Burleson

Click to hear Todd Burleson's audio dispatch recorded over sat-phone.

Tents at Camp II (Click for bigger image)

From Burleson's Satellite Call:
Hi, this is Todd. It's May 16th about 9:30pm; Everest Base Camp. Things are good here again. Unfortunately, the weather has not made any improvements. In fact, last night and all this morning until about 11am our time, the winds were very, very high in Camp II [21,500']. About 15 to 20 tents were lost in Camp II today across all the expeditions. Our cook tent was ripped open and collapsed, but we will be able to fix that -- none of the poles are broken. There's three Sherpa staying up at Camp III right now. They went up and collapsed our personal tents and buried them in rocks. And our dining tent, which is very, very solid is ok, and everything's been put inside there. But it looks like the Russians, and maybe the Canadians and a few other teams lost several tents.

Dawa

I guess it was just a horrendous wind storm up there. My cook, Dawa, in Camp II, has been there many years and said it was the windiest storm he has ever seen in his life at Camp II.

So the winds are very high. We could look up today and see them, boy, they even look like they're moving 150 miles per hour. It's just amazing; it's like fast-motion tv the way the clouds just fly across the sky.

Things are pretty calm in base today. Things are good here. Life goes on as usual. We're still trying to get ready to go to the summit. Everything is prepared -- waiting for the weather forecasts. We hope to get another weather forecast in the morning that will show some change in the future. We will let you know as soon as that happens.

All the Sherpa seem in good spirits. People need to get out and get exercise. Charles took a long walk today up to Pumori Base Camp. It's good to get out and get exercise. Even though it's only been an extra week since we came up from Pheriche, that week seems like a year sometimes because of the altitude. We're hoping that there is going to be a break soon, and we can get up this thing.

Hope that everbody is good at The Mountain Zone. So, from all of us at Base Camp, good night. Talk to you tomorrow. Bye.

-- Todd Burleson, Expedition Leader