It's a historic day for climbers and climbing in Western Australia. One of Michael's best friends has summited Mt Everest by the North Col route.
• Here's a message from Michael:
Hi Guys
Just a quick note to give you some great news. Sheeny (Mark Sheen) summited Everest this morning. Thankfully he decided to use supplementary oxygen. He did the climb amazingly quickly too. It can often take up to 10 hours to reach the summit: he made it in just under five hours... This really is world class!
I cant stress enough what an amazing life achievement this is. He's been through a lot in his life, but everything has come together for him this time. He will go down in history as the first West Australian to achieve this.
Today is a good day. I am hellishly proud of the Sheen. Well done mate. You are an inspiration.
Mikey
• And here's an excerpt from Mark's climbing team at DCXP:
At 12:05am 5th June Mark Sheen set out from high camp... Mark summited at 4:56am in time for dawn on the summit and set a blistering pace of only 4hrs 51minutes, wow! Must be that high flow oxygen at 4L/min combined with awesome fitness, top job Mark.
Feel free to leave your well-wishes for Mark Sheen under this post and we'll be sure he reads them.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Mike's Mate Mark Mounts the Mountain
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The West Australian Update 17 May 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
The Everest Interview
Michael Dunjey gave his first extended interview yesterday covering his Everest Ascent and a whole lot more. You can find the interview here.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Michael Writes From... Perth?
Read what Michael had to say about his trip as he writes from Perth, Western Australia.
Greetings Everyone
Well at least some of you will be surprised to learn that this update is being written from the warmth and oxygen rich environment of my home in Perth... alas the Everest Trip has come to an end.
It was the experience of a life time and was certainly worth all the training, the time, the money and the myriad of training trips and expeditions that needed to take place in the years leading up to this Grand Adventure.
In some ways I achieved more than I thought I ever could. In other ways there is of course disappointment. The timing of this letter dictates the summit was not achieved and naturally the summit is what every climber wants. The very nature of Everest though is that most climbers will not reach its summit. If every climber that ventured their way to Everest summitted, then indeed Everest would not have the reputation it still holds. Every mountain I have been on is difficult. But what surprises most climbers who attempt Everest is just how hard it is. There are no easy climbing days on Everest. That was learned by our team very quickly.
But let me go back to the beginning and explain why my trip was curtailed.
The 1st of May and the team was at Camp 2. It was our second day there and the following morning we were scheduled to climb the Lhotse face in proper for the first time in order to reach our goal of staying one night at Camp 3 without the use of bottled Oxygen.
Our Guides had warned us that this day would most likely the physical crux of the entire expedition for the majority of us. If a climber can reach Camp 3 and survive well, then its time to return all the way to Base Camp for a well deserved rest, before returning to the mountain for the summit bid. Camp 3 is considered the Litmus Test. By making it to this height without the use of supplementary bottled oxygen it is proof your body is ready to attempt the remainder of the mountain.
The reason this day is considered the hardest day is that the next time (ie. on the summit bid) you return to Camp 3, bottled oxygen is given to you as soon as you set foot inside your tent. This of course makes life far easier than the trip to this height with the O2. You sleep on bottled oxygen, rest on it and of course climb with it. This does not mean that the final two days of climbing are not incredibly difficult still, but the benefits of bottled oxygen are many. There is an increase in concentration as you are receiving extra oxygen to the brain. Your body warms up––especially hands and feet––and of course climbing itself becomes that little bit easier as the extra air you breathe is effectively dropping the altitude by approximately 1,000m.
And so it was on the 1st May that I muttered to the Guides my famous last words “I cant believe how perfectly this trip is going for me”. The Guides had agreed. It is the first expedition I had been on without incident. No sickness for the entire trip, acclimatisation was perfect, an ideal team, and I was climbing very well. About a week before I had climbed with some other team members and one Guide to approx 7,100 metres on the Lhotse face. Incidentally, many teams use this height as Camp 3. There is no fixed position for the camps, just rough general areas in which they are chosen by the different teams. Once again it was a hard day, but we were all stoked with the fact that we had made this height so early on in the trip without any undue side effects.
Only one thing had been bothering me and that was cold hands. All mountaineers are quite used to cold hands. Quite realistically – what else does one expect when you are on Mt Everest. The morning we set off to Camp three was the fourth day in a row that my hands were particularly cold. Things were still going well however. I was actually directly behind the Lead Guide – leading the way up the Lhotse face when things started going wrong. The Guide simply said to me ‘Mike, after this section you will need your ascender as well as your ice axe’. If he had not said those words I believe I would have lost fingers. In response to him I needed to take off my pack to get access to my ice axe. Ten minutes later I found I was still trying to locate my pack buckles so I could remove the pack from my waist. I could not understand why I could not just remove my pack. It then suddenly dawned on me that I could not feel my pack because I could not feel my hands.
A friend of mine called Mark Sheen got frost bite about nine months ago on a mountain called Broad Peak. I was irate that he could be so careless to get frost bite. I mean how hard is it. Your hands get cold – you put more gloves on…simple. But his reasoning was that there is such a fine line between cold hands and your hands getting damaged. Well unfortunately I must now agree with him. Like I said my hands had been cold for four days in a row. This day did not feel any worse. You are concentrating on what you are doing and trying to block out all discomforts. If I had not been asked to remove my pack I would never have known that my hands had gone from cold to non operational. I let the Guide know and he removed my gloves. All ten fingers were dead white and wooden or glassy to the touch and well on their way to freezing. The guide started rubbing them and I could not feel a thing. At that stage it was a pretty easy decision as to the next action.
We were just below Camp 3 but to spend the night at that height and in the cold conditions would have been completely illogical with my hands in that condition. So it was that along with a guide, I immediately turned around, headed back down the face and returned to Camp 2. Every fifteen minutes or so we would stop and I would remove my gloves and place my hands in the guides arm pits…. Does not sound great I know, but the most effective way to return some warmth to damaged digits.
Once at the relative safety and comfort of Camp 2 (800m lower than where we initially were). Taking my gloves off they had already started swelling and turning black…Oh Joy. I was placed on bottled O2 immediately. This aids directly in returning circulation to the extremities. My hands were placed in a warm bath of water for the next hour. Who knows how bad my fingers may have got. But I feel with the immediate action that was taken in getting me back down, the oxygen etc, that at least three of my fingers were saved from the chop. (The second, third and fourth fingers on my right hand still have no sensation, but this should return over the next several months.)
The next immediate decision on this was unfortunately also an easy one. If your hands or feet get badly damaged like this once on a trip, there is no way you tempt fate and return back up the mountain. Once there is a severe cold injury, it does not just return to normal in one week – it takes months. So climbing again in one year would of course be fine. But climbing back up on Everest on this trip was out of the question unless you had a wish to lose fingers.
So what does it all mean?
There are positive things to take away from the expedition and there are of course disappointments. I climbed very high on Everest. I saw the summit before me. It looked so close. The reality was it was still 10 to 18 hours away. But in the scheme of an eight week trip it felt so close. Many climbers would consider I had achieved the physical crux of the mountain. Yes, there were two hard days left of climbing if I had joined the summit bid, and yes they are two very, very hard days. But the difference is––as explained before––on the summit bid supplementary bottled oxygen is used and this makes life significantly easier.
How are my hands now?
All ten fingers are damaged, and the second, third and fourth fingers on my right hand still have no sensation at all. The doctors expect this to return in the next 6 to 9 months.
Would I have made the summit if the frost bite had not happened?
This naturally can’t be answered definitively and to an extent is almost useless for me to answer. (However my gut feel is I would have had as good a chance as anyone.) I had been strong up until that point––significantly with no sickness or negative effects due to altitude. I was also climbing very strongly as far as a western climber is considered. But on the other hand there are still so many things that can go wrong at the very last stages as well. So Yes, I think I had a very good shot at summiting, but the truth is you never know what can happen on Mount Everest. A friend of mine Ed Bradley who climbed Everest in 2004 was very strong for the entire trip, but had to turn around only 100m from the summit of Everest due to an incoming weather system. This is what makes Everest such a challenge. There aren’t 10 variables that go into making a summit, there are hundreds and unfortunately a certain amount of luck needs to be on your side.
It was an amazing journey––a journey that’s taken close to 15 years. I have loved every second of it. It’s too soon to ask what my next plans are. Suffice to say it’s awesome to be back with my wife and it will be great to have a holiday.
Thank you all so much for your support and I look forward to catching up with you soon and showing off some photographs of the upper slopes of the highest mountain in the world.
Those who are interested can continue to track the progress of the Adventure Consultants Climbing Team here.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
The West Australian Update 06 May 2007
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Safely at C3 (7400m)
Yesterday Michael arrived at Camp 3, the highest point on the trip so far at 7400m.
The climb from Base Camp to Camp 1 over the Khumbu Icefall is approached with respect. The climb from Camp 1 to Camp 2 lacks the technicality of BC to C1, but the Western Cwm can produce some spectacularly stifling, warm days––making it hard going at altitude. But the climb from Camp 2 to Camp 3 produces it's own kind of trials.
One of the AC guides put it like this: "The sheer immensity of the Lhotse Face (1400m), the punishing winds which funnel down it, hard surface ice conditions, the huge altitude and the fact you have to camp in the midst of the face, combine to make the trip to C3 a major upper mountain test."
Yesterday, 2 May, Michael and the main climbing team left C2 and climbed halfway up the Lhotse face to C3. Reports are they made the climb in good time. The goal was to spend one night at C3 without oxygen, typically a restless night but a defining point in demonstrating that the acclimatisation program has been completed.
Upon arrival, the climbers set about melting snow and preparing to rest in their tents, which are secured with ropes and anchors to the mountain face. Today they will begin their descent, eventually to Base Camp where another rest cycle commences in anticipation of the first attempt upon the summit.
Go Mikey! Go!
Lhotse Face - Images
• Top Image: Mark & Andrea
• Middle Image: Guy & Sebastian
• Bottom Image: Frank, Chuck & Climbing Group
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Resting at Camp 2
A couple of days rest at Camp 2 and Michael will set off to tackle the Lhotse face on his way to Camp 3.
Michael spent 30 April and 1 May resting at Camp 2 (6400m) and planning the next move up the Lhotse Face with the other climbers. Their next target, Camp 3 (7400m), is located about half way up the Lhotse face, which rises some 5000 feet in total from Camp 2. Everyone has some apprehension about this portion of the climb, including Michael. A couple of the Adventure Consultants guides went ahead to Camp 3 today (1 May) and should be arriving even as this update is written.
Now if you've wondered what kind of abode one inhabits at Camp 2 for hours of reading, listening to music, napping and generally recovering from the previous climb and preparing for the next, check out Mark's digs below.
Summiting Everest appears to be one way to free oneself of those pesky rent inspections.
