Dave Hahn

Wouldn't want to be up there right now. Man-Oh-Man is it rocking on top. There is a big white and gray wave cloud from Nepal just pasting the upper mountain at wind speeds of easily 70 mph. The word we had was that the jet-stream would be coming to play for a few days and that certainly looks to be the case.

Quite exciting to watch, but I know I'd rather have watched Panuru and the boys get high camp established as planned today. They were heading that way yesterday when the wind came on, and they had the good sense to pull up short at Camp V and skedaddle back to the North Col. This morning at 7am, I talked to Richard at the Col, and he revealed that sure enough 23,000 feet was a tortured place today. A look out the tent said he was not exaggerating. The mountain had been covered with a thick blanket of new snow for nearly two weeks, now it was looking black and rocky again overnight. No question that the Sherpas should go back down to ABC to rest for another try in a few days. What about Richard? I thought for a selfish moment that it would be good to have him riding the storm out at the Col, watching every tent line strain and pull in the wind, putting more bricks in the wall as needed. Builds character and keeps track of the boss's equipment... beats the heck out of a guy though... and alone... Go on the Sherpa Plan, Richard, Camp IV will do Ok with the cargo nets over the tents and the twenty pounds of anchors in place and the 300 feet of rope weaving it all together. So down he went, ready for another day.

People were sniffing for the top a few days ago when the good weather seemed unlimited. The other teams were getting high camp in, and the Chinese/Slovakians even occupied that camp at 27,200'. I watched three of their team (Tibetans) through our BC telescope as they set out, not terribly early, two days ago for summit terrain. The word we got later was that they were just out fixing rope. If so, they were fixing it in some new directions, missing the key gullies and crack systems that are the "normal" route up that way. They turned around before the Second Step.

Our cook, Pasang swore that he saw some guy in red on top of Everest that morning. Sure enough, when we all got eyeballs on the scope, we thought we saw some dot on top that hadn't been there. But nobody had made the North Side. That night on the radio I checked with Eric on the South Side. Nobody up there either. So we concluded that it must have been a dog or a passing seagull. Anyway, as I say, the wind started blowing and the folks that had been at high camp started beating feet downward.

So the North Side enters a weather-mandated holding pattern. Most teams are ready for a summit push. We aren't just yet, which is fine. We always figured on pushing a little later anyway, but having had a number of ailing climbers has reinforced that plan. A few of us will try to get another high cycle in, in concert with the Sherpas, trying to get those upper camps good. Everybody seems to be on the health up-swing now so perhaps this will all work out just fine. Home someday in June, but not without a good try on the Big E first. Now I just have to go tell our Liason Officer and our interpreter, who are probably homesick as heck for Beijing, that they are on the long plan...

— Dave Hahn, International Mountain Guides' Expedition Leader

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