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This is Eric Simonson reporting from Advanced Base Camp at Mt. Everest on the 13th of May. I want to bring you all up to speed on what's been going on the last couple days and what we are now doing.

We took a rest day after the Ukrainian rescue and yesterday put in the plans for our renewed searching and summit bids. Yesterday our climbing team moved to the North Col and spent the night there. The team was composed of Tap, and Jake, and Conrad, Andy, and Dave, and also Thom in support doing high altitude video photography.

After a good night at the Col last night, they headed for Camp V today, and as we speak, they are en route to Camp V. Also today, our Sherpa team headed for the Col, and tomorrow, seven of them will push to Camp VI as will the climbers, who will be leaving from Camp V.

The plan is that three of the Sherpas: Dawa, Ang Pasang, and Tashi, will stay at Camp V along with five climbers: Tap, Jake, Conrad, Andy, and Dave, and that eight of them will be then in position the next day to push for the summit. The plan is to search along the way near the First Step for oxygen bottles that we think may have been left by the early British—possibly the 1924 climb—and also other evidence of the Mallory and Irvine summit climb.

Additionally, the climbing team hopes to do some additional searching in the vicinity of Camp VI and hopefully have a chance to, on their way down, swing over towards the 1924 High Camp and look some more for Andrew Irvine.

Obviously, all this is going to be dependent on a few things including the weather, and the health of the group, and how everybody does. But we have a good strong team up there now and even if a couple of them get sick or have to come down, we'll still have a viable team to do our searching and make our summit bids. Obviously, Conrad is super psyched to try the Second Step, which he's had his eye on now for the whole trip and that also is going to be one of the goals on the summit climb.

We're really watching the weather now. The weather right now is not all that great, but it's predicted to improve, and here on the North Ridge sometimes you have to push up in marginal conditions in order to put yourself in position to take advantage of better weather later. And that's exactly what we're doing right now.

The weather right now is a little windy and snowing, and tomorrow may not be all that great either. But if this darn forecast is to be believed, it's supposed to be improving in a couple of days.

So knock on wood, that's the story here from ABC and I'll be letting you know what's going on over the next couple days. Okay, thanks a lot. Goodbye.

—Eric Simonson, Expedition Leader

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