EVEREST LIVE
Saturday, May 19, 2001
From: P.V. Scaturro
Expedition Leader
NFB 2001 Everest Expedition
5:00 PM Nepal Time, NFB Everest Base Camp
Our final Summit push has begun. This morning at 5:45 Erik, Sherm, and Jeff entered the icefall for Camp 1. 5 hours and 23 minuts later they arrived at Camp 1 in great condition and full of energy. They took a rest and decided to continue to Camp 2. Who would have thought after their first trip through the icefall, which took 13 hours and 42 minutes, that they would now be going directly from Base Camp to Camp 2. This illustrates how strong the team still is and how much drive we still have to get to the summit of this mountain. Steve called from Camp 2 this afternoon to say that he is still in good shape and waiting for our return. I'm sure after his three days of "peace and quiet" he is eager to have his teammates back. At least we want to believe he is. After two months of being on the expedition with Steve, we all continue to be amazed by his physical and mental strength and appreciate him as a teammate. The remaining 9 climbers will be heading back to Camp 2 tomorrow morning at 5:00 AM. The plan is now to have a rest day at Camp 2 and climb to Camp 3 on Tuesday for a summit push on Wednesday night, summiting early Thursday morning May 24.
Our weather reports are pretty much the same as before. Clear mornings and snow in the afternoon seem to be the norm for the last two weeks, and there is no reason to think it will change. I have decided not to pay too much attention to the details of the reports with the exception of the location and level of the jet stream. If we can get to the South Col in good weather and get an early start on summit day, then we should have no problems with some afternoon weather. The wind will be our biggest challenge.
Jonathan Chester, our Allegra photographer, left Base Camp today for home. We will really miss him since he has become such a big part of our expedition and a good friend to all of us. He has done a great job at Base Camp helping to support one of our primary sponsors, Allegra allergy medication, and to get out the word of our expedition.
Starting tomorrow we will be going back to radio dispatches. We will continue to update the expedition website on a daily basis until the beginning of our actual summit push at approximately 6:00 PM on the evening of Wednesday, May 23. From then until we actually summit, we will strive to update the website on an hourly basis.