the ice fall

Bruce called quite late on Wednesday night. It was about 11:30 a.m. Thursday for him when he called and they were just about to hike over to the base of the ice fall to get a good look at it in the daylight, because that night at midnight they were going to start hiking through it to get to Camp One, then on to Camp Two, and possibly even Camp Three for the climbers who were feeling well acclimated enough. This was going to be over the course of a few days, of course, and they were going to be carrying a fair amount of gear up to the higher camps. He wasn't going to take the satellite phone with him, but will call when they get back to base camp (possibly next Wednesday?) and then will take it with him when they go up again.

He said that the whole group was feeling a little anxious about this first trip through the ice fall. I can't even imagine doing it in the dark, but I guess they needed an early start -- I had been asleep when he called and didn't get up to take notes like I usually do, so I'm a little fuzzy about the details here. A little anxiety is not necessarily a bad thing -- it will certainly make them more careful -- but I have to say that when I went to the internet to throw some pictures of the ice fall on here, I had a little anxiety of my own.

I'm estimating they're on their way to Camp Two right now, and I'm sure I would have heard if there was any problem, so no news is good news. We're sort of getting down to the wire on the timing now. I know that Everest has been summited as early as May 1st in the past, however it's usually during the second or third week of May, so it won't be too long now. I'll post again when he calls next week.