Time for the second rotation!

Me and Purba

The weather and route look stable - thankfully the winds have abated - so in less than 12 hours the Madison Mountaineering team will depart base camp for camp 2 (21,300 feet).  We are planning to spend the night of May 1st at camp 2, rest there the following day, then climb part way up the icy Lhotse face to camp 3 (24,000 feet), and spend a little time there to aid the acclimatization process before returning to camp 2 to spend one more night.  The following morning we will return to base camp to recover.

These rotations are much easier for me thanks to my Sherpa partner, Purba, who assures that my hypoxic brain doesn’t make mistakes on the technical sections of the route.  He also shoulders much of the responsibility for carrying my gear from camp to camp. His strength and endurance amazes me; he is 59 years old and smaller than me (I can usually only say that about teenagers).  He has summited Everest 10 times and is a Lama, it makes me feel better that he wears prayer beads when he climbs :)

Fingers crossed for good weather and route conditions!  For the next few days you can follow along here.

Namaste!