Logistics & Risk Mitigation vary greatly between operators on Everest. Here are a few of our key logistics/risk minimization strategies we prioritise for your safety and success.

Acclimatization is the process your body takes to become accustomed to lower levels of oxygen at altitude – is hugely important to your safety and the success of your entire expedition. Here are the advantageous approaches we chose to help facilitate this critical process:

Throughout your expedition, from the trek, to the summit, we employ a slow, steady, approach with a very generous acclimatization schedule which builds a strong foundation of acclimatization for your body to build on. This conservative approach gives your body the rest it needs to undergo the long terms physiological changes of acclimatization – like increasing your red blood cells, lung capacity increase, capillary growth for better circulation. These long term changes take time and can’t be rushed.

Once at Base Camp we will make three forays (or rotations) up the mountain to successively higher altitudes to prepare for our summit bid, with plenty of rest back at Base Camp in between.

Your rest environment at Base Camp is first rate so that this process isn’t a test of patience, but a relaxing break from the arduous climbing.

We believe healthy, well rested climbers are the strongest climbers.

Included in your expedition is a climb of Lobuche East en route to Everest which counts as one of your acclimatization rotations.

We recognise that one of the most dangerous sections of Everest is the Khumbu Icefall so to eliminate unnecessary trips through the icefall we climb Lobuche East enroute to Base Camp which makes our expedition safer overall.

Lobuche is a great 6,000m climb in and of itself, and a fantastic opportunity to shake out your climbing skills and a huge “value add” not only for the safety factor, but also the joy of tagging another Himalayan gem.

Oxygen helps you climb more efficiently, feel stronger, faster and importantly; stay warmer. All in all, it makes you safer.

Look for generous supply included in your expedition as a standard. At CTSS, we allocate a generous 11 bottles per climber (8x for you and 3x for your Sherpa). We plan for you to run an oxygen flow of 3L/min or more while climbing, and 1L/min sleeping on your summit bid.  While this is more than enough oxygen, we still cater for climbers who want to take advantage of the ‘Extra Oxygen’ option.

We only use advanced technology, hyper-efficient, state-of-the-art oxygen masks and regulators and make sure we have redundancies on the mountain for summit bid.

We also train you extensively at Base Camp on the use of the system, how to correctly and securely fit your mask, common errors in use, how to troubleshoot it should you need to etc.

Our Guides ALWAYS climb on Oxygen.

At CTSS our guiding team and sherpa always climb on oxygen, for your safety.

Above 8000m you will be mildly hypoxic even on oxygen. No human is immune to this. Being mildly hypoxic is like being tipsy. You can still make decisions and function quite well but you aren’t quite yourself.

Whereas, climbing above 8000m without oxygen is like being really drunk. There’s no denying you will be mentally impaired and severely hypoxic.

A good analogy might be driving home tired and drunk from the pub, you can probably pull it off when road conditions are perfect, and there’s no traffic etc, but it’s extremely risky.

Now imagine you are a drunk taxi driver, on a busy main road and you have paying passengers in your car. You aren’t just risking your own safety, you are now endangering other people’s lives unnecessarily in your own pursuit.

Lately there has been an explosion in these kind of unsafe guiding practices. “Guides” have been boasting about doing ‘No O2 ascents’ whilst guiding paying climbers, as if this should be applauded. This isn’t impressive, it’s gross negligence.

Non O2 ascents should be reserved for personal pursuits only outside of the guiding arena.

As they say when it comes to redundancy; ‘two is one & one is none’. CTSS invests in

• Emergency Oxygen cached at South Col & Camp 2
• Redundancies and spare masks & regulators (between them the Guides & Sherpa always have a handful of extra masks and regulators spread across the team, as they move above the South Col on summit bid.

Weather is integral to safety and success on Everest. We need to be able to accurately forecast down to the hour, at the exact altitude bands, many days in advance.

To do this, we invest heavily and use a professional, Air Force trained, meteorologist whose speciality is 8000m peaks and isolated, extreme environments, to give us daily, tailored forecasts for Everest and Lhotse that we know we can trust.

Their accuracy has been second to none over years and the proof is in our decades long relationship.

We keep our forecasts and movements on the mountain top secret to avoid other operators who try and save $ by using free sites like Windy from following our lead and crowding our teams.

Even though you may be competent, refreshers cement technical skills into second nature.

Repeatedly getting your systems dialled, over and over again helps improve your overall efficiency and safety.

Between rotations, both on Lobuche and at Everest, we run additional skills clinics.

We will train in:

• Climbing skills (rappelling, ascending, cramponing, fixed line climber and safety systems)
• Use of the oxygen systems, troubleshooting, flow rates and system management
• Icefall & Ladder Crossing Techniques

Every year CTSS invests in their climbing staff and sherpa by funding a specific mountain safety training course including;

• 3x days technical and high mountain rescue training
• 2x days of medical training
• Taught by 3x technical climbing instructors & 2x doctors

All of our CTSS Guides are professional, full time career mountain guides who hold current Wilderness First Responder qualifications/first aid certifications & leave no trace training.

Beyond our COVID safe procedures and policies, we’ve always had a huge focus on hygiene because when your body is hard at work at altitude, it can be easier to pick up bugs.

We are fastidious about hand washing, sanitation, food handling safety etc. We ask you to limit unnecessary personal contact, keep your distance, cough into your elbow, keep your buff up and if team members do get sick we will quarantine them immediately.

All of our communal areas at Base Camp have hand washing stations and our staff are trained to keep our Camp squeaky clean and our food handling practices are extremely stringent.

We also maintain a closed camp policy where we don’t invite members from other expeditions to freely enter our camp and ask you to keep your socialising beyond our immediate team socially distanced and masked and avoid hugs, hand shakes etc.