Written report translated from audio report:
“Hello Everyone!
Well I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing predictable about the weather is that it is totally unpredictable. I arrived up here at advanced base camp the day before yesterday and my plan, as you know from my earlier posts, was to head up to the summit the day after tomorrow. Well today, the winds have picked up considerably, in fact they’re pretty ferocious up high on the mountain, driving most of the teams down, and predicted, in quotes, by the weather reports that I’m getting and that others are getting, that the winds are likely to stay high for the next several days. To make matters worse, the Chinese fixing teams are still parked back down at base camp, and I can’t go anywhere here at advanced base camp on up to the summit until the lines are fixed, no point in moving up if I am just going to sit there. It’s kind of discouraging, but it’s all going to work out for the best I’m sure, and I’m not going to let myself get down over it, or at least too down over it.
Everybody’s up here now, I’m with Doug and Aboul, and I think they’re going to be heading up to North Col tomorrow and then come back down or maybe spend the night there, I’m not sure. So that’s the situation here, it’s kind of touch and go. Day to day we’re watching the weather and waiting for the Chinese teams to get here to fix the lines.
I understand there was a summit yesterday on the south side, I don’t know who, and I don’t know whether the lines were fixed on the south side, I presume they were, and there were a couple of additional summits today from the south side I’m hearing from our radio reports that we receive from our team on the south side of the mountain in Nepal. So that’s the current status, to wait and see. I understand there was a death on the south side. He was a California man. So so very,very sad. My heart goes out to his family, and may God take his soul. I don’t know any of the details, …. I got the report from my wife who read it on one of the websites. So very sad about that. So I’m heading down for dinner, it’s evening here May 7th, and I’ll give you a shout as soon as there’s anything to report. Bye.”