Beautiful Sunny Camp 2

Camp 2, Everest Bill Allen Wow, another perfect beautiful day here at Camp 2. We’ve had amazing weather up here for round 2, last night was beautiful clear and starry, and it’s been just a stunning day again today. Our Sherpa team made another lap up to the S. Col and carried the final loads…

Puja, Night Shots, and Heading Up!

April 19, 2011 7:19 pm Everest BC Before ever setting foot on Everest, or other Himalayan peaks for that matter, it is customary for the Sherpa staff and climbing members to celebrate a “Puja,” an offering to the mountain in exchange for safe travel and good weather for the teams. We celebrated our Puja in…

Camp 1 Pumori

We’re posting from 18,600′ while on an acclimatization hike we’re taking to Camp 1 on neighboring Pumori (7145m) today. It’s a bit cloudy and windy, so we aren’t getting the great views of Everest, but it feels good to get the legs and lungs working. We’ll hang out up here for a half hour or…

Playing on the ice

Base Camp, April 16 -Bill Allen We woke to the usual beautiful blue skies this morning here at base camp. After another delicious breakfast, we went into the ice a few hundred feet from camp to practice some ice climbing and rappelling in anticipation of heading up through the icefall in just a couple of…

One step closer to base camp

April 12th- We hiked up to Gorak Shep today, the site of the last lodges before reaching base camp. It isn’t really a village, but more a small collection of six or eight lodges built for trekkers. We are only a couple of hours hike from BC now, so we’re anxious to get there tomorrow.…

April 10th- On The Trail

April 10, 2011 Dingboche, Khumbu Valley. We are now just two days away from Everest base camp and feeling fit and ready to move up. The last two days were spent in Dingboche, a village at 4300 meters at the confluence of the valley the leads up to Island Peak below the South Face of…

Everybody in Dingboche

Bill Allen, Dingboche. April 9, 2011 We’ve all met up finally in Dingboche at our favorite lodge, the Snow Lion. Gregg Mellon and Debbie have been trekking with a group of friends and have already visited base camp. They came back down the valley to join us yesterday here in Dingboche, and Gregg will turn…

Re-united in Namche

The team is re-united in Namche.  It was great to get our our entire team together tonight.  The 2nd part of the climbing crew, Scott, Newall, and Irek, along with Diane and Laurie (who are joining us for the trek into base camp) arrived in Namche to great weather and a late lunch.   The first…