Updates From Everest Tumpach The Tale of the Other Teams Saturday, September 6, 1997 (Everest North Face base camp, Tibet) It rained all night and at approx. 5am it started to snow. When we got up at 7:30, we had 3/4 inch of wet snow and a clear sky. By 10am, all the snow was gone and we had a beautiful day. The Summit of Mt Everest was hiding behind the clouds all day; just occasionally it showed her majestic Peak. The temperature was, at 7:30 am, 50F (10C), and at noon was 84F (30C) and at 9:45pm, right now, it is 40F (5C) at the BC. The wind was almost non-existent. Today I visited the English team, SWISS team and a large group of the Spanish team, whose camp sites are located one half hour from ours. They are all doing fine, resting, some fighting a flu and some members trekking higher up for acclimatizing. The SWISS team led by Jean Troillet is a commercial Expedition, with three paying European clients. Last week, when the team went for the summit, one client got above North Col (7000 meters) and had to return. Jean Troillet, with Staphane SHAFFTER and Oliver Roduit (both are guides) continued and got to 8300 meters and had to return because of the deep snow. The SWISS team is going for one more try, they are just waiting for the good weather window and will try to go to the summit in one push — ALPINE STYLE, without OXYGEN. Their plan is to do it from ABC (6500m) to the SUMMIT (8848m) in 21 hours. The other two clients did not go any higher than ABC and could not acclimatize in 10 days so they had to go down and home. The large Spanish team is leaving BC to ABC tomorrow. The Korean, 13 member Team left BC yesterday to ABC. Our LeBLANC EVEREST EXPEDITION Canadian team, which is myself, one cameraman, one cook and three Sherpas leaving for ABC on Sept. 8. I was hoping to get my team going tomorrow, but I am fighting a FLU bug as many other climbers do, so I postponed it till the 8th. The Colombian team sent three members up yesterday and the remaining members will follow up in couple of days. They have been here over a month and they reached Camp #3 (8200m), installed over 1000 meters of FIX line and had to return as the SWISS did — too much snow. They believe they will lose the rope in the deep snow. Time will tell when they get there. The conditions on EVEREST change within minutes. If it is very nice weather, the snow melts below 8000 meters quickly, within two days, but it might snow again and everything is under within hours. The English 13 member climbing team is going to ABC on the 9th, so is the two member Spanish team; both teams without Sherpas. The reason they do not have Sherpas is cost. The names of English team are Terry Stubbs, leader and his wife, Sandra,George Healey, William Bell, Gordon Paterson, Ken McKenzie, Ken Balfoub, Yuonne Holland, Bob Redley, Peter Bone, Dave Pritt, Tim Edwards, Somon Head, Lawrence Garth and Neil Banks. As I mentioned before, the Sherpas are very important to any team if they want to reach the SUMMIT — weather permitting. — George Tumpach PREVIOUS UPDATE | UPDATES HOME | NEXT UPDATE