After the icefall, the Lhotse Face is probably the next most famous part of climbing Everest from the south side. Climbing the Lhotse Face can be dangerous because of the risk of avalanches and constantly falling rocks. As a matter of fact, one of the Sherpas on our expedition once had his head cracked open by a falling rock. Apparently he was running around screaming and wanting a rescue.
The head Sherpa responded that if he could run around like that, then he could make it back to Base Camp. Eventually he was rescued from Camp II and flown to Kathmandu. The photo above shows our expedition approaching the Lhotse Face for the first time. I’m the person at the very back with the green backpack!
Camp III is visible from Camp II if you have a decent zoom lens or great eyesight. With Camp II at about 21,300 feet (6,500 meters), it’s still a good vertical distance to Camp III at around 23,500 feet (7,100 meters), despite how close it looks. This shot above shows the Lhotse Face at full zoom and was taken while I was still in the Western Cwm.
From Camp II you still have to finish the last part of the Western Cwm before arriving at the base of the Lhotse Face. The remaining part of the Western Cwm is still a gentle slope for the most part, and you’ll ascend close to another 1,000 feet before reaching the bottom of the face.
The photo above shows my team at the very end of the Western Cwm with the steep climbing just ahead. In the photograph below, we had just started our first ascent toward Camp III.
This was the first picture I took while actually climbing the face. I ended up climbing the Lhotse Face twice. The first time was to acclimatize and the second was when going up for the summit.
The first time, the route was mostly hard ice, and I found this section above to be the hardest part. I did not rotate this photo or manipulate it in any way! Although it looks nearly vertical, it wasn’t quite as dramatic as it appears in the photo. The second time we climbed the face, it was covered in much deeper snow, which made this section noticeably easier for me.
This picture was taken right after the difficult section I had just described. It looks flatter than it actually was in the photo, so the truth is somewhere in between. From this point, the incline stabilized and the rest of the way to Camp III didn’t get much easier or harder.
Rockfall was a serious problem though. One of my friends got hit in the arm and I got hit in the chest. Others missed me and whizzed by my head, but sadly they weren’t loud enough for my GoPro to capture them. You can see the video below.
Because we were around 23,000 feet (7,000 meters), the ascent was very slow and steady. Even when we got close to Camp III, we continued at a snail’s pace, stopping often to rest despite being only about 10 minutes away.
The photo above shows part of Camp III. At Base Camp we each had our own tent, but at Camp III we had two or three people to a tent. Camp III is by no means an ideal place to spend the night. It exists because climbing all the way from Camp II to the South Col in one push would be an enormous undertaking.
Camp III is a dangerous place to be because it is so steep and exposed to avalanche hazard. Just moving around outside your tent without being clipped in can be risky, because a fall could send you a long way down the face.
The second time I went up the Lhotse Face, I came across a climber who had reportedly fallen to his death about 20 minutes earlier. These photos above and below are two shots I took while lying in my sleeping bag. Above you can see a climber passing by, and below is a night shot from the same area.
Case in point, just outside Camp III you couldn’t miss tents and gear that had been destroyed by previous avalanches. The photo above was taken on my way down the mountain after I had been up to the death zone. My camera had been damaged, so the photo is a bit blurry, but you can still make out bent pickets and other gear buried in the snow.
Below are the remains of tents from other expeditions. I just hoped nobody had been inside them when they were destroyed.
The first time we slept at Camp III, we did so without oxygen. Although I didn’t have any serious altitude problems, sleep was absolutely terrible at this height. I would fall asleep and it would feel as if two hours had passed. Then I’d look at my watch and find that not even ten minutes had gone by!
It went like this throughout the entire night, and in the morning it turned out that everyone had experienced something similar. The second time at Camp III, I slept using supplemental oxygen and felt relatively normal.
From the Lhotse Face, you can see the entire Western Cwm stretching out below. It’s absolutely amazing to see this with your own eyes. Considering how long the Khumbu Valley is, which we essentially followed all the way up from Lukla, this is where the route finally reaches the enormous wall of Lhotse.
Just off to the right in the center of the photo, the darker area is around where Camp II is located. From there the Western Cwm slopes downward until the terrain becomes increasingly broken and eventually enters the Khumbu Icefall.
The photo below is of one of our Sherpas celebrating our safe descent the first time we returned from Camp III.
