Featured Expedition: 2003 American Ski Everest Expedition
Dispatch One: March 27, 2003

Copyright©Jim Gile American Ski Everest 2003

All equipment and food packouts are complete, and today the team doc and medic finalized the medical haul bag. After two and a half years and a life of dreaming, we are a go and heading to Everest.

The team is a dream team not based on climbing resumes or sponsor lists, but rather due to the familiarity of each other; this is a brother-like bunch of friends heading for yet another climbing trip. When I think about the lifetime we have all spent together on countless peaks over the years, I guess this should not come as a surprise. But hey, this is Everest, and just the name itself brings a connotative impressiveness that make this really special. We have prepared well, mentally and physically, and this has the ingredients to be a super fun trip. With total appreciation for what we are up against, it is time to get to work. From all the climbs and skis before, we can not afford to loose the lesson, and with that in mind, we are off.

It should be interesting. We look forward to keeping everestnews.com up to speed on our progress, and will do our best, with this our first cyber coverage, to make the dispatches interesting. It is a pleasure to have EverestNew.com cover us, and we hope to keep up with their top shelf coverage of high mountain coverage.

Cheers, Mike

Dispatches