Scott’s Summit Preview: An Orbital Sunrise

As he departed in 2008 for his first summit attempt, Scott wrote: “My hope is to be able to see and savor the equivalent of an orbital sunrise near the summit of Everest. Astronauts can see many sunrises and sunsets each day as they orbit the earth every 90 minutes, but they go by so quickly that its all but impossible to pick out the many shades of color as the sun rises from behind the earth’s horizon.”

As he departed in 2008 for his first summit attempt, Scott wrote: “My hope is to be able to see and savor the equivalent of an orbital sunrise near the summit of Everest. Astronauts can see many sunrises and sunsets each day as they orbit the earth every 90 minutes, but they go by so quickly that its all but impossible to pick out the many shades of color as the sun rises from behind the earth’s horizon.”

This year, he wrote: “As I make this second summit bid, I hope to bring many of my friends – both old and new – along with me via this website. While this is a personal quest for me, in many ways, what I do – and how I do it – resonates with many other types of exploration, both on here on earth and in space. Therefore, I hope to use this climb to allow a wider audience, young and old alike, to gain some insight into how the business of exploration is done.”

This is how Scott expects summit day to go:

“We’ll rest at Camp IV until 8 – 11 pm, napping, sipping soup, tea ad oxygen. Depending on crowds and our general well-being, we’ll select our departure time and commence the long road to the summit — climbing through the night, aiming to arrive on top around sunrise. Target arrival time is 5 am local.

Summit day: The Triangular Face. The Balcony. The Southeast Ridge. The South Summit. The Hillary Step. The last few false summits to the actual summit! From Camp IV, it can take anywhere from 6.5 to 12 hours, as a function of the individual climbers, the snow conditions, the wind and so on. 29, 035′ above sea level. Prayer flags, summit photos as quickly as possible, then very careful descent. Depending on how we’re feeling, we’ll spend the night at Camp IV on oxygen — else head all the way back down to Camp II, making for an extremely long day.”