100mph winds of the jet-stream touch down on the summit days ago. [Click for bigger image]

Trying to stagger the traffic, climbers began their bids as early as 10:45pm local time the night before, with David Breashears and his NOVA team, Pete Athans, Ed Viesturs, and Guy Cotter's New Zealand team arriving at the summit around 7am. It's as early a summit time as we've heard of, and while the teams encountered extreme cold at the summit at that time of day, they had barely any wind and successfully avoided a traffic jam on the fixed lines. Experience and strong climbing got those teams up and back to the South Col quickly and safely.

Breashears and Viesturs, who are a part of a NOVA high-altitude physiology study, completed psychometric testing from the summit answering a number of word-problems over the radio administered by their team doctor in Base Camp to determine how cognitive response is affected by altitude. This is the fifth time at the summit for both Viesturs and Athans, and the fourth for Breashears.

Breashears reported on the NOVA site (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/nova/everest/index.html) that the moon had been so bright, they'd climbed through the early morning without using head-lamps. For the sake of physiology testing, Viesturs climbed with bottled oxygen this year and complained at the summit about the extra weight. (There are few people in the world who could attempt an oxygen-less ascent of Everest -- Ed Viesturs prefers it.) At the summit, they soon got very cold and began a rapid descent.

Also in the fast lane to the summit were two Canadian climbers, Jamie Clarke and Alan Hobson with a team Sherpa, all of whom had descended to their high camp by early afternoon as well. Two other Canadian climbers had to turn around about half way up form the Col because of relatively minor altitude related illnesses. They are both fine and resting at Camp II for the night.

Malaysian teammates in Base Camp celebrate their country's first summit. (Photo captured from live video streamed by Jim Bruton over the Web.)

The Malaysian team made the first successful summit climb for their country arriving on top at about 11:30am Nepal time. They transmitted a couple minutes of live video from the South Summit (28,700') but found conditions too windy to set up the antennas at the summit and send video from there as they had hoped. Their massive technological support in Base Camp, masterminded by consultant Jim Bruton, was geared to transmit video from the top. To much excitement, they proved the concept possible though mostly shared live scenes of celebration in Base Camp (including a sat-phone conversation with the prime minister) over the Web and Malaysian television.

A Mexican member of the Mal Duff team also summited with his Sherpa partner at 9:30 this morning. Exact information on John Tinker's British OTT group which had also made an attempt is not yet available.

Weather reports from the Col continue to be decent, with moderate wind, clouds, and light snowfall. This is a typical late afternoon weather pattern brought about by solar convective heating, and as the night falls and temperatures cool, the clouds should settle and disappear, leaving a brilliant moon to guide our team on their summit attempt in a few hours.

Climbing with Alpine Ascents are guides Eric Simonson and Greg Wilson who stand to become the second and third Americans to accomplish the summit from both the north and south sides. Currently, Ed Viesturs is the only American to have climbed Everest from both Nepal and Tibet.

-- Anya Zolotusky, The Mountain Zone and Freddy Blume, Everest Base Camp