Simonson

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Hello, this is Eric Simonson from ABC [Advanced Base Camp] on Cho Oyu, reporting on our activities over the last couple days. We had a really good trip up to Camp I, two days ago. The whole group made it up there, and we spent the night at Camp I in four Mountain Hardwear Trango tents — three of us in each tent.

It was a great shakedown for the group. We were able to practice our skills at cooking in the tents, which is something we're going to have to do higher up on the mountain. And also just keeping track of tent organization, which is really important when you're living in tents at high altitude. Just having the things you need and nothing superfluous and being able to take care of all your equipment and gear and what not. It all proved to be a valuable exercise.

The next morning was really beautiful and we started working up the ridge above Camp I. Along the way we fixed several hundred meters of fixed rope, using buried snow pickets because the snow was fairly soft. It was a gorgeous morning for climbing and we were the first people of the season up the ridge, so it made it really special and it was virgin terrain from the standpoint of us.

We made it part of the way up and then cached our loads, which included another 800 meters of fixed rope and about 20 snow pickets. And then we headed back down to Camp I, where we picked up some of our gear and then descended to Advanced Base Camp in a snowstorm yesterday afternoon. Today we've been taking a rest day, and it was really pretty this morning, so many of us washed clothes and used our shower tents to take some baths in and basically took care of some personal things.

Our Sherpas went up to Camp I yesterday afternoon — in fact, we passed them on our way down — and spent the night. And this morning they headed up the ridge and picked up all the fixed rope that we had dropped below the ice cliff and this morning they were able to fix the route up over the ice cliff and this afternoon have been working on fixing into Camp II.

We talked to them at 12 noon and they said it was pretty slow going, with a lot of soft, deep snow. They've been fixing as they go, and we're hoping that they're going to make it into Camp II today. Regardless, they'll be descending tonight to Camp I and then, tomorrow, trying again to get to Camp II with some of our tents and to finish, if necessary, fixing the route to Camp II. So hopefully, by tomorrow night, we'll have at least some of our camp established there at a little over 23,000ft at Camp II.

Our plan is to take one more rest day tomorrow and then to head back up to Camp I the next day, and then the next day to push into Camp II ourselves and finish establishing that Camp and also spend the night there, for acclimatization.

So, in a nutshell, everything is going very well and everybody's healthy and strong. And we're just waiting for the monsoon to finish. It seems that every day we're getting some snow in the afternoon and the weather still isn't stable, so we're hoping that about the time we get into position, the weather's going to break and we'll have good weather for our summit bid. But until then, it's still a little bit...[Transmission Fails]

— Eric Simonson, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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