And So It Begins!

This morning Dave let me know that they have decided to start heading up for their summit bid!  They will leave EBC around 3am and the goal is to make it to camp 2.  Dave has taught me to never get too far ahead of myself on planning out their summit days because there can always be outside factors.  But for those of you that might enjoy speculating and wishful thinking, here is the proposed schedule taken from Larry's earlier FB post:

Day 1: EBC to C2 (May 13)
Day 2: Rest (May 14)
Day 3: Move to C3 - start O2 (May 15)
Day 4: Move to South Col (C4) (May 16)
Day 5: Summit, descend as low as possible, ideally C2 (May 17)
Day 6: Descend to EBC (May 18)
Day 7: Return to Kathmandu by chopper and fly home as soon as flights can be arranged (Yes, this will be great!) 

As for the summit night, people have asked me what the plan usually is so I wanted to put it here (as best as I understand it.)  Once they get to Camp 4 (South Col) they will rest for a few hours until they are ready to head out to summit.  So they don't really "sleep there" just resting and waiting.  They will leave anytime from 9pm to midnight. Dave said it should be around 8 to 12 hrs up to the top, half that to get down. However, crowds usually dictate the amount of time it takes.  So if you don't feel like doing math this early in the morning, it means they will potentially summit anywhere from 6am-noon(ish) on the 17th- or 6pm to midnight on the 16th OUR TIME. PS- if anyone who knows more than I do is reading this and realizes I've made a mistake or miscalculation- please let me know!  I'm actually not even sure what day it is anymore :)

A word on crowds- I have been reading a lot of different blogs of teams who are there and others who have insider information.  It seems that the general vibe is that there are a lot of people and a lot of permits but not an exorbitant amount like they were once worried about.  Everyone was talking about how crowded it would be this year and so far, that doesn't seem to be a huge factor.  That might be a different story once they are up there, but let's hope not.

So now is the time to start sending positive vibes and prayers their way.  They are about 12 hours ahead of us here in Utah.  I was able to connect with Lhakpa on WhatsApp so I'm hoping to get updates at least once a day.  The guys also have the In Reach device that is not the most user friendly necessarily but can get short messages out usually.  We will also be tracking their progress on the spot tracker:

https://share.garmin.com/RadHopeEverest

I'm not sure if the battery will hold out long enough to track the full expedition, I know it was giving them some issues on their last rotation so it might not be fully accurate.  But let's hope we can watch them all the way to the summit!  Keep good thoughts!