Our first Everest rotation is in mid-swing with our second wave of climbers moving up in a few hours. Beautiful day at base camp today with ample time to enjoy the sunshine. Our climbers at base camp continued icefall training with difficult courses set up by our guide staff. Up at Camp 1 our team is doing well with heavy clouds reported throughout the afternoon. Tomorrow our Camp 1 team will move up to Camp 2 where they will spend two days acclimatizing.
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Sid Pattison reports a successful ascent of Island Peak (pictures below):
Bookended by a forecast of wind and snow our team squeaked in a summit of Island Peak at 6:15am on the 17th. Our climb began at 12:15am and after climbing steadily up tallus fields and ridges we made it to Crampon Point as the sun rose. We put on crampons and roped up to cross the very broken and bridged glacier, after an hour we made it to the base of the final 750ft headwall. The steep climbing was strenuous but we moved steadily up to the summit ridge. From the summit the beautiful Himalayan mountain range was on display, Lhotse, Taboche, Cholatse and Ama Dablam fueling dreams of future climbs. The descent went smoothly, we packed up basecamp and made the final trek back to Chhukung and slept soundly. Today we made the long trek to Namche and Lukla tomorrow.
“We couldn’t have asked for better conditions, this summit is the culmination of weeks of hard work” Jared Moravec reflected on the climb.
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Island Peak Expedition 2017
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