It is Sunday the 11th of April, and the mountain is out and in the clear. Nearly the whole gang is back down at Base Camp now after a first set of week-long forays up the hill. Things at Base Camp are quite lively now as the trek has arrived with an infusion of fresh and numerous faces. In addition, other expeditions are beginning to show up in the big gravel pit that we call home.

Our inclination after a day of rest and washing and shaving and eating and sleeping, is to go right into another day of the exact same thing with nary a look or thought toward the big pointy mountain we are ultimately here for. Can't ignore such a mountain though. For one thing, we aren't all down in comfy-land together. Andy Politz is up doing solo battle with the North Col slopes this morning. The Sherpa team is taking the day off up at ABC today, where Dawa reported big, howling winds coming down off the 23,000' Col and sweeping into 21,000' ABC. Andy is game to stretch his legs and scratch his crampons on the glacier approach to the Col anyway. Worst comes to worst, he'll swing it around and try again tomorrow when the Sherpas resume their assault. They made it up the ropes for the last two days, carrying up tents, propane (stove fuel), shovels, rope, sleeping bags, pads, and cargo nets to hold everything down.

Conrad, Jake, and Thom had made those carries possible by completing the route and hammering in a tent at the Col the day before. That work was the happy completion of several days of "route-work" pushed mainly by Conrad, Jake, Pa Nuru Sherpa, and Ang Pasang Sherpa. Their effort involved a lot of hammer swinging and rope stringing, a little crevasse bridge testing, and some nifty ice climbing and exploring. Some diplomacy was even called for as the Ukrainian national heroes were whaling away at the same route at the same time. Things seem to have worked out quite well now. The route is in and being jugged. What I mean by that is that there is now climbing rope laid on those steep glacial slopes, and climbers can attach their mechanical ascenders (or camming devices, or Petzls, or jumars... or whatever you call those clanky bits in your neighborhood) to the rope and start huffing and puffing and sliding the device a little further uphill with each step.

We all got some time in up high and some mean nights at ABC to get our bodies used to feeling awful again...that "acclimatization" process in action once again. Now a few days of rest, during which we'll try to catch you up fully on the wild times, and then we'll head up again...just a little bit higher this time.

—Dave Hahn, Climber

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