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Monday 15th May 2000 - Kangchenjunga Base Camp
On 13th May we summited on the mountain, the message is obviously getting around
as we have been receiving a steady flow of congratulatory emails for which we are
enormously grateful. Unfortunately we were unable to get any digital pictures from
the summit (the camera does not work well at -37C!), only ordinary slide film. We
may be able to get some later this week but failing that we will aim to develop the
film in Kathmandu and scan pictures onto the website before we depart Nepal.
Today James, Aleck, Larry and Roddy moved up to Camp 2, whilst Dan, Ian, Dave Pearce
and Colin moved up to Camp 3. At the 1400 radio check Ian reported that the latter
will move up to Camp 4 at 0500 tomorrow ready to move off at about 0200 on Wednesday
for a summit bid. All are in good health and are firmly focussed on the task ahead.
The weather was good this morning and remains satisfactory for a summit bid although
some cloud has started to build up from the South this afternoon which is not a good
sign.
Alan Hinkes had lunch with us today and spent most of this afternoon grilling John
and Ady about conditions on the mountain and getting as much information as possible
in preparation for his summit bid, which could be as early as this week.
The expedition leader is busy juggling a number of balls at the moment; co-ordinating
events on the mountain; planning the evacuation from Base Camp to Kathmandu (via
a 6 day trek to Suketar) of 13 team members plus 1245kg of accoutrements and the
movement of 1300 kg of expedition equipment plus the Sirdar and 2 Sherpas by Helicopter
from Base Camp to Kathmandu.
Today's pictures show Dave Pearce in his Patra Silk Underwear at Camp 3 (7,150 metres) and Colin Scott, Andy Hughes and Dave Pearce at Camp 3 on 13th May monitoring the summit bid.
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