Cybercasts

Hello Everyone

We are please to announce that we had a wonderful summit day. The winds cooperated and we had the opportunity to stand on top of the world! It was a great day, as only a few people were on the mountain with us. We are now all the way down at Camp 2.  Tomorrow we will depart early morning for basecamp and then fly back to Kathmandu.

Ben Jones

Hello Everyone,

We got up up got ready for a 10:30pm departure for the summit but didn’t really like what I was seeing.  I had the climbers stay on standby and checked again at 1am.  Pretty high winds at the South Col at 1am, and also a cloud cap on the summit which usually means high winds so I made the call the postpone.  The forecast is slightly better for tonight/tomorrow morning so that will be our summit push.  Sometimes the South Col can be windier than what it is actually a little higher once we start climbing on the triangular face just a few hundred feet above and I am aware of this after 15 years of climbing here, but that didn’t seem like it was the case early this morning.  I wish it were the case because we would have been the only team heading for the summit.  Anyway, we will manage a little more rest today and give it our best shot tonight to go to the summit.  Our climbers and Sherpa are all good, warm and healthy here just probably a little tired of hearing the flapping of our VE25 tents:-).

Thanks for following along,

Ben Jones

Hello Everyone,

We have had a great rest up here at the South Col (26,000ft) and tonight we will try for a summit attempt.  Currently (see photo) it is pretty windy at the South Col and on the summit.  The forecast has been changing a lot over the last several days and so we will give it a shot tonight with higher forecasted winds but if it is too much wind we will return to the South Col and give it one more shot on the 25th which has slightly lower forecasted winds.  On other days where the winds were also forecasted high most people have been reporting that the winds were calmer early in the morning.  So we will leave a little earlier than normal and hope that the winds are a little calmer for the summit.  Luckily we have enough oxygen and food to give it a second shot if tonight is too windy.  I’ll report back tomorrow.

Thanks for following along,

Ben Jones

Hello Everyone, today we climbed from C3 to C4 (South Col) under great weather.  We got an early start and stayed ahead of most of the group making for an enjoyable climb to C4.  It’s a little windy here right now but not too bad.  We will be able to rest all afternoon today and will also be resting tomorrow. I will check back in tomorrow but the team is doing well and happy to be here! 

Ben Jones

Hello Everyone,

Today we moved up to Camp 3 on the Lhotse face at just over 23,000ft.  We are doing well here and enjoyed the days rest.  Tomorrow morning we will climb up to the South Col at almost 26,000ft.  We will rest there for the afternoon and then the following day we will rest before getting ready to depart for the summit somewhere around midnight.

The weather is great here but we are expecting some potential winds on our summit day. Everything else is looking good.

I will check back in tomorrow.

Ben Jones