On Hold at Camp 2

We heard from Peter and Eric via text messages from the GPS that they have with them. They are still at Camp 2. They had planned to climb to Camp 3 today, but changed that plan because of weather. Their current plan is to head to C3 the "day after tomorrow" (which by my calculations is roughly Wednesday evening Pacific Time) with a hope for the summit on the 23rd.

There has been a ton of chatter about the weather. The cyclone off the west coast of India is where most of the attention has been. Some people expected it to make a hard turn to the east and bring a lot of snow and wind to "one of the 8,000-meter peaks", but it was a guess as to exactly where it would land. I saw one report about 10 hours ago of 35 tents being destroyed up at Camp 4 from the high winds. 

At Camp 2 with plans to head to Camp 3, Peter and Eric's team is in good company with several of the high-end, professional mountaineering companies who, no doubt, have access to the best meteorology info. 

Alan Arnette has been tracking most of the teams this season, watching their acclimatization process and tracking their summit bids. I've circled Peter's team (Summit Climb) and the others that are all currently at Camp 2. It is important to note that this list is not exhaustive, there are definitely other teams on the mountain but not all of them publicly share their plans and movements. 

Next, I'll be watching how many of these teams choose to move up to Camp 3 in the next day or two. (I am tracking the GPS paths of a bunch of individual climbers on those teams .) Moving to Camp 3 implies that they see an opportunity for a summit in the next few days. Camp 2 is, by far, their most comfortable high camp, with a cook tent and more space. Camp 3 is literally a ledge carved out of the snow high on the Lhotse face, so they won't move there until they see a summit opportunity. 

Found this gem in the photos Eric shared: