Annals of Achievement–Everest North Central Face Climbed: Over the weekend, while we were all grilling hot dogs and drinking beer, the Russian climbers on Everest pulled off the climb of the decade, getting to the top of the world via the brutal unclimbed rock wall that guards Everest’s north face. They were the last climbers on the mountain, and the last meters required superhuman effort. At 8600 meters, just when the lead group thought they had knocked the bastard off, the climbers were faced with a very difficult step of Grade 6 (which translates as “f*cking difficult”) rock. They desperately tried to climb it, so they could summit and get down, but it was too hard. SO they had to spend not one, but TWO nights at 8600 meters…without sleeping bags. Oh yeah, they were also running out of oxygen and had to turn their bottles down to minimal flow. Conditions were about as harsh as Stalin’s worst Siberian gulag, but instead of backing off these guys just sucked it up and kept pressing. And on Sunday all the pain and frustration paid off, when they finally got to the top (and quickly hightailed it down the other side, using the easy classic route to get down fast). Another team of Russians hit the summit the next day, pulling off the first June summit in Everest history. According to Explorer’s Web this is the first clean, new route on Everest in 20 years. The only question is: the Russians survived the North Central Face, but will they survive their own victory party…?



“Leapin’ Lenin, this mountain is cold. That vodka tanker better be backed up to base camp when we get down…”