The Balcony at 27,500' on the summit climb

The summit team, which consisted of three Indonesians, three Russians (including Anatoli Boukreev who was acting as the "lead climbing consultant" to the team,) and a number of sherpas, left the South Col for their summit bid at 1am, Saturday morning (Nepal time). At 2:40pm, the first sherpa reached the summit, and team members were still summiting as late as 3:45pm. The common turnaround time on Everest is 1pm which means if climbers haven't reached the summit by then, they begin descending anyway to insure they reach Camp IV on the South Col before nightfall and before their oxygen runs out. At 8pm Saturday night (Nepal time), as winds picked up in the dark, the Indonesians in Base Camp had not heard from the climbing team.

Burleson says aside from the wind, weather has been uncommonly quiet in the last two days, and that it is clear over Everest now but that temperatures up high had undoubtedly been in the -30F to -40F range overnight. He also speculated that unless the Indonesians left stashes of oxygen along the route, they have run out long ago. The feeling of running out of supplemental oxygen above the South Col on Everest has been described as that of hitting a wall -- all of a sudden it's very difficult to breath. Burleson says given a choice, caught at that altitude overnight, he'd rather have oxygen than a sleeping bag. It is believed that sherpas on the Indonesian expedition are attempting to bring more oxygen to the climbers now.

We'll keep you posted when new information is available.

-- Anya Zolotusky, The Mountain Zone