Entries from Everest

Mark Tucker reporting from Basecamp. Here listening to one of our neighbors celebrating the arrival of their team after a successful summit. What a relief for them after so much time and effort on the mountain. RMI's time will come. We continue gathering all pertinent information about the upper mountain to help us have a smooth summit push. Team members are putting the final touches on gear and charging their internal batteries with care. Part of that recharge was the Ultimate Horseshoe Competition at Basecamp. Final competitors: Scott Jones, Rob Suero, Tsering Sherpa and me. The departure date from Basecamp for the summit push is set. Stay tuned.

Taking advantage of a short weather window, a little over 80 people went for the summit today. News is still coming down from high on the mountain and things are sounding uneventful, which is a good thing! For us RMI climbers, we had several meetings today with Guides, climbers and Sherpas and decided that our time has come as well. We are planning to let a short window of weather pass and will start our final push up the mountain within the next several days weather permitting. The team is rested and excited at having known dates for our summit push and everyone is making their final preparations. Meanwhile, we will continue to listen, watch the weather and fine tune our dates as they get closer. Stay tuned for our upcoming summit launch!

Hello again everyone, Things are still going well here at Base Camp. After breakfast most of the climbers went on a hike to keep the blood flowing. We have had enough rest to get us ready for our summit push, now all we have to do is wait for the right weather pattern to show up. Still looks like it will be a few more days though. It's ironic that one of the hardest parts to climbing big mountains is figuring out how to stay relaxed while you wait. If the forecast holds the group should be headed uphill in a week or less. In the meantime we'll try to keep ourselves busy with the usual, card games, movies, horseshoes, and laying around in our tents. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

The team continues to wait for good weather before beginning our summit push. Right now our forecast is pointing towards a possible window some time in the May 23rd to 27th range. It's about what we expected when beginning our trip and so far our forecaster has been pretty much right on. Today there is a lull in the winds up high and a few teams are possibly going for the summit today. We wish them the best of luck. It's a tricky game judging the best window for the summit. Right now the Jet Stream is split to the north and south of the region. That doesn't mean that the summit conditions will be ideal but a small, fast team may be able to get to the summit. The better bet for us is to wait for more stable conditions to greater ensure that we can summit safely. So for now we're still in a holding pattern. But we've got plenty of good food and we're enjoying our time here at Basecamp before we head back up the mountain.

We've now recovered from the last round up high. Most coughs are gone and the sunburns have faded. We are each getting stronger now and ready to get on with the climb to the summit. But of course, the weather isn't quite stable enough yet for that last climb. Jet stream winds continue to scour the upper mountain. Basecamp has been uncharacteristically breezy and cool for the past few days, although not unpleasant. There is hope for a break in the winds in a week or so, which... as it turns out... coincides with the dates we've always assumed would work best for our team anyway. A few teams are reportedly up at Camp III now and set on finding a lull in these next few days. We wish them luck and salute their boldness... but we don't envy them. The mountain is tougher in tough conditions. Our team is passing the time with hikes, card games, chess, horseshoes and fine dining. Last night we were honored to have Apa Sherpa join us for dinner. Apa will be trying for his record 20th summit of Mount Everest as we go for ours and is a great hero and friend.

Mark Tucker here at Basecamp in my down pants because it is a cold one tonight. Yesterday was very windy at base and likewise up at Camp Two. We have minimal staff at Camp Two and to lose tents and equipment up there, could be a big set back for the expedition. Lucky for us the report from above is that all is well. Over the years through trial and error, we have come up with a standard of equipment that will stand up to the extreme conditions higher up the mountain (most of the time). Right now wind is not our friend. With the team finished with its rotations up high, and getting toward the end of this rest cycle, its time to go for the summit! We wish. Unfortunately the jet stream is parked over or near enough to Everest that the thought is to wait a few more days before heading uphill. We are looking at weather forecasting models that help us make a smart decision when factoring all the relevant concerns to come up with the greatest chance of a safe and successful summit. We really love it here, but you can only have so much of a good thing. As soon as possible we will get it done and start our journey back to the home land.

Today the entire team took another rest day. Although the skies were clear and sunny, the winds were blowing quite high, rattling our tents pretty hard all day. We spent our day watching movies, playing cards and catching up on life outside of Everest Basecamp.

Hello again everyone, All is well here at Base Camp! Not much new today. The team spent the morning relaxing at breakfast and listening to the BBC, our only current news source. After breakfast most of the members took their weekly showers (thankfully) and did a little laundry too. Our plan is to rest as much as we can as we wait for the weather window to arrive. Currently looks like it won't be here until next week sometime. That works out perfectly for us as we have plenty of resting to do. A big thanks to Dave Hahn (Expedition Leader) for setting the schedule just right. Now we can just relax for the week. If we had rushed our acclimatization program we would be getting anxious like some teams seem to be. Lucky for us! Meanwhile we will be hanging out enjoying the nightly dinner surprises that Mark Tucker (Expedition Coordinator) creates for us. Last night we had burritos and an amazing cake. Who knows what tonight might bring! Hope all is well back home.

Hi this is Seth at Everest Basecamp. The entire group is down at Basecamp now after a successful final rotation on the upper mountain. Everyone is happy and healthy as we begin our resting phase. We are fortunate that everyone has made it through the acclimatization rounds without suffering any illness. The cycles we go through up high are meant to stress our bodies so that we adapt to the extreme altitude, but the trick is not to stress yourself too much and become ill. We've made it through the prep and our next step is to recover from this latest effort and then to begin the summit push. We must be patient and wait for the weather to shape up. I find that to be one of the hardest parts, mentally, of climbing here. There's always the temptation to push for the summit when your body is ready, but maybe too soon for the weather. Everest's height, 29,038 ft, is such that it sticks up into the Jet Stream. It's actually just a few thousand feet shy of the cruising altitude of a trans-continental airliner. The winds at that altitude can exceed a steady 160 mph when the Jet is over the mountain. We'll be waiting in Basecamp until we get a favorable forecast that tells us that the winds will be managable enough for a summit attempt. When will that be? Well, that's the big question. As for now the winds are forecasted to be high for the next several days. But that's ok. We have a great setup here. There is plenty of food and plenty of things to do to keep us occupied so we don't waste precious energy stressing about weather forecasts. Our current diversion of choice is hosting inter-expedition card games. 'Texas Hold-em' is our game of choice and of course the RMI crew tends to dominate the winnings. The games are fun but most of us are already chomping at the bit to get back to the climb. We'll be sure to be rested, healthy and mentally charged up when the opportunity to go back up the mountain arrives. Until then we'll be doing our best to lighten the loads of the other climbers by taking some of their money.

Our acclimatization and preparation are nearly finished. True to the forecasts, the jet stream is back in the Everest region. We could hear it roaring against the high summits last night from our advanced basecamp. There was some worry for Chad, Casey, Rob and Scott up at Camp Three on the Lhotse Face, but they called in at 5 AM to say that the night had been tolerable, with just occasional strong gusts playing through. Michael, Leif and myself left ABC for BC just as the Camp Three team began descending toward ABC. Spindrift avalanches fell continually off of Nuptse as we made our way down the Western Cwm. The Khumbu Icefall offered its normal challenges, except that there were hardly any people to pass or wait for at the ladder crossings. Like ABC and BC, the Icefall was deserted. Most Sherpa teams are resting or down-valley, most western climbers are taking it easy elsewhere and waiting for a "weather window". It was good for us to rejoin Mark Tucker and Seth Waterfall at Basecamp and to be back to Kumar's fine cooking. Our Sherpa team finished their carries to the South Col today, all will be in Basecamp as of tomorrow. We'll rest up, wash up, fatten up and begin looking at weather forecasts.