Camp V (Mount Everest)

Camp V (Mount Everest) was a planned emergency camp at 8,500 meters, intended to give a summit team a margin of safety against slow descent or bad weather. On the 1997 Indonesian expedition it became both a practical lifeline and a measure of the gap between an elaborate safety plan and the limited shelter and supplies actually available on the mountain.

Purpose and Planned Role

The camp was part of an unusually cautious backup plan. After intending to have climbers sleep at South Col and acclimatize as high as 8,200 meters, the expedition leader also planned to establish Camp V at 8,500 meters. Its purpose was to support a slow descent or provide shelter if weather interfered with the summit attempt. When problems in the Sherpa support structure forced the team to abandon the higher acclimatization plan temporarily, the proposed camp remained important to the expedition’s safety arrangements.

During a week’s rest away from Base Camp, the leader asked the military liaison officer, Captain Rochadi, to arrange for two tents, ten oxygen bottles, sleeping bags, and mats to be placed at Camp V. The request came amid a serious staffing constraint: only eight of the expedition’s sixteen Sherpas were still fit to work. The leader recognized that one person could not shoulder the physical work required to support the expedition and that the team’s limited capacity threatened both its summit plan and its backup precautions. The evidence does not establish that the requested inventory was delivered as specified.

On returning to Base Camp, the leader knew Camp V had not been established. He was assured that it would be supplied as the team ascended on summit day, and arranged additional emergency support with the Russian Lhotse team. The plan distributed support across several levels: a second-choice summit team and Sherpas would remain at Camp II; members of the assault team would carry radios; two Sherpas at South Col would also have a radio; and contact was to be maintained with the Russians at Camp III and the teams at Camp II and Base Camp. Camp V was thus one part of a wider safety network, not a self-sufficient refuge.

Preparation Under Pressure

Weather reports offered five relatively stable days, but the leader stressed that stability at Everest’s altitude was relative. Afternoon winds and clouds were expected, and even ordinary changes could pose difficulties above 8,000 meters. Because the team expected to move slowly, the camp at 8,500 meters was supposed to provide a response to a problem the leader considered unavoidable: the pace of the climbers.

The emergency site was still not ready when the team was on the mountain. During the summit-day ascent, a shortage of rope threatened progress, and Apa used the remaining forty meters, together with old rope exposed along the route, to fix the line. The team then learned from Dawa Sherpa that there was extra oxygen and a tent at 8,500 meters. With Apa having made the route passable to the top of the Hillary Step and the weather holding, the leaders chose to continue despite expecting to reach the summit very late, around three in the afternoon. The camp’s eventual availability helped make that decision possible, but it did not remove the danger of a delayed descent.

The Emergency Night

The climbers reached the South Summit at 5:00 p.m., moving slowly over the old ropes Apa had pieced together. Misirin fell repeatedly but continued; Iwan, using Vinogradski’s oxygen, became detached from the rope and was pulled back onto it by Vinogradski. The Indonesian climbers reached Camp V with the leader at 7:30 p.m.; Bashkirov and Vinogradski arrived about an hour later. The camp therefore received the party late, after the summit attempt had stretched into darkness and the descent had become an immediate concern.

What awaited them was not the fully equipped refuge originally envisioned. The tent was missing two sections of its poles and functioned more like a large bivouac sack. Inside were a stove, pots, gas, a Karrimat, and two full oxygen bottles. Six people sheltered there as the temperature fell. Apa wanted to descend with Dawa; the leader allowed him to go, with radio contact planned for the morning. The account describes the night as calm, but the shelter’s damaged structure and the small supply of oxygen left little room for error.

The three expedition leaders and guides shared the oxygen among the exhausted Indonesian summiters. Bashkirov and the leader took turns changing the mask between the three climbers, while Vinogradski repeatedly prepared hot water through the night. The oxygen could not be used continuously by everyone: when a climber had been without the bottle too long, he would cry or pray. Their coordinated work sustained the party through the night, turning the hastily supplied tent into a temporary refuge despite its shortcomings.

Descent and Significance

Morning brought clear weather and no wind. The group prepared one last round of hot water, gave everyone a drink, and began the descent. They had run out of oxygen, but the Indonesian climbers were moving, and the leader reported that none had frostbite. The party expected Apa and the Sherpas at South Col to come up and meet them. The account presents survival and an uninjured descent as the completion of the summit’s otherwise tenuous success.

Camp V’s story hinges on contrast: it was conceived as a deliberate reserve against delay and bad weather, yet it was not ready when the team returned to the mountain and was ultimately occupied in a makeshift condition. Its value lay less in matching the original specification than in the supplies and shelter it could provide at a critical moment. At the same time, the night’s outcome depended on people working together, rationing oxygen, and tending to the climbers; the camp was a crucial support, not a substitute for that labor.