Time to head up to Camp 3!

Peter, Eric, and their team should set off soon to head up the Lhotse face to Camp 3. 

I got some messages from Peter this morning saying there was definitely starting to be some snow accumulation at Camp 2. 

Madison Mountaineering who climbed from Camp 2 to Camp 3 yesterday, reported pretty tough going with snow and wind. They said they had to dig their tents out of the snow when they arrived at Camp 3. While they had intended to move on to Camp 4 today, they decided to instead wait at Camp 3 for another night in hopes of improved weather. Turns out our guys made a good call hanging back!

With the new snow and the steep Lhotse face on their route today, I tweeted Alan Arnette to ask about whether he saw any avalanche danger.

Good news!

Here's a video that I found from a few years ago that does a good job showing the terrain up the Lhotse face and around Camp 3. I hope they'll have blue skies like this, but that might be a big ask with the latest weather patterns. 

My observation is that it looks like somewhere around half of the remaining teams are still in Base Camp. I saw one assessment that it is the "larger teams" that are still in Base Camp, but I'm not sure about that. Lots of big "maybes" with the weather, but based on the forecasts and how the teams seem to be interpreting them, the teams currently in the Western Cwm (Camp 2 and Camp 3) may have a weather window for summits on the 23rd and 24th, and then the remaining teams (still at BC) hopefully could summit in what could be a May 27-28 weather window.

I hope my next update is about them happily tucked in at Camp 3!