The summit of Mount Everest is finally within reach.
For the first time in three years, professional climbers may reach the summit of the world’s tallest mountain on Thursday.
That’s if all goes well for climbers Adrian Ballinger and Cory Richards, who are documenting their journey using the #EverestNoFilter hashtag on Instagram and Snapchat.
If they succeed, theirs would be the first successful summit of the 29,028-foot-tall mountain since 2013.
Fatal avalanches forced the closure of the two previous seasons.
The duo is attempting the climb without supplemental oxygen, although their Sherpa support team is using it.
“9 Sherpa using supplemental oxygen became the first to summit on the South Side of Everest in the past 3 years,” Balinger posted on Instagram on Wednesday.
Ballinger has summited Everest six times.
“Lots of friends in the fixing team, and they called us from the summit at 5pm, exhilarated. Congratulations!”
Richards, a National Geographic photography fellow, has never reached the Everest summit.
He did survive an avalanche during a 2012 climb in Pakistan.
He still carries memories of surviving that day.
“Today, we climbed through snow and cloud,” he posted on Instagam. “The heat caused by the convection cycle triggered repeated small avalanches that would rumble over seracs obscured by a thick fog on either side.
“This day, and the mood that I was brining [sic] to it was reminiscent of a not so good day I had in the mountains several years ago when one of the distant rumbles became not so distant and engulfed my partners and I.”
“the truth is the mountains are indiscriminate. They don’t care.
“They shine when it is sunny and they fall when it is snowy.
“It’s what we bring to them that defines our experience…and maybe even more important, its how we are changed by them and what we bring home and share that matters most.”
