Simonson

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Base Camp

Hello, this is Eric Simonson calling from Cho Oyu Base Camp. I'm happy to report that the IMG Cho Oyu Expedition successfully reached Base Camp yesterday, and that everything is going just fine. Our Sherpa team came up the day before and set all of our tents up for us. So, it was great to roll into a camp that was already prepared.

We managed yesterday afternoon to get our communications tent up and put out our solar panels and batteries and get them charging. And today, we have our phone working...hopefully. So, this will be our first dispatch from the mountain. Later today, we'll see if we can send some digital photos to you so you can see just what it looks like.

Tibetan Mother

We are camped at about 16,000 feet in the Gyabrag Glacier Valley. The site that we're camped on is grassy. There are some yak herders grazing around here—their animals—as well as some local, nomadic people that bring their sheep herds up here to graze them during the summertime. We were the first expedition up here, but since our Sherpas got here, another team has rolled in of Japanese climbers.

We are expecting our 30 yaks to arrive today. And we will be preparing our yak loads today in preparation for sending our first herd of yaks up to ABC [Advanced Base Camp] tomorrow. So, 30 yaks tomorrow, along with a few of the Sherpas to accompany them, and then they'll come back down the next day. The rest of us will head up after that.

That's about it for now. Everything is going well. We'll try to send some photos a little later. Goodbye.

— Eric Simonson, MountainZone.com Correspondent

EXPEDITION DISPATCHES