Ready to Go!

Well its been a long trip of preparation, planning, travel, trekking, and
acclimitization to be here and now. Everything is ready to go for Everest.
Now its just a little waiting till we have a solid weather window. Everyone
is watching our forecasts for some break in the high winds that have been
pounding Everest for a week. There is a forecast for the winds to drop
starting the 23rd om May. Right now the Jet Stream is park right over the
mountain and weaving back and forth near the summit. And Everest sits right
up in the Jet Stream so its been quite exciting watching the winds hammer
the whole upper mountain.

Life here in Base Camp is quite comfortable. Cocktail hour at 4 with
appitizers, 2 heaters going off. Supper good shower and lots of interesting
hikes in the area to stay fit and entertained. Today we went up to Pumori
Camp 1 at around 19,500 ft. Fantastic views across the Khumbu Glacier to
Everest, Nuptse and Lhotse. Could see the entire North Ridge on the Tibet
side as well. Perfect day down low here.

SO all is good, will be going up in the next few days and as soon as were
back down, will post hopefully some photos from the summit! This will be my
5th summit if all goes well!

Photo from up on Pumori today!

Cheers to All,

Scott

Waiting in Base Camp......

Back in Base Camp and playing the waiting game now. Have been following all
the forecasts closely. Back a couple days ago from a super good break down
in Dingboche. Right now our Sherpa team is also taking a well deserved break
before we all move up for our summit go. Everything on the mountain is
completely set to go. Very little for the sherpas to take up to be ready for
the summit. So everyone is ready. The team is healthy and strong. So we only
have a little bit to wait as the forecasts are starting to look like a solid
window starting around the 22nd and 23rd. We have no set plans at this point
as we have till 5 days before to commit on a date. Any plans farther out are
more just wishful thinking. So we'll stay here. Everyone here in camp is
looking at a small break in the high winds that have been hammering the
upper mountain starting around the 16th. It does look like a decrease coming
in the winds that may allow some smaller/faster teams to blast up in. We
feel its to small, colder, lower success and higher risk to try with our
team. Patience is important as there is a tremendous incentive to push after
being in camp for a long time. Many teams here arrived in some cases over 2
weeks before we did in Base Camp. That makes for a very long trip waiting.
Today is our first actual waiting day of the expedition. Theres been lots of
stories of destroyed tents up in Camp 2 and from over on the North side. So
things have been a bit on the wild side the last few days. Even here in Base
Camp we had a few gusts approaching 50 shaking things up. We took down our
C2 tents 2 days ago so everything in our Camp 2 is good to go. We have a
Mountain Hardware Stronghold Dome tent in C2 that has proven to be
incredibly strong.

So this is one of the tougher parts of the trip, waiting and watching as the
season gets close to the end. A lot of anxiety watching and waiting. It's a
fine needle to thread between the start of the Monsoon and the end of the
high winds of May. We are looking for the big fluffy pre-monsoon cumulus
clouds to start floating around Everest as the jet stream pulls back. Then
off we go! Stay tuned!

Scott Reporting from Everest Base Camp!

Everest 2010

Hi All!

Up here at Camp 2, 21,500 ft. Life is good. Just wanted to stay in touch
with everyone. Our team this year is looking solid. Right now we are
spending some time here to acclimatize on our second rotation up high. I
have been posting reports and photos at
http://exploreyourplanet2009.blogspot.com/ and
http://mteverest2010.blogspot.com/ .

The schedule is going well, only one day behind last year. The weather has
been outstanding so far! Expecting some changes with that in the next week.
So in the next few days we will be ready for our third and hopefully summit
go. Yahoo!

Just wanted to say hi to everyone back home and hope all is well. I should
be back around June 6th, hopefully after my 5th summit with any luck!! And
with 5 months off this time, and it will be summer! Missing being home in
Hood River and everyone there!

Cheers,

Scott from Camp 2 on Everest!

R and R in Dingboche!

Down to low altitude for some Rest and Recovery from being up high on
Everest for quite awhile. The team is good, everyone is doing super well and
being down to lower altitudes is just what the doc ordered. Photo of Doc
Peter Hackett, Bill and Scott having cinnamon rolls in Dingboche. We are
going backup to Base Camp over the next few days. Some of our sherpa team is
also down for a rest before the summit push. Everything is completely set
for the summit go rightnow. Over 70 bottles of Oxygen is now parked at high
Camp, Camp 3 is in and ready. So not much left to do but go for a hike up to
the top now! Stay tuned close as this is it and off we go!

Scott Woolums reporting from Dingboche, 14,000 ft.