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The Route

It took three weeks of strenuous hiking over 270 km of dirt and rock trails from the outskirts of Katmandu to Cho Oyu base camp. Although accompanied by eleven porters during this portion of the expedition, each climber each still carried full loads for the entire approach, and far greater loads thereafter. This is Woody's depiction of their approach route, with their camps shown as triangles. Today, climbers in the Khumbu usually fly most of this route to an airstrip at Lukla, a day or two south of Namche.

From base camp, the expedition route climbs the ice fall to the top of Nup La at just under 6000 meters, and crosses into Tibet. Then begins the descent down the West Rongbuk Glacier to the current position of the north-side Everest Base Camp. The route then follows the normal northern approach up the East Rongbuk to an advanced base camp (ABC) just below the North Col. This 40 km approach from the Nepal "base camp" took the Sayre party almost 20 more days with many false starts up Nup La and triple-carries on the West Rongbuk in order to haul their 220 kilograms (480 pounds) of gear and supplies.

In this NASA satellite image of Everest as viewed from the northeast, Sayre's "climbing route" from "basecamp" to his high point on Everest is shown, with camps numbered. This is the precise route that the 2004 climbing team hopes to repeat under two weeks, taking advantage of front-point crampons and sleds to facillitate the journey. View a slideshow covering the route to Everest and the climb of Everest itself. Details on our North Face route, Reinhold Messner's solo oxygenless 1980 climb, are here.