Tentative Plan is in place
I spoke to Peter this morning, and will likely speak to him one more time before they set off on their summit bid. He's ready! The current plan is that they'll depart base camp tomorrow night (actually, early morning their time, on May 16). At the moment the weather is looking promising. Their plan is to get to Camp 2, their most comfortable high camp, and be well-poised to initiate a summit attempt from there. The summit is still a few days away from camp two, but being up there and ready to go means they have to track a narrower weather window than hanging out in base camp.
While we all wait to cheer for them from afar, here's a cool video from Madison Mountaineering of one section of Everest Base Camp.
From the reports that I've seen, it looks like approximately one-third to one-half of the climbers are finished with their summit attempts. This is great news because it allows the remaining climbers to be spread out over a number of days (assuming that a multi-day weather window opens up), hopefully alleviating congestion and improving safety.
In particular, one company that has summited already is well-known for taking very large teams. While they didn't spell it out exactly, I'm certain that the Dispatch post I shared about the Sherpa team encountering a traffic jam on the Lhotse face, was referring to that group. It is a relief to have them finished with their season.
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