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Hello, this is Eric Simonson calling from Advanced Base Camp at Mount Everest, 21,500'. Have we a special feature for you today! It's the first installment of the Everest Chat Room. We're all sitting around in the Weatherport Tent right now freezing our asses off, and we thought we'd share our most inner feelings with all The Mountain Zone listeners out there in the world.

Let me introduce our first caller, Mr. Dave Hahn:

Hey, this is Dave. I'm up at ABC, and I'm going to Base Camp today and [inaudible audio] to get better. We woke up this morning...it's been snowing—it didn't snow a lot, but it's kind of grim...grim and cold. We had like frozen pancake syrup on our pancakes—I mean that's grim. But it's not so bad. Everything's going according to schedule, and we're all staying healthy. So, things are good. Talk to you again soon.

Here is Jake the Snake:

Hey, this is Jake Norton. Same thing with Dave, I'm going down to Base Camp today. Went up to the North Col yesterday, and had the first night of non-rotisserie sleep last night so things are getting better, but it'll be nice to head down to the tropics of Base Camp.

Here's the next person, Thom Pollard:

Hello, this is Thom Pollard. I'm also heading down to Base Camp where it's tropical weather forecasting for our day, and we've been really living it up high up here. The sauna is quite a relaxation for us, and the frozen toes are certainly keeping us with our minds set on Base Camp. We have a good crew up here, a lot of laughs, and sometimes we ask ourselves why we do this. I guess it's because we like to cause ourselves a little self-inflicted pain, but there's a beautiful mountain up there and we hope we can bring you back some photographs of that.

Our next phone call here is from Andy Politz. Here Andy:

Hey this is Andy. Hey, we're sitting in this Weatherport, which is like a Conestoga Wagon built for industrial wind. It's got snow about halfway up the sides. My toes are frozen in my "warm" double boots? Yeah right! I got the lucky straw. These guys are heading down, and I'm up here for about a week. The advantage of that is that I'll be sitting in the kitchen tent, which is nice, comfortable 70° as opposed to this Weatherport, which is like an icebox. So, thanks for listening folks.

Who's next here? Graham, here he is:

Hello, it's Graham Hoyland here, the only Brit in this tent. I'll tell you it's really tough up here. They don't understand. Whenever I ask for tomato sauce or potato crisps, they all look blank. I'm up here trying to make a film about glaciers, Mallory, and Irvine, but shortly, I go back down to Base Camp.

And here's Conrad:

The Outcast, this is Conrad Anker. We just spent the last few days going up to North Col, fixing ropes on a very dry glacier. There hasn't been a lot of snow this winter. It's been a drought, so to say. We have a great group here. I can't figure out why Graham laughs every time I ask him where the fanny pack is. I guess it has something to do with cross-cultural things or something like that. Everything's going well here. The Sherpas are having a bundle of fun, and they're a great link to the culture here. So unless there's anything else from Rongbuk Advanced Base Camp, we're signing off. Have fun. Be good. Be safe, and remember what your mommy says. Talk to you in the morn. Bye.

— Mallory and Irvine Research Team

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