Everest 2002 Expedition Report May 8th, 2002

Our team is all down now recovering from being up high for awhile. The low altitude air here at Basecamp (17,500 ft) feels great. Our Sherpa team finished putting in our Camp 4 at the South Col yesterday, so everything is ready for our summit attempt. Just need some recovery time before going up high again. Our Sherpas will be down today and also need a well deserved rest. They normally take 5 or more days off before we all start back for the summit push.

Have heard reports that the Korean Team may be trying the summit today, looks pretty good up there too. Several other teams are also lining up to go up very soon, probably before we will try. Lots of different strategies in play right now. Our whole team is dropping down to the village of Dingboche to speed up our recovery from being high. Even at basecamp here, your body is slowly deteriorating or is just not bouncing back fast enough. So most teams after acclimatizing will go down to lower altitudes to refresh and recover.

We are a team of 3 at this point, Jason Rodi, Jack Gerstien and myself. The Alpine 8000 team of Willie Benegas, Robert Geier, Maria Maccecchini will also be going up with us. We are hoping to be back here at basecamp on the 11th, and then we’ll start looking seriously at the weather. Things will happen fast from here on. We’re all really excited and feeling ready to go after a short break.

Namaste from all of us here at Basecamp.

Scott Woolums
Adventures International Inc.

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