MountainZone.com Home
MountainZone.com Home



MountainZone.com Marketplace


MountainZone.com Auctions



Check out:
Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition
Everest '98
New Height of Everest






 

»Home
»Dispatches
»Photos
»Maps
»Bio
Breaking Trail

Robert Anderson
Anderson's call from Everest
LISTEN:  [RealPlayer]  [Windows Media]

    You need a FREE media player to listen.


Well, yesterday we spent the night at Camp I and then we left Camp I about 10 in the morning. We actually made it probably about 100 vertical meters above the camp, probably an hour away. There's quite a few avalanches that have come down off the side in the last snowstorm. So they [the yaks] weren't able to tread their way through the snow. They have a little difficulty when they get in amongst the rocks because they can't see where they are going and their legs get caught and they break their legs quite easily. So what was Camp I is now going to be Advanced Base Camp for awhile.

Today we got up early and headed around up the glacier to 6000 meters and we're at Camp II. I was up here about just over five years ago now and I'd forgotten how amazing it is with the ice towers which rise 100-150 feet out of both sides of the glacier — whereas the middle is just kind of a rock-highway. Unfortunately, the rock-highway is a little bit snowed under right now, so we're breaking trail occasionally. We'll be headed out tomorrow to look up around the corner and see what Advanced Base Camp looks like and also the North Col.

It's about three in the afternoon. The sun's going down in probably about the next five minutes; so, I'm going to jump in the tent because the temperature drops — must be at least 40 or 50 degrees fahrenheit in probably, I don't know, 20 minutes. It goes from being marginally pleasant to completely disastrous very quickly.

We're surrounded by 7000-meter peaks. We're just under Changtse, at where people normally climb Changtse, which is the north peak of Everest, and it is about 1500 meters above us. We can't quite see Everest, although we saw it this morning. And we could also look through Pang La Pass over into Nepal and see Makalu, which is just on the border between Nepal and Tibet as well, we just saw the rocky, kind of pink granite sticking out of that.

So we're fine up here and we'll update you tomorrow on how we do the trip to Base Camp. Bye.

Robert Anderson, MountainZone.com Correspondent

EXPEDITION DISPATCHES



[Climbing Home] [Everest Home] [MountainZone.com Home]