Everest 2002 Expedition Report April 11th, 2002

A great day here at Base Camp. We left early yesterday for our first trip up through the icefall to Camp 1 at around 20,000 ft. It was a long day as Camp 1 is 2500 ft. above base camp with a difficult approach; possibly some of the most difficult  sections of the whole climb!

This is the section of ladders, teetering ice towers, and steep ice steps. Going through the icefall, we followed the route that the "Ice Doctors" establish for all the teams on the mountain. They do a great job of keeping the route open throughout the season for all teams. Still every day you come to sections that have collapsed over the last 24 hours and a new route has to be set. While up high yesterday, a small part of a serac (huge block of ice) collapsed a couple hundred yards away shaking everything. Definitely scary as you never know if the whole thing will go, including the area you are in! Jack, Jason, and I made it to camp 1; Bruno turned around a bit early and went down with Willie, our partner here from the Alpine 8000 team. After dropping some equipment we turned around and headed back to Base Camp.

Today is a full rest day at base. A chance to wash clothes, take showers, recharge radios and computers, sort food for the higher camps, update our web site and relax in the sun. We are one of the first teams with members to reach Camp 1. Our Sherpa team established a good spot for what will be Camp 2 at 21,500 ft. So things are starting to roll!

Life here is always busy with friends from other teams stopping in, equipment to check, food to sort, etc. Avalanches go off every 2 to 3 hours from Pumori, Lingtren, Everest, and Nuptse; some are quite large and go off for a long time.

So it’s never boring even though we are here for almost 2 months. There are around 12 teams on the mountain now, although it’s not crowded while climbing.  There are teams from Iran, France, Switzerland, Korea, and a number of teams from the USA. Most of the commercial trips are from the US. The weather pattern has been super consistent: perfect clear mornings, hot and sunny mid days, followed by a slow building of cumulus from the south that snows 2 to 6 inches late every afternoon. By noon the next day all the snow is gone.

We are planning 2 days off here, maybe a third, then we’ll move up to Camp 1 for a couple days. Everyone needs the rest after our climb yesterday. Each time up we can move a little quicker as we acclimatize to the higher altitude. Everyone is always fighting their own battle with the thin air and breathing. As we get higher this will be one of the more difficult things we each face. By camp 4 we will be using Oxygen for support.

Thanks for following our expedition. We plan to continue a steady stream of reports from Base Camp with photos from the mountain as we go. We do not unfortunately have a full time base camp person just doing updates, but we should have very consistent reports throughout the season after each foray up.

Scott Woolums Adventures International Inc. 

Dispatches