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Hi, this is Eric Simonson from Rongbuk Base Camp, where I am calling on a very warm and sunny Tuesday morning. We have been enjoying exceptional weather, which leads us all to become very worried because it seems like the weather right now is what it should be like in the middle of May. So, we're wondering what it's going to be like in the middle of May.

This morning, climbers Tap, Jake, Thom, and Conrad headed up to ABC to join Andy Politz and the Sherpas who have been working on the North Col the last couple of days putting in our Camp IV and humping loads up there to establish it. Dave, Eric, and the film team are going to be heading up to ABC and hope to be up there in a couple of days as well. Also, our trekking group, which is now at Rongbuk Base Camp is doing well, and today they took an acclimatization hike up to Camp I at about 18,300 feet, and they, hopefully, will be back here in a few hours for dinner.

Their plan is to take a rest day tomorrow and then the next day to move up to Camp I with yak support and after that, move up to Camp II, where they'll spend a night and then eventually be able to move up and tag Camp III hopefully. Also here at Base Camp is glaciologist Dan Mann and his partner, Bernard Rabus, who is a German geophysicist, and they both have been doing some explorations around Base Camp in preparation for studying the glaciers. We hope to have some more information from them for you later on what they're up to.

So in a nutshell, everything's going real well and the weather's great, and we're getting ready for our second big push up the mountain. Looking forward to establishing Camp IV on the North Col with climbers sleeping there and working on the route to Camp V within the next few days. Okay, I think that's about it for now. Talk to you later! Bye.

—Eric Simonson, Expedition Leader

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