Skiing the North Ridge in 2003 is pretty impressive. I’d like to hear more about it. Frankly, anything at those altitudes is impressive. It’s easy to be deluded by the false narrative over the last 25 yrs since
Into Thin Air that “anyone” can do it for a price.
Afaik, they’d have to rappel the Second Step, which is about a 100 ft cliff. There’s also two other steps but smaller. It may be possible to descend the Third Step on skis. No idea.
But doing anything that requires such control above 8000m is really difficult. Another world. First off, you’re on the way down, so likely you’ve been climbing for 12 hours. It’s doubtful you’ve slept much in the last 48 hours, and many people can’t eat at high altitude. So you’re descending while physically exhausted, plus the altitude makes you dumb. Let’s just say it’s even easy for people who are experienced at altitude to make a mistake which can be fatal.
Rob and Kit DesLauriers “skied” the South ridge in 2006. They skied from the summit to the Hillary Step anyway. Back then, it was not possible to ski the Step as it’s like a 40ft rock cliff. They climbed down and proceeded to climb down to the Balcony I think, then ski to the South Col.( Camp IV) They then skied the Lhotse Face the next day, which is pretty insane. It’s 40-50 degrees and that day was basically boiler plate as the wind scours what avalanches remove.
After the earthquake of 2015, it may now be possible to descend the Hillary Step on skis with lots of snowfall, but I don’t know. Then you’re faced with the ridge which has lots of exposure. Even with that, the most limiting part would be the number of people going up/down on the rope. You’ve got 3-500 people vying for weather windows. When the window is only two days, that’s a problem.
It would be more likely possible in the fall when less people are on the Mountain.
View attachment 134426
Photo by Jimmy Chin
Ron and Kit DesLauriers skiing down from Everest Summit, stopped near the top of the Hillary Step. South Ridge. I think that’s Lhotse Peak in the background, the fourth highest mountain at 8,516 meters.
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Good discussion of Everest Routes by Alan Arnette. (You do have to wade through the mess of a very simple free site.)
There are 20 routes on Everest but 98% take either the Northeast or Southeast Ridges, the others take deadly risks to blaze new routes.
www.alanarnette.com
www.markpattisonnfl.com
