Dan Mazur's Kangchenjunga Spring 2002

Dispatch March 21st, 2002: We awoke early, and Richard and Pemba and Michael set off for the summit. It was warm and sunny with a light wind. We saw an amazing view from our camp 2 at 6850 meters, comprising what we thought to be Everest, Makalu, and Shishapangma. Martha felt better, and Dan and Pinso stood outside, watching the progress of the summit team. They thought they saw another group heading for the summit at the same time! It turned out to be an optical illusion. Richard came back toward them around mid-day, saying he had "run out of steam". Eventually, all four, Pinso, Richard, Martha, and Dan, descended back to basecamp, while Michael and Pemba carried on toward the summit. Dan and Jean-Christophe (in basecamp) kept in touch with the summit team via walkie-talkie radio. Andrew Bruske decided to leave basecamp today and head to Lhasa, sadly his aggravated knee was acting up, perhaps in an old volleyball way, and his cough did not seem to be responding all that well to the antibiotics. The team was pretty well able to say good bye to Andrew over the walkie-talkie radio. And it was a sad goodbye, as it had been with Brian Mertes and Antonis and Dimitris. It seemed the team was breaking apart just as the climbing was getting good. Well, the four headed back to basecamp, and were very happy to be reunited with Jean Christophe, and extremely proud to hear Michael announce on the walkie talkie that he had reached the summit at 1645 pm, together with Pemba. Michael said he would stay up in camp 2 until the following day, but Pemba decided to run down to basecamp in a two-hour sprint. In the way only a Tibetan mountain climber can do. Back in basecamp, the team toasted Michael and Pemba's success, and hoped to place many more members on the summit, after  some days of rest.

Thank you very much. Cheers for now. Yours
Sincerely, Daniel Mazur from http://www.SummitClimb.com

Dispatches