EVEREST LIVE

Wednesday, May 23, 2001

From: Maurice Peret

As members of the National Federation of the Blind-Allegra 2001 Everest Expedition arrive at Camp 4 today (the South Col at 26,000 feet), the countdown to the top begins in earnest. Our comm tent is now a 24-hour-a-day information control center. Some of you have asked and others may be interested to know just how information about our expedition is disseminated from this desolate wilderness to the rest of the world. Here's the rundown:

The climbers on the mountain have handheld, battery-operated radios from which they transmit information to us about their progress. A base station at Base Camp receives the up-to-date info.

The drama and excitement of the climb are being expertly captured for a documentary film on High-Definition TV, mini-DV, and still photography on the mountain by Michael Brown, Charley Mace, and Didrik Johnck. The perspective from Everest Base Camp is simultaneously filmed by Kim Johnson, Base Camp Production Manager and Camera Woman, while Matthew Sanner focuses on still photography. This documentary, "Vision of Everest", is being produced by Newport Productions and Aperture Films and is sponsored by Allegra.

We will make one phone call each hour to the US, which sets off a chain of phone calls informing the webmaster, media and families of the team's progress from Camp 4 to the summit and back. As you can see, on this site we all contribute dispatches on a number of topics. Reba Bull is taking carefully detailed, up-to-the-minute notes to keep everyone thoroughly informed, especially friends and families of the climbers and those of you on the edge of your seats back home. Text, audio, and video files are produced on laptop computers and transmitted by Matthew Sanner and Zachary German via satellite communications to Comspec, Inc. where Thomas Paine forwards the email and web information. Web information is then sent to NFB member and volunteer Brian Buhrow, 2001Everest webmaster. Sending and receiving electronic mail messages is handled by Zeb Johnck, Web consultant (a.k.a. Didrik's brother).

Everything at Base Camp is powered by solar energy, which often creates challenges on cloudy days or when the sun disappears from the sky. Sometimes under considerably adverse conditions, Zac and Matthew have performed the task of insuring that we have sufficient power.

You can be sure that all of the Base Camp staff will occupy the comm tent around the clock to let you know everything that's going on until our guys reach the summit and return safely to Camp 4. We are looking forward to celebrating this historic victory with all of you.

Together we are changing what it means to be blind.