Hello, Dave Hahn calling down from Advanced Basecamp in the fog, 21,300'. Today was a beautiful day. Significant to us, in that a combination team of climbers building the route on the Lhotse Face succeeded in getting as far as Camp 3 and perhaps even a little bit beyond that. Fixing rope up the steep and icy Lhotse Face. We didn't want to get in the way of that today. We actually hiked up to about 22,000', towards the west shoulder. Certainly not all the way to the west shoulder, which is about 25,000' in some very steep, hard ice in that direction. But the part we could do today made for a nice hike and gave us a great view off the Western Cwm. Pretty amazing. With the exception of the snow that fell last week, it just doesn't appear to be any snow left over from the monsoon or the winter. Just bare ice up in this upper valley, and these glaciers are continuing to take a beating. On the good side, our Sherpa team, Tshering, Gyaljen, and Kaji, they successfully made a carry up here today, to ABC, carrying oxygen bottles for the summit bid. And then the three of them and Lam Babu, went back down to Basecamp. It's just myself, Dan, Seth and Yubaraj up here at ABC. All is well. Bye now.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
RMI Guide Dave Hahn called in from Everest Advanced Basecamp.
Beautiful pics and such interesting commentaries. I am really enjoying the updates every day - it sure beats watching the evening news on the TV. Wishing you guys continued good weather and safe climbing.
Posted by: Josephine Johnson on 4/30/2013 at 12:38 am
All the best! What a privilege it must be to see such a beautiful range of mountains!
This is Dave Hahn calling down from Advanced Base Camp, 21,300'. A good day for Seth, Dan, and myself and Lam Babu and Yubaraj up here at ABC. Seemed like it was going be a little stormy this morning. There were clouds around, but we ended up with a pretty good sunshine, pretty calm conditions down here in the valley. We went for a late acclimatization walk up to about 21,800', close to the base of the Lhotse Face. That was a right move for us anyway today, a little light activity on our first day at Advanced Base Camp. And then resting until noon. We can’t do too much differently right now, the route up the Lhotse Face is not fully established yet. There has been a few unforeseen delays in getting that route fixed. We’re okay taking it easy. We have hiking plans for tomorrow as well. And working this acclimatization round the best we can. That is all for tonight. Talk to you tomorrow.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
The RMI Everest Expedition is on track! Three super Sherpa went from Base Camp to Camp 2. En route they stopped at Camp 1 to offer some help to the team and carried the radio and electrical equipment up to Camp 2. After arriving at Camp 2, they put the puzzle together and bingo, loud and clear communication between Basecamp and Camp 2. A few days ago they carried a couple of community loads of climbing gear, and a strong team of upper mountain route workers placed anchors and rope up the Lhotse Face. With the team now nesting at Camp 2 and feeling good, it makes for another great day here on Mount Everest. It did snow a couple of inches last night, but a beautiful day with just enough wind to whip the loose snow around making for wild views. A little maintenance on the floors of the dining and communication tents today is routine when living on a moving glacier.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
Hey RMI, this is Dave Hahn, Seth Waterfall and Dan Johnson. We're up at Camp 1, and we came up this morning through the Ice Fall in about five hours time. Good moving and great conditions today, just a beautiful morning. And coming into Camp 1, it seemed like we were on a different planet than when we were last here and it was snowing so hard and so cloudy and cold. So today we just had a nice calm, sunny day at Camp 1. Rested and relaxed, drank a bunch of water. And we're a little bit excited because we're moving up to Camp 2 tomorrow. Our Sherpa team established Camp 2 yesterday and built it up. Yubaraj and Lam Babu spent the night up there. It's about dinner time now. The clouds were starting to creep in. Late afternoon clouds, not bad weather. Later this evening we expect them to roll right back out again. So everything is going well on our second rotation. We're hoping to be up here for about a week this time. A little bit longer. But we've been in touch with Mark Tucker down at Basecamp and everything seems to be going well. All for now, bye.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
What a night to take in last evening! We had perfect conditions: clear, calm, and almost a full moon. It was a bit chilly, but that is what our puffy coats and pants are for. After so much unsettled weather, it was so peaceful you could almost think we were in the most tranquil environment on earth! Of course, the hanging glaciers and thousands of feet of vertical rock overhead remind us that "tranquil" is all relative in this neck of the ice.
The team was up early in the AM and sent up gear for the community effort to fix ropes to Camp 3. Our group plans on some training en route up to Camp 3 as well. We have two Sherpa at Camp 2 right now who are working hard and preparing to welcome the climbers to Advanced Base Camp in a couple of days.
The team continues to take care and plans for the long haul ahead.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
NIce swing Tuck. Bummed that I wasn’t able to play a few rounds with you at Base Camp this year but I saw the clubs outside the com tent and took a few practice swings. My duct tape balls couldn’t compete with whiffle balls. Safe travels to Camp 3.
Posted by: Elsie Bemiss on 4/26/2013 at 6:38 am
Your reports are uniquely super! Who is your writer? I’m in the movie business and always expect a highly paid ghost writer behind every writer as good as you and your partners.
Warm regards,
Wolf
Well it's another beautiful day in Basecamp. We're enjoying another rest day before heading back up the mountain.
The teams have all joined forces to equip the Lhotse Face with fixed rope for the next series of acclimatization rounds. As a small team we will do our part by bringing gear up to Camp 2. If the weather holds then the 'fixing' will start on the 26th. That will clear the path to the South Col and then teams will begin establishing camps there.
The Col is a long way off for us though as we have quite a bit more acclimatization to go before we'll be ready for heading to 8000 meters (26,000 feet). It's all part of the long process of climbing Mount Everest.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
The day started out sparkling and blue... A welcome change from the weather of the past week, but by early afternoon it was back to overcast and snow flurries. Word was that those trying to travel between Camp One and Two were encountering waist deep snow and that as much as another meter had fallen on C1 since we left it two days ago. It hasn't been normal in recent years to get so much snow in April, but we choose to look at things optimistically, and we hope that some of the snow sticks up high to make travel a bit safer on the Lhotse Face and on summit day above the South Col.
That is all a bit far off today though. We are still taking it easy and resting up for the next -all important- push up the mountain. (Any push up this mountain is all important to those of us doing the pushing)
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Our first rotation up the hill is completed. We came down the Icefall this morning in fresh falling snow, which muffled sound, concealed crevasses and greatly reduced traffic. Normally, after three nights acclimating at Camp One, we'd have gotten up a little earlier and come down a bit sooner in the morning, but daybreak at close to 20,000 ft was a bit different this time around. We had received a foot of snow in the past 24 hours and listened to avalanches running almost constantly down the steep faces of Nuptse and Everest West Shoulder. We weren't terribly anxious to run out and test our luck at finding the path through the icefall, but a few things began to work in our favor. Although no Sherpas were breaking trail from below on such a day, a few teams at Camp One were more anxious to get down than we were. We actually contemplated sitting another day to let things settle and improve, but once a few bigger teams had plowed a trail down and a short break in the storm materialized, we decided to capitalize and descend. We packed and closed our tents up tight and began walking toward Basecamp at around 9:30 AM. It wasn't a quick descent, we were quite careful stepping through the concealing powder and onto shaky ladders as the snowstorm returned to make things interesting. We were all stunned to see that the "horseshoe hotel" had fallen. This was a massive free-standing cube of glacier which we'd been passing under with a fair amount of trepidation. It came down all at once... luckily with no one in the vicinity, and we were amazed to see that the massive chunks of debris had fallen in several directions... But they hadn't bulldozed away the climbing route. The intervening crevasses had done their work and swallowed up a whole lot of hotel. The snows kept falling and we kept working our way down in a quiet cloud. Eventually we came out from under the clouds just as we reached the less hazardous features at the bottom of the Icefall. We weren't able to do everything we wanted on this rotation; it certainly would have been nice to have hiked up and touched ABC (Camp 2) but it would have been foolish in the snowstorm, so we mostly sat in our tents yesterday... But that also can lead to good acclimatization when the tents are high enough.
Now we'll enjoy the relative comforts of Basecamp (although the snowstorm has seemed to follow us down) First; tables and chairs and food served up by the plateful... Later showers and shaves and the freedom of walking around without worry of crevasses and cliffs.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
We awoke to a fresh blanket of snow here at Everest Base Camp. That didn't slow down the Sherpa team from making a run to Camp 2 with more equipment for future forays. The snow has already melted away here but the upper mountain still shows some fresh snow.
It is great to see our climbing team get some time up high. They will return to Base Camp tomorrow but will be heading back up for another rotation soon. The pieces of the puzzle are fitting together nicely thus far.
RMI Guide & Everest Base Camp Coordinator Mark Tucker
Hey, this is RMI Guide Seth Waterfall checking in from Camp One on Mt. Everest at the bottom of the Western Cwm. All is well with the team. Dave is sitting next to me in the tent; he is checking in with Mark Tucker our Base Camp Coordinator. The team is snuggled into their tents next door. We had a good day today. We took a little walk up the Cwm toward Camp Two for a couple of hours. We inspected the route, crossed a few ladders and all in all had a good day. We came back to camp for a little afternoon relaxation. The weather has been fantastic, which means alternating between very hot and very cold, but the average temperature is pretty comfortable.
Tomorrow we will try and head up and tag Camp Two. That is right on schedule for our acclimatization and with any luck we will hit Camp Two in the morning and head on back to Camp One for our last night of this acclimatization rotation. That is it for us. Everybody is doing well. Hello to everybody at home. We will talk to you soon. Bye.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall checks in from Camp One on Mt. Everest.
Beautiful pics and such interesting commentaries. I am really enjoying the updates every day - it sure beats watching the evening news on the TV. Wishing you guys continued good weather and safe climbing.
Posted by: Josephine Johnson on 4/30/2013 at 12:38 am
All the best! What a privilege it must be to see such a beautiful range of mountains!
Posted by: michelle on 4/29/2013 at 5:44 pm
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