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 of Oxygen, Tents, Stoves, etc. to stock our high camp for the summit push. The climbing Sherpa have once again amazed us with their strength, and incredibly positive attitudes while working incredibly hard. One of the fastest young Sherpa, Karma, made the round trip from Camp 2 to the S. Col and back in only 8 hours today, it’s truly hard to even imagine.

Scott, Irek, Newall, and Gregg are at Camp 3 right now (around noon) after getting up early and heading up for an acclimatization hike. They did great getting up there this morning, and are enjoying the views in the thin air of Camp 3. They’ll be heading back down in just few minutes, and will be back in C2 for a late lunch.

Ephi and Chris went for a mellow ski tour in the upper CWM just below the Lhotse face on our final rest day here. Neal, Chris, Ephi, and I will be heading down to the mythical land of base camp tomorrow morning. We’re all feeling pretty darn good at just under 22,000 ft, and I think we’ve had a pretty successful round of acclimating and are set up well for coming back up for the summit push.

Chris and Ephi coming back from a ski tour beneath the Lhotse face.

Bill reading Telluride news on a sunny afternoon at C2.

In Everest News… The fixed lines are in all the way to the summit now, and the fixing team summitted yesterday. The first summits of the season!! This is all good news for us. Our focus now will be to recover a bit down low, and closely watch the weather for our summit day. We get forecasts from 2 different services who specialize in forecasting for expeditions. We’ll be closely watching the weather now for a summit day sometime after mid-May.

Cheers from Camp 2.
Bill