I am now only four hours and about 1,500 feet from Base Camp. The Weather has become what I call Everest Standard. Usually clear and calm in the mornings with clouds rolling up valley after lunch. You can actually see the clouds coming. It is kind of surreal. By 4:00 it is usually cloudy, cold and snowy. By 7:00PM most of the clouds have lifted and eventually the nights will be clear. This is the pattern that helps define our climbing on Everest.

I have been remiss to post because when I got here day before yesterday I was hit with a much more severe stomach problems. I had felt bad in Namche but that was nothing like this. It lasted 24 hours and took me another 24 hours to rehydrate and get back to the 75% I feel today. Most of the rest of the team moved on to Base Camp today. Three of us chose to spend another acclimatization day here. I may even spend another. Our puja is not until the 20^th and none of our team will be going up to sleep before the 22^nd so I have plenty of time. I’m just ready to get to base and settle into my tent. It may not sound as nice but there is a real desire to be settled, have your own space, and not be constantly on the move. A tent is really not that bad when you are not having to share as we will above base camp. I can unpack and put everything in its place.

Apa Sherpa, the old hand on our team with 18 summits and Pertemba our camp sirdar (manager may be the best translation) have jokingly told us we will be on the summit May 16^th. Pertemba is a legend in climbing circles. You can’t read a book on the history of Himalyan climbing that he isn’t featured prominently and Apa Sherpa holds the most summits of anyone so I take his advice pretty seriously as well. It has also been reported that the ice fall is now fixed and the route is very straight forward this year. Our climbing Sherpas have already made one carry of gear to Camp II so we are well on our way. In 2006 I made multiple trips through the ice fall, the stretch between Base and Camp I and the most dangerous section of the climb. This year I intend to make less trips. I just plan for the trips to be longer. Much will depend on my state of health at the time and how well I am acclimatizing. Everyone is different and any number of things can throw off the best plans.

On a positive note some gear I shipped from the US in early March arrived yesterday. Gives a whole new meaning to the term snail mail. I should have paid the extra $200 bucks and shipped it UPS it would have been there in three days instead of five weeks. But what value can you place on all that character building I got from worrying about what black hole my stuff had fallen into. It will now be flown to Lukla and a porter will carry it all the way to base camp for $50 in three days. Half what it cost me to ship it from the US. When it absolutely has to be there hire a Sherpa!

We are now staying in the ECO tea house in Lobuche. This tea house happens to be owned by the outfitter who is handling all the logistics for our climb. The company is called Asian Trekking and is one of the largest in the region. They have impressed me from the onset. Their people are professional, friendly, and genuinely seem to care about the climbers. Ang Tshering the founder is also a legend in climbing circles. His son Dawa Stephen has been on the trek with us and has become a great friend. He has climbed Everest twice including Lhotse a neighboring peak that I believe is the fifth highest mountain in the same season. Dawa Stephen went to business school in Scotland and speaks five languages fluently. At 26 he is an amazing young man. Frankly, AT is the real innovator on the mountain. They have instituted a number of improvements that are setting the standards that the other outfitters are going to have to meet. This year Dawa has had his own base camp tents made and all have a LIGHT. A few years ago he set up a bakery at base camp that has become “the” meeting place. I am very impressed.

I ran into another group this morning which for me shows the ugly side of high altitude mountaineering. This group is with a well know American company. They were originally scheduled to climb Cho Oyu in China. Cho Oyu is the 8^th highest mountain in the world and is consider a relatively safe and easy non-technical climb. When the Chinese closed Tibet to foreigners last month this company redirected this team to Lhotse. Lohtse is the sister peak to Everest and the route follows the same path until Camp III where it finally diverges from the South Col Everest route. The problem is that Lhotse is generally considered much more dangerous and technical than Cho Oyu. I personally would not risk the ice fall except to climb Everest. I don’t know what these people were told but they are paying a lot for added risk to climb a mountain that the average person has never even heard of. “What did you do this summer?” “Oh I climbed Lhotse” “Cool - Is that in Nevada?” For a little more money they could have just gotten an Everest permit and went for the big one. In my erstwhile opinion they should have been directed to Mansalu or had their money refunded. Maybe they were – I’ll post an apology if I learn different. But I doubt it.