Monday, May 15, 2017

South side has first summits

Some very good news out of Nepal.  Asian Trekking announced that 14 people reached the Summit of Everest at 1:15pm local after fixing lines from the Balcony all the way to the summit.  It looks like 11 of the 14 where Sherpas and I'm guessing the others were affiliated with Asian atrekking in some way.

In any event, a key bottleneck has been removed and the prepared climbing teams just need a weather window to take their shot.  We obviously don't have access to the forecasting resources the Everest teams do, but web based forecasts look pretty favorable, especially early next week.

Anders is waiting at EBC for his teammates to return from Pangboche, which should be tomorrow.  I'm not sure what their plans will be but one scenario would have them leave around the 18th for a 21st/22nd summit attempt.  I'm just speculating here, as I'm sure there is plenty of discussion among the team leaders on how to best manage a lot of climbers who've been waiting for a window.

More as we hear more!

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