The whole team is up here in Camp 2 now on May 2nd. Scott, Gregg, Irek, and Newall joined us up here today. It’s a bit of a grind getting all the way from Base Camp up to Camp 2, but I think we all agree it’s worth skipping by C1 and coming all the way up in a single push. Both teams followed a similar schedule, just a day apart, leaving base camp around 4:30 am to climb through the icefall and arrive up to C1 by 8 am or so when the sun hits. The final stretch from C1 to C2 looks easy enough, but it is a long haul and surprisingly it’s the heat that gets you. The Western CWM turns into an oven when the sun is out and the wind isn’t cooling things off and it is all you can do to stay cool at over 21,000 ft on the way up to C2.

Everyone is happy to be up here for our next round of acclimating, and one step closer to the summit push. We’ll be up here for a total of 5 nights, and at some point we’ll make a climb up to Camp 3 to push the acclimatization a bit more. It’s been snowing every afternoon up here and is really starting to pile up. The snow should make for easier climbing up the Lhotse face, and it is making all of the skiers in the group dream of a powder run on the Lhotse face (probably just a dream…).

Our Sherpa team made a carry today up to Camp 3, and after a rest day tomorrow will carry a load of oxygen to the S. Col (high camp). The Sherpa are amazingly strong, I don’t think even the fittest of us would have dreamed of carrying a load of oxygen up to Camp 3 today, or running to the S. Col in a couple more days. They really are working hard for us, and we’ve got a great team again this year.

That’s all from C2 today, we’ll be around most of the day again tomorrow and maybe try to get a few pics up.

Cheers,

Bill Allen, Camp 2