Since Wednesday Summit from our brave and resilient Sherpa’s, the Mountain is semi-open for the rest of us to attempt up to the summit. The biggest challenge so far has been the wind making it extremely dangerous at very exposed high altitude. This is when the temperatures will likely be in the -30’s and with additional winds of over 30mph, you can risk frost bite and others.
Since Everest is now officially open, there have been several expeditions that had taken a lead and had been patiently awaiting at Camp 2 since last Tuesday. For us, our hard working Sherpa’s had to complete so much set up work – such as carrying our oxygen to the higher camps, tents, cooking utensils and others. Once their work would be completed, then it’d be imperative for them to make it back to Base Camp and have a day at least of rest before climbing up again to help us on our push.
As of Tuesday, our Sherpa’s started coming back to base, and so since Thursday we are officially on a waiting pattern.
So today as we started getting word of the summit attempts from 2 additional expeditions, Himex and Jagged Globe, we were really excited to hear their progress. The forecast had described Friday 13th as one of the best weather days to summit, however as we kept hearing their progress, it seemed no one had been able to predict right the heavy winds they were encountering.
Since Everest hasn’t really been climbed at that altitude over the last 2 years, the accumulation of snow also made the route quite interesting. Usually the last summit push has been extremely rocky, but the early pictures that some people had shared showed just a white blanket covering the route.
By noonish we got word that people at Himex and Jagged Globe had successfully reached the summit. I don’t think they have been any other expeditions that had been in the same position. So we all felt extremely happy for their accomplishment.
As for us, the advanced weather forecasts that AC relies on have been quite tricky in terms of next week and the weather. If anything the biggest speculation here is when there’ll be a good window.
During dinner, Mike mentioned to us that they almost made the decision for us to depart later this evening, this completely surprised us. If anything over the next several days, we’ll be on a “summit departure alert” hence we got advised to have all of our bags ready. It was exciting to be on this ready to go pattern, but also I do feel nervous for this final push. Trusting that the one step at a time that has taken me up to this journey over the last 10 ½ years, will still be the pattern to trust when the time comes.
For the time being, continue to trust the dream is getting closer!
Treat of the day: Hearing the news of other teams Summit. Maybe Everest will let us get closer to her!!!