Everest North Side Expedition:  Dick Bass, Jim Wickwire, Dick Bass, John Roskelley

Note there are 2 updates below, they all came at the same time, so we put them up together...

5.09.03 (Friday): "Good evening. This is John Roskelley. I'm at ABC, 21,000 feet. It is Friday, 8 o'clock in the evening. Jess and I came up through ABC yesterday from Base Camp. It took us about 8 hours to make the trip. It's the last time we'll come up here. From this point on we will make our way up to the higher camps and hopefully make a summit attempt sometime between the 16th and the 20th of May."

"Dick Bass and Jim Wickwire have departed and left the expedition for the States. Dick had a bad back and needed some medical attention, and Jim didn't feel like he was acclimatizing appropriately at ABC. We will miss their strength and wish them well and we certainly appreciated their help during this long expedition. That's about it from Advanced Base Camp. I'll keep in touch as the days go by via satellite phone. Have a great day and we'll talk with you soon. Bye Bye."

– John Roskelley

5.11.03 (Sunday): "Happy Mother's Day! This is John, at Advanced Base Camp. It is Sunday, May 11th around 6 o'clock in the afternoon. The temperature is cold today, we had a very clear morning. It would have been a summit morning except for, of course, that nobody's in position because of the wind storm last week."

"Jess and I were up on top of the North Col at 23,000 feet yesterday. We were very lucky. One of our tents had blown away, and the Sherpas couldn't find it, but we spotted it in a large crevasse just below the North Col and I rappelled down into the crevasse and hooked it up with a rope. Jess pulled the tent out with all our gear in it, including my sleeping bag and down gear, and that saved us a lot of headache here in the future."

"There are some teams carrying to 7,800 meters and possibly 8,300 meters in the next few days, and our team will be doing that. The weather report is not promising, because of high winds on the summit. But we might be able to sneak in a summit attempt sometime this coming weekend, if possible. Otherwise we'll have to wait until after the 22nd."

"Hope you had a great Mother's Day, everybody. And I'll keep giving these updates on a (pause) every three of four days. Talk to you soon. Good bye." – John Roskelley

Dispatches