September 20, 2006 – Descending Back to Base Camp

Listen to Audio of Wally's Call (.wav)

It’s September 20th and our team was moving in 3 different ways today.  A Sherpa team left base camp very early and met us all at Camp 1 with more supplies to stock at advanced base camp and that was at 7:50am.  The eight of us that I have been describing our first days in the Western Cwm over the last couple of days, decided that our 3 days at Camp 1 was sufficient acclimatization so the crew moved down to base camp. 

The team I’m most proud of though is Da Sona and those guys who I described to you yesterday.  I was talking to them on the radio throughout the day as they were working up the Lhotse face and they proudly told me at the end of the day that they had fixed 600 meters (1,970 feet)of rope on the Lhotse face up nearly to the lower Camp 3 site that is used sometimes in the spring.  So we are all going to bed tonight, some people at Camp 2… [lost transmission]