Apa Sherpa at age 47 made his 20th summit with the Eco Everest teamand on the other side of the mountain, 13 year-old Jordan Romero alongwith his dad and Sherpa team made the top of the world, his 6th of the7 summits. What a day.
Jordan showed his strength by going directly from camp 2 to thesummit. I am not sure of the exact time but believe it was around 9hours. They are reported to be back at camp 2 and will descend to ABC.
The SPOT technology and the map produced by ESRI worked extremelywell. There were only a few times when a signal was not plotted on themap – two periods of about 45 minutes, which was probably due to theline of site being blocked to the satellite. But the world watched asthe flashing red dot moved in a steady pace.
Yet with all this excitement, many other “mere mortals” alsosummited including elite Sherpa climber Ang Dorge Sherpa who made his14th summit with ϳԹ Consultants. With the AC team was MandyRamsden, 1st South African woman to complete the 7 Summits.
With the Eco Everest team were the youngest Indian climber everArjun Vajpai at age 16 and David Liano, who intended to climbed Everestfrom both sides but became ill and had to go back to Kathmandu duringhis north attempt, was cleared, and returned to the south to climb withApa Sherpa!
Also on that team were two members of the Finnish team: Timo Jaatien and Mika Pitkamaki plus 9 Sherpas.
There were many more summits Saturday morning, including the largeHimex team.
With excellent conditions and a successful summit wave the previousday, new teams are now leaving the high camps once again on Saturdayevening, May 22nd to the top of the world.
On the north, there are a large number of climbers heading higherincluding ϳԹ Peaks and 7 Summits Club are at Camp 3 for a fewhours. There were 100 climbers reported at the North Col a day ago.
On the south, several teams are at the South Col. AAI will spend 24hours there and go for the top Sunday night. They report lite winds andmild temps as well.
Altitude Junkies, Peak Freaks, IMG, Mountain Trip and the PatagoniaBrother's team are going up today, Saturday. Also Melissa Arnot,climbing without supplemental oxygen is there with her teammate DaveMorton.
Chad Kellogg is on his speed attempt today (Saturday) aiming for around trip in around 30 hours from the South Base Camp. He will dependon Sherpas at several camps to melt snow for water. Obviously he willhave to maneuver around the other climbers.
There are some teams who took a wait and see approach to the weather. Duncan Chessell put it well:
Waiting Waiting GOING UP FOR SUMMIT on 25th of May. The persistent high winds have held back many teams, including us. Thishas caused over 100 climbers to aim for the 23rd of May and asignificant number for the 24th. We have been on HOLD in ABC until thislogjam of people clears and we are hoping for favourable conditions onthe 25th of May as our planned summit date. ABC has been trashed byhigh winds for the last week and finally today there is a respite. OurNorth Col camp at 7050m suffered more damage with a further two brandnew tents destroyed by wild wind gusts.
Duncan, said he will look for Irvine's camera on his way up.
Climb On!
Alan