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May 16 - Arriving at Everest Base Camp
I think the first impression that most of the team had was Everest Base Camp is not a flat spot by any stretch of the imagination; it is rubble of glacial moraine of ice and rock. It’s a bit confusing and not that easy to walk around. A great deal of time is taken just to walk from one camp to the next.
Of course Will Cross’ progress has been a big concern of ours, he’s doing great. In fact just a few moments ago I was there in the Discovery Channel tent when Amy did a live radio talk with Will who had reached the south col. This was filmed by the Discovery Channel and we enjoyed just hanging out and visiting with those guys for a long time after the interview was over. Amy and Min Dabu will stay here and wait for Will at base camp and I, Maggie, Fiona and Bob and all the rest of the crew are going to slowly start down the valley and begin our trek back towards Lukla and Katmandu in a few days. We’ll keep giving you updates as we enjoy trekking back out through the Khumbu during this beautiful time of year in May. |
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It’s the evening of May 16th and this dispatch is coming from Everest Base Camp. Our entire team walked in here together yesterday at about noon, proud to have arrived, excited looking around at all the colorful prayer flags of Base Camp. The chortens or memorial Buddhist sacred sights are the center points of each of the camps and of course there are a lot of camps here this year.
We found our camp at the Peak Promotions site, quickly took some lunch and began to visit in the afternoon many friends, old friends and some new ones all about base camp, more than I can even begin to list. It’s been great relaxing and enjoyable for us to sit and visit with a lot of friends here at base camp. It is exciting times for many teams as you know. This morning at about 5:00am I got up and had some coffee and by 5:30am I heard the voices over the radio announcing that Nima Tashi and his team had reached the south summit and by 7:30am they were on the summit. A lot of other people got up today as well.
Will sounded very strong on the south col to me and he’s got a good plan. He’s actually going to begin climbing at 8:30 tonight and he told Amy that he had a definite turn around time of 12:00 tomorrow. The weather continues to be very stable here and I think just as was the case today we can look for a lot of success on Everest tomorrow, we are pulling for Will Cross and a lot of other friends up high tomorrow.