous expedition. In the warmth of the sun they regroup and contemplate the overhanging knifeblade pitch above them. The Gargoyle. It would be up to Jimmy to unlock these final pitches to the summit at over 21,000 feet.
I couldn’t see the Gargoyle pitch from my vantage, but it didn’t take Jimmy long to lead it. When he reached the top Conrad let me know that:
“Jimmy left a big groove in it where he dragged his big steel balls.”
Nice.
October 2, 2011. 1:40 p.m.
The team disappears from my view for several hours and I get a headache from squinting through the eyepiece of an underpowered lens in an effort to find them. While the team fights on, I take a nap in the now perfect temperature.
The radio ‘bleeps’ and wakes me. And then I hear something human from afar. A distant voice cuts across the calm air of the yawning canyon.
“Whooooooooooooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Then the radio cracks to life. It’s Conrad.
“Jimmy’s on the summit,” he says with a military like matter of fact. “Summit time: 1:40. October, 2nd, 2011.” There is confidence in his voice.
I look though the camera and I can see something on the summit now. It looks like a backlit hair follicle with arms. It’s Jimmy. The clouds swirl behind him, his arms raised before them. Twenty minutes later he is joined by Conrad and Renan. Now it’s official: The team has reached the summit!
A new route is now complete. Old business finished. Success, significance and a sigh of relief are all in this moment. Conrad makes coffee as the team rests for 2 hours at the apex of their journey.
Now all they have to do is get down……….
- Chris Figenshau. Psyched to have been there, Topovan Base Camp. Clear.
Posted on behalf of Chris Figenshau, Tapovan Base Camp Manager:
September 28th 2011, 9AM
Gazing up from Tapovan Base Camp, I can see a solitary pinhole of light piercing the dark hulking midsection of Mt Meru. The team is safe. Dangling at Camp 2 at 19,000 feet.
After two weeks of traveling, organizing, trekking and humping loads to advanced base camp, Jimmy, Renan and Conrad have managed to scorch their way up the bottom part of this route in a 6 day push. The bottom snow and technical ice pitches were climbed in two days to Camp 1, ‘The Balcony’, which lies below several sections of alpine rock and ice. From there the team climbed, hauled and jugged their way up to Camp 2, a hanging bivy situated below the formidably overhanging Indian Ocean Wall. In the past two days the team has managed to climb, (send), the steepest and most dangerous A4 sections of the wall culminating at the ‘Crystal Pitch’, an overhanging prow of aid climbing in outer space.
“Ahhhh the Crystal Pitch,” says Jimmy. “It’s out there.”
Yeah. It sure as hell is.
Tonight the team is preparing to move camp above the 20,000 foot mark. Once at Camp 3, the team plans to make a three or four day push for the summit.
Having benefitted from their experience on this wall three years ago, the team is moving much faster. Levels are high, and the weather has been exceptional thus far with little to no moisture. . (‘Exceptional’ is a relative term that is not intended to imply comfort.) The team has been fortunate with morning sunshine on the route, but by noon the entire wall is shaded and cold due to its Northeast exposure. So far, good progress has been made each day with no days lost to weather or fatigue. With an abyss of steep, overhanging rock behind them, the team now prepares for the final sections of aid and mixed climbing on their way to the summit.
Fingers crossed, positive wavelength, incense burning.
Figenshau clear.
Chris Figenshau, Tapovan Base Camp Manager
After spending a two days building basecamp and sorting through mountains of gear, we carried loads up to our ABC below our route on Meru. The clouds and mist parted along the 6 hour trek up to our ABC and we scanned familiar reference points on the route, the filter pitches of steep snow and ice, the alpine ridge, the traverse pitches with the tricky hauling, the overhanging headwall, the House of Cards pitch and others. The route and all its challenges were coming back to us. It was exciting to see the icy blade of granite again after 3 years and our anticipation began to build for what would be in store for us in the days ahead.
We took two rest days at basecamp and are headed up to ABC in the morning. If the weather holds, we should be on the route in a couple of days.
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