Burleson

Click to hear Todd Burleson's audio dispatch recorded over sat-phone.
From Burleson's Satellite Call:
Things are great here. I'm in Base Camp [17,500']. It's a beautiful day. The Ice-Fall looks great -- sounds like it's a little harder than last year. There was a very, very tricky and kind of dangerous five-ladder section, but I heard that had collapsed last night. So the sherpas and maybe a few climbers are up there re-setting it. I'm sure it's reset by now -- it's about 11 or 12 noon our time.

Basecamp is great; everyone is in good health. We're starting to look at the GPS and get things squared around. [Click here to learn more about the science experiments the team will help conduct from the summit of Everest.] I just had a shower, and life is great.

We had a wonderful puja yesterday. All the sherpas came down, and it was really beautiful -- a lot of blessings. We each got a sindiu -- a string we tie around our necks to help protect us while we climb.

We've got about 20 solar panels laying around here charging batteries. We just go all our 12-volt batteries to work. We're the highest camp up on the moraine, so from our Base Camp, we can look down onto all the other camps. And looking down now from where I'm sitting, I see hundreds of prayer flags hanging from at least a dozen prayer poles that are up. It's really beautiful here. Base Camp seems clean.

People on the mountain are good. Most people are in Camp II [21,000'] and Camp I [19,500']. We're still in base; we'll probably go up in two days. Camp III [23,500'] has been established. The route to the South Col [26,300'] has been established also. The Indonesians put that in -- their Indonesian military team, and Anatoli Boukreev is working with them.

We have sherpa going up to Camp II today to stay and start chopping platforms. And then two sherpa will go up and mark off our spot at Camp III. So, things are moving very quickly. We have a very strong sherpa team -- 17 climbing sherpa. So, in two days we were able to move our tents and a fair amount of our rations up the mountain -- we're moving very quickly. Everybody's health is great.

Today I'll go down and visit with some of the other expeditions. I'll have to go down to the Malaysians and give them some oxygen demonstrations. [The Malaysian team purchased their oxygen from Burleson Industries / POISK.]

Pete Athans and Dave Breashears -- I haven't talked to them yet -- I saw them walk by. Sounds like they're doing a lot of filming, and things are good with them. Not a lot else going on in Base Camp. Still, we're waiting for the Italians to show up -- other than that every other expedition is here and moving well.

Our big goal now is to get all of our high-tech guys here to get the digital images coming. Then you could see what we're talking about. It's beautiful here. Talk to you soon. Bye.

(While the AAI team sets up their equipment, you can see digital images sent from Base Camp over the last few days by Jim Bruton: [First Look at the Ice Fall] [Prayer Flags in Base Camp] [Avalanche Above Camp].)

-- Todd Burleson, Expedition Leader