Featured Expedition: 2003 American Ski Everest Expedition
Dispatch 18 Continued

Tim Carson Copyright©Jim Gile American Ski Everest 2003

Dispatch 18 Continued: (Transcribed from satellite phone voice message, so if it sounds like he is talking, not writing, he is...)

American Ski Everest Expedition... May 4th.

Mike calling again. We were just finishing up lunch, coming to our tents. Things are reaching a critical stage here at ABC. A gust of wind, had to be a 100 mph, swept though camp and knocked me on my knees. I looked up and saw, no less than 4 full sized tents flying though the air. One of them stands out in my mind. In was a red tent flying probably 50-100 feet in the air flying down the glacier and hits the seracs below, exploded, and a duffel bag fell out. We went down and looked at the bag, it probably weighed 50lbs, it happened to be Dick Bass's bag.

It is quite a scene up here. Global Extremes, part of Russ Brice's expedition this year, base camp is pretty well decimated. The Swiss camp is pretty well decimated too. The few people who are up here are just working to maintain their own tents.

So far we are lucky. I think the climbing ropes are really paying off. I don't think many people even bring climbing ropes to Everest anymore. Because it is all fixed [the route]. But we have probably 500 feet of climbing ropes with us and we have tied everything down and we are just waiting it out. It is not a life or death situation here at ABC.

There is going to be number of people down at base camp who are going to be very disappointed when they finally make it up here. It has been quite a ripper than have come though ABC here at 21000 feet.

We will keep you up to date. Mike

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