I found out today that all of the donated goods (200+ lbs of children’s clothes, school supplies, etc.) finally reached their destination in Phortse (which is the village from which most of our Sherpas come from, including my climbing partner Pasang) and were distributed to the villages’ families over the past week. All materials were very enthusiastically received and I was asked to forward on their thanks to all who participated and made it possible. My thank you, as well as Carla’s, who was the catalyst for making this happen, to all of you as well. Those items will go a long way here and will be put to great use for some time to come. Thank you! Phanuru, one of our climbing Sherpa/climbing partners who is also from Phortse, had his wife take some pictures of the enthusiastic distribution of the goods which he’ll forward to me and I’ll post later when bandwidth isn’t such a major issue.

Otherwise, the strange/unique 2012 season on Everest continues…

The upper mountain continues to get hammered by high winds hampering our efforts to move higher/establish Camp III/fix the lines to Camp IV and the summit, while we’re experiencing “warmer” conditions in base camp than usual this early in the season. Overnight lows are only -10 to -15, where we’d prefer overnight lows of -20 or colder. As a result, the Khumbu icefall is seeing dramatic changes on a daily basis as it melts out and avalanches, which requires constant changes to the climbing route and can be hard to keep up with if the changes are too much/too fast. Therefore, the waiting game continues and we keep an eagle eye on all of the changes and hope for improved conditions. Keep your fingers crossed for us. Hoping to head-up for rotation II to Camp III in the next several days (depart maybe May 3rd or 4th) and we’ll be up there for 5-6 days in total between all the camps and then back to Everest base camp. More to share when I return from that rotation and start prepping for the summit push (mid-late May). So, ironically, please send us colder temps, more snow (the Lhotse face is wind-scrubbed and currently bullet-proof ice) and reduced winds if possible. Much appreciated.

Finally, I understand that Cory Richards’ (of the Nat Geo/North Face team) diagnosis was confirmed as a Pulmonary Embolysm in Kathmandu, which is absolutely life-threatening if left untreated, and confirmed the diagnosis that my climbing teammates Jef and Ramin came to at Camp II a few days ago and led to Cory’s immediate evacuation. Nice going guys! Glad to have you on my team and to share a rope with you. Glad to have you here but I hope I never need your exceptional diagnostic skills…