737 Leg 7 Everest - Day 164

UPDATE FROM DAVID HAMILTON (TEAM LEADER) FROM JAGGED GLOBE AT BASE CAMP

"With the summit team poised at Camp 4 on the South Col the Base Camp staff gathered in the mess tent to follow their progress throughout the night. At 21.30 Mingma Sherpa, leader of the summit team, called Base Camp to say that conditions on the upper mountain were too windy for the team to proceed.

The climbers at Camp 4 have adequate supplies of food, fuel and oxygen. They will spend today (24th) resting in their tents and will reschedule the climb to the summit for tonight. The weather forecast for the next 48hrs predicts low wind speeds high on the mountain and this should give ideal conditions for the team to reach the summit.

The planned departure time from Camp 4 is around 21.00 / 22.00 local time, and the climb to the top should take between 8 and 10 hours given favourable conditions. As far as we are aware there is only one other team climbing Everest from the Nepalese side that is on a similar schedule and can be expected to attempt the mountain on the same day as the Jagged Globe team. This is a team from a Japanese film company that are making a documentary about young Nepali Sherpa climbers. There have been very few ascents of Everest from the Tibetan side this season, perhaps because the ropes were not fixed to the top until a few days ago. It is possible that there will be several teams attempting Everest from the North in the next few days, and our team from the South might meet some of these climbers on the summit.

WEATHER UPDATE

Wind:
Wind speeds are low for the next couple days. At summit the speeds are around 10-30 km/h. Towards the end of the month the wind speeds up again.

Weather:
The weather seems to be friendly today and tomorrow. In the afternoon of the 26th and the 27th the convection at Everest is enhanced. Showers are probable, maybe combined with a thunderstorm. In the following days, convection is reduced to lower altitudes. The diurnal change between sunny mornings and cloudy afternoon continues.