Extreme Ice Survey (EIS), The North Face, and Famed Mountaineer Conrad Anker, Team Up To Install Cameras on Everest & around the High Himalayas
Five Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) cameras are now in position on the lofty slopes of the Himalayas, capturing time-lapse images of the changing glacial landscape.
A five-person team, led by renowned alpinist Conrad Anker, traveled to Everest Base Camp in late April and May 2010 to install the cameras. Two cameras were positioned to survey the overall scene of Mount Everest and the Khumbu Glacier, two have telephoto lenses focused on the Khumbu ice fall, and one monitors Nare Glacier, on the south side of nearby Ama Dablam.
The camera locations were determined in advance by EIS director James Balog and Anker to match historic photographs that they researched at the American Alpine Club Library in Golden, CO.
The cameras will shoot one picture every 30 minutes for the next three years. Weather permitting, Pasang Tenzing Sherpa of Phortse, Nepal, who as part of the team was trained to use the specialized high-tech equipment, will retrieve images as often as every three months.
The other team members were EIS field services manager, Adam LeWinter, American photographer/videographer Cory Richards, and Chewang Sherpa of Nepal. The Everest EIS cameras are powered by solar panels and batteries and are mounted high on rock cliffs in places protected from rockfall and avalanches. Installation of the cameras, and retrieval of the images, requires technical climbing and rappelling.
Anker approached Balog about placing EIS cameras on Everest at the 2007 Rowell Award for the Art of Adventure ceremony in April 2008, where Balog was the recipient and Anker the presenter. A member of The North Face climbing team, Anker was able to secure funding from the company to make the Everest cameras possible.
Photographs taken during the installation visit show a dramatic change from photos taken fifty years ago. The ice has peeled off the south side of the Khumbu massif and the glacier has thinned out and sunken down in the valley. Balog predicts that the time-lapse images will show continuing changes. “This is not just some abstract indicator of climate change,” says Balog. “The loss of high-altitude ice threatens the water supply for millions of people in Asia.”
Since 2006, the Extreme Ice Survey, the most wide-ranging glacier study ever conducted using time-lapse photography, conventional photography, and video, has been monitoring glaciers in Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, the Rocky Mountains, the Alps, and the Andes.
Founded by photographer James Balog, EIS is based in Boulder, Colorado.
Pretty incredible stuff…you can take a look at their amazing time lapse photos & videos in their Gallery & here’s a great video short that gives you a better idea of the work they do:
