Update 5:23 pm PST:
I received a radio call from the team. They are now on top of the South Summit! Weather continues to be okay for them; a few clouds down here at Basecamp. Sun may have an impact soon in a very positive way.
RMI Guide and Everest Basecamp Manager Mark Tucker
Update 3:45 pm PST:Seth Waterfall radioed in after the team made the oxygen bottle switch at the Balcony. They are are well past that point and working their way to the South Summit. A bit of traffic but not too bad. Kaji and Tshering are right there with them and report not much wind and a beautiful morning is shaping up. Rough estimate of between one and three hours to top of the South Summit. All is going very well.
RMI Guide and Everest Basecamp Manager Mark Tucker
(The map shows a point at Camp 4 with the next point marking the South Summit.)
Hey this is Seth Waterfall checking in from the South Col, Camp 4. We just woke up a little while ago and are getting set to have breakfast, which is kind of strange for this hour. But the winds have died down - what little wind we had. It looks to be a nice night for climbing so we are going to give it a shot. In the next half hour to hour we will put our packs on and head up towards the Triangular Face, then of course to The Balcony, South Summit, and, hopefully, for us the summit of Mt. Everest. A few teams have already started and a few more are getting ready to go. But it doesn't appear to be a very crowded night. That all works in our favor. So if everything works out for us we'll check in again from the top of Mount Everest - High Point on planet Earth. Wish us luck. Ciao
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall checks in from the South Col - getting ready for summit bid.
Voice mail received 3 am PT
Hey, this is Dave Hahn calling from Mt. Everest. We are about a mile higher then when I spoke to you last night. Seth Waterfall and myself along with Tshering, Kaji and Gyaljen got up super early this morning. We woke up at 1 AM and we're walking by about 2:15 AM. We skipped Camp 3 and went all the way up to the South Col, just a hair below 8,000 meters. It was a big day and obviously aiming for a summit tonight if conditions allow. We don't have a whole lot of ability to wait at this point and the forecasts don't really reward us for waiting much. This expedition is almost at its end. So this is our shot. We are all feeling really good up here at 8000 meters. Seth and I are sitting in the tent right now and it's nice and hot. There is sun coming through the tent walls. There is a little breeze and there are some clouds, but it's not necessarily bad weather. Things are looking good.
While we were climbing, we were keeping track of Lam Babu and Dan Johnson. They made great time, great progress to get down to base camp. They arrived there about mid morning – nice and safe and sound. So that is great news all around. We're going to try to keep you updated with the start of our climb. This climb again will be a middle of the night start, with the hope of being up high and close to the summit when the sun is first getting around on Mt. Everest. That is all for now. Bye now.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn checks in upon reaching the South Col of Mt. Everest.
The climbing team is at Camp 4 readying for their summit bid on Mt. Everest tonight. For me, that means sleeping in the communication tent tonight. Dave and Seth will get some rest at the South Col. Hopefully a few hours of sleep but very important time for resting, hydrating and self care. Can you believe they are just hours away from the start of the Summit push? Kaji, Tshering and Geldgen our super Sherpa put Camp 4 together before Dave and Seth arrived. Nice work boys! Our Sherpa staff are doing fine as well.
I celebrated another birthday (twelfth time I guess) here on the Big E yesterday. Our wonderful Sherpa staff at Everest Base Camp had all the trimmings for me. I enjoyed a moonlight hike, no headlight needed, a very peaceful and surreal scene surrounding the jaunt. This is a truly amazing place to spend time. The horseshoe pit is still up and it's tough to get the better of me on the home pit advantage.
I'll be sending updates on the team's progress as they attempt to summit Mt. Everest tonight. Good luck!
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
This is Dave Hahn calling form Mt. Everest, and again tonight we are at Advance Base Camp. Our Plan had been to move up to the Lhotse Face and we tired we went out this morning with that as the goal, but unfortunately with Dan’s cough has not gone away and it has turned out to be debilitating as far as preventing us from going higher. It is not a danger to him, but going higher with it would be a problem. So, quick change of plans Dan is going to head down to Base Camp in the morning with Lama Babu, and Seth and I are going to try and keep up Tshering, Gyaljen and Kaji and our plan is to go all the way to high camp tomorrow and attempt the summit on the 23rd. The complication is that the weather forecast is kind of breaking down for those days and might be kind of dicey weather – We will have to see. We figure that will be our one chance and so it is up or down for all. Things should be moving around a fair amount for these next couple of days…we will see what happens. We are going to miss Dan as he heads back down to Base Camp, Lama Babu is happy to guide him down and we are expecting they will have a smooth descent and will be in Base Camp about the middle of tomorrow morning. That’s what’s going on here at Everest.
We watched a lot of people tired people coming down from the Summit and from the Lhotse Face again today but it has starting to get though crowd a little bit, we have noticed traffic slacking a bit and that works in our favor.
That’s all for now, Bye!
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Dan, sorry to hear you had to turn back. You did extremely well to make it so far. Look forward to hearing about your trek when you return. Be safe!
Posted by: Steve on 5/24/2013 at 5:49 am
Danno!!!
You made a good choice in trekking with RMI. Your safety is the most important thing here and it’s great to hear that you’re in responsible hands and will be coming back in one piece.
Safe travels and don’t fret. There are plenty more mountains in your future.
This is Dave Hahn calling down again from Camp 2, ABC, on Mount Everest, 21,300'. We took a rest of day here today as plan, tried to catch up on our hydration and rest obviously. We were pretty much observers today watching a lot going on, watching a lot of climbers coming down from the top and a lot going up. Easy to look out at any time today and see over 100 climbers on the Lhotse Face. We were particularly interested in the efforts of Lam Babu, our Sirdar, who went up in the middle of the night last night and led a team of Sherpas that were determined to help a man high on Lhotse who had been in distress for a couple of days. They did a great job getting up there. They were up there at Lhotse Camp 4 by out about 4 in the morning, or I'm sorry by about 6 in the morning. But sadly it was just a little too late for the man who'd been through too much. But very proud of Lam Babu and the team that he led up there. He's back safely at camp now. And we're getting ready for our efforts at moving up tomorrow, moving to Camp 3 tomorrow on the Lhotse Face. So that's certainly occupying all our thoughts as we go to bed. Hoping everything's in order and that we have a good day tomorrow. Bye for now.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Dave Hahn calls in from Everest Advanced Basecamp.
Hello, this is Dave Hahn calling from Camp 2 on Mount Everest, 21,300'. All is well. We moved up this morning from Camp 1 in perfect weather conditions, actually a little bit hot in the Western Cwm. Very much aware of the dramas playing out above us on the mountain. A number of our friends went to the summit safely and returned in these last couple of days. But, there's also been some problems up high and much of the mountain was pre-occupied these last couple of days, especially today with trying to help a climber, incapacitated high on Lhotse. And the drama is still playing out. Lam Babu, our Sirdar, is putting together a team of Sherpas who will go up tonight and try to get that individual down the Lhotse Face. So we're certainly concerned and going to be tuning in to try and back up Lam; meanwhile, trying to continue our own climb. We're all doing fine here at Advanced Basecamp. Our intention is to stage out of here tomorrow to rest and recuperate from our climb up and get ready for a climb higher. Anyway, lots of exciting times now on Mount Everest as everybody is in motion going for the top and coming down. All good for us and stay tuned. Bye for now.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Update 6:30 a.m. PST
Hey, this is Dave Hahn calling from Camp 1 with Seth Waterfall and Dan Johnson. We finally got out of Basecamp. We're on our way down for our summit bid. A beautiful day today for the start of it at least. And then about the time we were about mid morning or so when we were getting up here to Camp 1, the wind clouds and cloud caps started forming over the high peaks. Made us a little bit worried for our friends who were going to the summit today but sounds like things went well for the folks we know up there. And we know a number of people that left for the summit today so that is encouraging. In fact, with some of the cloud play up there, we were able to actually see people on top which I don't remember being able to do from Camp 1 before so that was pretty exciting. And neat to go through the Icefall again, actually very frightening to go through the Icefall again, but neat to work our muscles and get up here close to 20,000' again. Lam Babu and Yubaraj are up at Camp 2 tonight. And they're getting Camp 2 ready for our arrival tomorrow. That's our hope is to get up early in the morning tomorrow and move what should be a relatively easy day up to Camp 2. But like I say nice to be up here. We've been talking to Mark Tucker down at Basecamp. Sounds like all is going well and the forecast is still looking good for when we want to get close to the top in four days or five days, something like that. And so keep following along. And hopefully we'll keep making upward progress. Bye for now.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Update sent 4:59 a.m. PST
Off we go! Seth the Sherpa man left Everest Basecamp early with Lam Babu to retrieve gear from Camp 2 and bring down to Camp 1. They met up with Dave and Dan then Lam Babu went back to Camp 2 for the night. The team decided to make use of Camp 1 on this rotation for ease of travel. A good number of climbers summited today under nice conditions most of the time. Three remaining Sherpa here at Basecamp will go up to Camp 1 tomorrow and bring all equipment down to Basecamp except rescue and medical. Getting a head start on clearing the mountain.
Forecast is still looking good. Dave and crew report all is well at a very quiet Camp 1.
RMI Everest Basecamp Manager Mark Tucker
Damn!! I can’t sit still in my chair. Go guys, go!
-Larry Seaton
Posted by: Larry Seaton on 5/22/2013 at 5:36 pm
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