Voice of the Mid-Columbia | Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Wash. |
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closeTuesday, May. 19, 2009
Richland man conquers Everest for 13th time
Kristin M. Kraemer, Herald staff writer
While most Tri-Citians were settling in Monday evening, one of their own was climbing through oxygen-depleted air to reach 29,035 feet in Tibet.
Ang Dorjee Sherpa of Richland summited Mount Everest for the 13th time, and faced the world in what was reported to be a calm day under clear skies.
He made it to the top at 8 a.m. Tuesday in Nepal time, or 7:15 p.m. Monday in the Pacific Time Zone.
An assistant guide for the New Zealand-based Adventure Consultants, Ang Dorjee's expedition had 14 other team members, including another guide and four clients.
They have been on the mountain since mid-April, and Tuesday Ang Dorjee was the second in the group to summit.
"They made it!" Michelle Gregory, Ang Dorjee's wife, wrote in the subject line of a 7:38 p.m. e-mail Monday night to family and friends.
"AD just called and they are headed down now!!" the e-mail said.
Gregory, a scientist, stayed at home to work and care for the couple's two children. Ang Dorjee communicates with her via satellite phone.
In the mountaineering community, Ang Dorjee is a legend for guiding numerous expeditions in his native Nepal, as well as in Pakistan, Europe and South America.
The most infamous was the deadly 1996 expedition on Everest that was the basis for Jon Krakauer's bestseller, Into Thin Air.
Web searches often show his name spelled as Ang Dorje.
Ang Dorjee has worked for Adventure Consultants since 1992, when he celebrated his first Everest summit.
Online daily dispatches of the 2009 expedition said that at 6 a.m. Tuesday in Nepal, the team was about 100 yards -- or the length of a football field -- below the actual summit.
"From here at Base Camp we can see that it is a perfect morning for summiting -- clear skies and the peaks are just beginning to be lit up by the morning sun," read a posting by Caroline with Adventure Consultants.
"The AC team is in the first 25 percent of the long line of today's summiters so this bodes well for the hours ahead."
High winds reportedly hampered efforts to start the ascent earlier, so the final approach was said to be crowded with a backlog of teams.
Ang Dorjee's brother-in-law, Mingma Tenzing, was the first to summit Everest this season at 12:25 p.m. May 5. As a sherpa with International Mountain Guides out of Ashford, Wash., he had been putting in the rope lines to the top.
To read the Adventure Consultants blog about this mission, visit www.adventureconsultants.com/adventure/Everest2009dispatches/
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