Burleson

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

The South Col (Click for bigger image)

From Burleson's Satellite Call:
Hi, this is Todd. It's the evening of the 19th, about 8 o'clock. I guess it's kind of the moment of truth has arrived here: we're leaving for summit attempt tomorrow morning. Everybody is in really good spirits. There are people on the Col [South Col, 26,300'] right now. Three Icelanders gone up a couple days ago, and they're on the Col right now. My last report was they reached the Col about 3:30pm in good conditions -- no wind -- and then about 5 or 6pm they were in 40 mile per hour winds on the Col which is probably a little bit out of range for them to attempt a summit. [BULLETIN: at 10am PST, The Mountain Zone received word that three Icelanders, three members of John Tinker's British OTT team, and three sherpa were preparing to leave the South Col for a summit bid. We will keep you posted on their progress if information becomes available.]

You know, who knows exactly how fast the winds are blowing up there, but if that's the case, it's definitely the time to move. We've got, looks like hopefully, some decreasing winds. The weather forecasts are not fantastic, but we will move up because they also seem to be somewhat incorrect. So, we're going to move up and see what we can't figure out and try and get up this thing.

The famous 5-ladder section in the Ice Fall. Click for a bigger image.

All of our radio communications will be recorded by Freddy [the team scientist] here in Base Camp, and played to The Mountain Zone to put on the Website. So, hopefully, you'll be able to stay right with us, even as we start climbing through the Ice Fall tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the 20th. We'll go to Camp II [21,500' at the top of the Western Cwm]. Depending on conditions and how we feel, we may or may not take a rest day. We'd prefer to take a rest day there just to see how we feel because we haven't been up high in such a long time. And most likely, we will. So, if we take a rest day, that would be the 21st, the 22nd we would go to III [Camp III, 23,500' on the Lhotse Face], on the 23rd we would go to the Col, and on the 24th we would summit. So, our goal is to summit on the 24th at this time, or possibly the 23rd. We are prepared to wait out at least two or three more days until the 26th if we need to.

Climbing Sherpa, Danu, showing off the 15 year old boots he swears by and intends on wearing to the summit.

Hopefully we will be radioing you from the summit and getting you some video at some point. We'll send some down in the next day or so from up above. But anyway, we are on our way to the top and we hope to take Mountain Zone all the way with us. And Microsoft Explorer and everybody else that's helped us along the way. Companies like One Sport, who have given many trekking shoes to the Sherpas. That's been a real big treat for them -- they've really been thrilled with that. They love me reading the email to them sometimes, too. They love to see what the rest of the world has to say about what they're doing.

But anyway, we will head out tomorrow. The gang gets up about 3am and will head out. I usually leave an hour or two later just because I move quickly on my own and catch them, and I like to sleep in. But I'll be leaving by 5am or so. We will be on our way and hopefully will be in Camp II by about noon, and hopefully, during our climb up, we will be recording and being able to transmit to The Mountain Zone. We hope that on our summit day, and the night before, that we are literally live on The Mountain Zone. Soon as we speak, Freddy will have the phone running which hopefully will be transferred right onto the Website. So, it should be exciting on summit day, and hopefully, when we say we are on the top, you'll be there listening.

Talk to you soon. Take care, and we will talk to you from the summit of Mount Everest. Bye.

-- Todd Burleson, Expedition Leader