Mount Everest z poziomu Oceanu Indyjskiego
Himalayan triathlon: cycling through the northeast of India up to Nepal, trekking to Everest base camp and, finally, climbing the highest mountain on Earth.
On May 21 at 6:55 AM Mateusz Waligóra stood atop Mount Everest, at 8,848.86 meters. He climbed to the summit starting at ocean level, on the 63rd day of his expedition that had started on the shores of the Indian Ocean. He is the first Pole to pull off this extraordinary feat.
Bakkhali, a town on the coast of the Indian Ocean. According to GPS, it’s right on sea level. This is where Mateusz Waligóra set off on his expedition. On its first leg, accompanied by photographer and traveler Jakub Rybicki, he traveled by bike. During stage one they covered a distance of 102.5 kilometers.
He recalls: „On day two of the cycling stage we were faced with a challenge: cross Calcutta without getting killed. Or I should rather say Kolkata. Because this is the correct name of this city. For decades in many parts of the world, including Poland (formally, until 2001), it was wrongly referred to as „Calcutta”, because the British got the pronunciation of the Bengali language all wrong. The third largest – after Mumbai and Delhi – urban agglomeration in the country having a population of 15 million (although the official city proper population does not exceed 5 million), it was also the largest city on my journey from the Indian Ocean to Everest.”
The cyclists crossed Nepal’s border over Easter. Three days later they reached the mountains. And they were mountains with a capital M. On the very first day they climbed to 1,400 meters above sea level with elevation gain of over 2 km over a 20 km ride. In the last four days of cycling, they rode more than 100 kilometers and climbed a distance greater than the total height of Everest. The height calculated from sea level. In total, while on the Nepalese roads, they rode over 8.5 kilometers uphill and descended more than 6 kilometers, ultimately reaching the altitude of more than 3,000 meters above sea level. The cycling leg of the expedition ended after clocking a total distance of 1,274 kilometers through India and Nepal.
From Phaplu the travelers set off on a trek through the Himalayas along the Dudh Kosi valley. After climbing a total vertical distance of 7,000 meters, they arrived in Lukla.
This was the first stop on their journey for some rest and recovery. Mateusz was joined by a team that consisted of: Bartek Dobroch (journalist), Marcin Kin (photographer), Izabela Pakuła and Mirosław Baściuk. They set off to continue the expedition on April 13. Over the next few days they trekked toward the base camp at the foot of Mount Everest and acclimatized by climbing Lobuche East (6,119 meters).
The whole group travelled to Namche Bazar and then to Tengboche. At the Buddhist monasteries in Tengboche and Pangboche they were given blessing (and saw the scalp and hand of Yeti!).
They followed the classic route to Everest that takes adventurers to the eight-thousanders or lower mountains nearby.
This year, due to adverse conditions, even Waligóra’s destination for acclimatization, Lobuche East, proved challenging. Although atop the six-thousander there was little snow, there were multiple sections that required climbing on rocks or over melted steps in the ice cap covering the mountain's peak.
On May 21 at 6:55 AM Mateusz Waligóra stood atop Mount Everest, at 8,848.86 meters. He climbed to the summit starting at ocean level, on the 63rd day of his expedition that had started on the shores of the Indian Ocean. He is the first Pole to pull off this extraordinary feat. But, of course, he is not the first person on Earth to do it. Before him, in 1990, the Australian Tim Macartney-Snape reached the top of Mount Everest in a similar way (starting on the shores of the Indian Ocean) and he did so without using supplemental oxygen. In 1995-1996 the Swede Göran Kropp climbed Mount Everest having set off on his bike from his home in Stockholm.
The climb and descent went quite smoothly considering the queues that Mount Everest saw at that time due to the long-awaited weather window with perhaps the best weather conditions of the season. The weather was indeed kind to the climbers with almost zero wind during the night and morning push. Mateusz welcomed the sunrise on the ridge near the South Summit of Everest with beautiful views over the neighboring Lhotse, more distant Makalu and countless lower mountains.
Throughout the entire expedition Mateusz Waligóra did not use any means of transportation and relied only on his own physical strength.
His goal on this expedition was to reach the top of Mount Everest from sea level using only his muscles and minimizing pollution in the spirit of the „leave no trace” travel philosophy.
The expedition took the form of a Himalayan triathlon with cycling along a route that led through northeastern India up to Nepal, hiking to a base camp at the foot of Everest, and, lastly, climbing the highest peak on Earth.