November 9, 2007 – Reaching Gorak Shep and Climbing Kala Pattar

Hello everybody, it is John calling from Gorak Shep today. We are at about 17,000 feet here and I’m outside... [lost transmission]... see some stars and lights of the lower Gorak Shep.

Today was actually quite a long day. We didn’t travel very far distance-wise, but after leaving Lobuche we crossed part of the moraine from the Khumbu glacier to arrive here at Gorak Shep.

We enjoyed our lunch here to refuel before heading up to Kala Pattar. It was our hope to get a view of Everest. It is one of the best places to view the mountain other than being on it. You can actually see base camp and the ice fall into the Western CWM.

Unfortunately, as I said, it is snowing and the clouds came in shortly after lunchtime today. We were not able to get as much of a view as we had hoped for. On our walk here to Gorak Shep, we did see some spectacular views of the mountains in the distance. Lhotse was certainly the star of the show today. Were hoping for a bit more clearing tomorrow.

The good news is that Jack and Don did very well on Kala Patthar. We kept a steady pace and stopped only once before reaching the summit. We then headed on down. Later on in the day I walked with Paul Stanford, who will join us on the Island Peak climb. Again, Paul also did very well, the program of the acclimatization has done its job and we are all ready to start climbing.