by Scott at 11:02 PM (PDT) on April 19, 2005
Hello Everyone,
Sorry about the lack of communications. One computer was unhappy with the altitude at Base Camp and this computer is only happy when it is nice and warm at Advanced Base Camp (ABC). And the sat phone takes a lot of power from the solar panels and thus is only operable part of the day.
Well to catch everyone up with our progress: We have now been in ABC~21,000 ft for a week. I have been feeling pretty good. I was slightly surprised by the difficulty of the climbing up to the North Col but so far I have carried two loads up there. Michael has been very strong carrying heavier loads than myself and Brook has been very solid as well. Al went back down to base camp a couple days ago to get stronger and Ambrose and Ryan joined Al at base camp yesterday. I think all the other guys are doing fine and many strong, experienced climbers go down to lower altitudes to acclimatize better. I am just feeling comfortable here so I don’t see any reason to take the long walk back to base camp.
But as for me and ABC – the weather has been good. We had a little too much wind when we first got to ABC but it was nothing more than a hassle. Last night the temperature in my tent was -5F. I started using my -40F sleeping bag which lets one get into the bag slightly chilled and still warm up and have a comfortable night.
The two trips I made to the North Col take most of the day and are fairly hard days. The second trip went better because I knew what I was getting into and left earlier. The sherpas have set up fixed ropes to the North Col and beyond but there is one section of vertical ice climbing and many others of high angle hard water ice. On our trip yesterday one of our sherpas, Lakpa went up to camp 2 above the north col and got us a good spot to camp. Also yesterday our oxygen arrived in ABC so now we have most of the group gear at the North Col or above and need to add the oxygen and personal gear. After a couple of rest days here we will attempt to sleep at the North Col and push higher to camp 2 or 3 before going back to base camp to have a long rest before any summit push.
So to wrap up everyone is doing well and we seem to be on schedule with getting the gear in place and our bodies acclimatized.
With kind thoughts from ABC, Scott
Treking to ABC with the yaks:
<img src=”Everest/blogPhotos/yak1.jpg” mce_src=”https://the-summit.net/Everest/blogPhotos/yak1.jpg” /> <br />
