This is the morning of the big night!!!!

Hello Everyone!

This is the morning of the big night/day!

Stephen and team are currently at Camp 4; today is their rest day there (they arrived there yesterday). I’ve been listenening to the radio communications between EBC and Camp 4 and it sounds like everyone is in great spirits and doing very well (specially on O2!) and getting very excited. We here in EBC are getting excited as well.

The way I understand it, this is what’s in store for today/tonight (Nepal time of course).

Sometime between 10pm (May 22) and 1am (May 23) the climbers with AAI (Alpine Ascents Int’l) will leave Camp 4 for their summit bid. The team will get spread out a little to avoid a ‘traffic jam’ at the top (the whole AAI team up there consists of about 27 people: climbers, guides and climbing Sherpa). This whole adventure will take approx 12 hours! And then they still have to come partway down. I believe everyone is expected back at EBC on the 25th.

Once the summit bid starts, Ellie (BC manager) will fire off regular cybercasts, about every 2/3 hours, to allow everyone to follow the whole thing just about in real time – isn’t that neat!!!!! So check the cybercasts frequently!!!!!

Naturally we here in BC will stay awake through the whole thing, way into the 23rd.

So keep the comments coming! We can’t read them here at EBC but we will read them with great pleasure either in Kathmandu or at home!!!!! We do appreciate you all following Stephen’s summit bid!!!!!

Greetings from EBC,

caroline.

10 Comments

  1. Woohoo! The final push is on!! Stephen, I have my fingers crossed for you and the rest of the team and am sending you all good “juju”. Good luck on getting to the summit, can’t wait to hear all about your adventure once you return!

    Cheers,
    Tricia

  2. I’m following the posting from Alpine Ascents and also listening to the audio reports posted by FirstAscent. It seems there is about 15mph of winds on the South Col. Hope everyone is bundled up! What an adventure! I hope Stephen comes back with good pix of the South Summit and the Hillary Step. Fingers crossed here.

  3. Ha! I see Stephen is in the lead group with the climbing sherpas and one client with everyone else strung out below them. Go Stephen! I’m guessing you’ll be on the summit at about 9am Nepal time!

  4. It also looks like the weather is deteriorating. Fingers on both hands now crossed. Good luck. Keep warm!

  5. Friends, altitude-breaking news: Stephen summited Mount Everest !!! Congratulations !!!

    Here’s the AAI cybercast:
    May 23, 2009 8:30am FIRST AAI SUMMITS!
    “It’s a big group, so everyone is spread out a bit, but our first people have arrived at the summit. The first group to top out were Kay with Chewang Nima, Stephen with Mingma, Frank Slachman with Dawa Nuru, and Lori with Tsering Dorjee. And of course Lakpa was up there with them. This is all I have for now – we are still waiting on the others. More as it comes. “

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