Forecasts and Friends

Forecasts are funny things, they can change from one day to the next, different forecasters can look at the same model can come up with two very different outcomes and of course they can often be wrong. But then it is a forecast. It sometimes seems more of an art than a science, but at the end of the day I have great respect for these guys. More than one of my ascents has been done to the nod of a forecaster many thousand miles away from where I have been climbing. There appears to be the faintest of hopes that there may be a window in the weather around May 16th. I'm not pinning much hope on it, its a very small 36hr slot which could easily disappear. Ralph from Bern in Switzerland (one of the very best forecasters) even states in his forecast that the winds could pick up again dangerously quickly. What I have decided to do is to take the team back up to Camp 2, then at least we will be in position on the hill if things change and the window widens. If the weather doesn't improve then it will be a great stretch of the legs and help get us all reacclimatized. So it seems to be a win win situation but only time will really tell. So its another 4am start tomorrow to trot through the icefall and then on to camp 2. I think it will take 6-8hrs for most of the team to get there and I'm hoping that the 10days we have spent down low hasn't affected the team's speed in the icefall. The other great thing that happened today was meeting Mike Searle once again. Mike is one of the worlds best Himalayan geologist, based in Oxford he works out of the University there. I had the pleasure of spending the day with him last June while doing some filming for the History Channel about the formation of the Himalayas. This was quite an honor for me as he wrote many papers that I had to read when I studied Geology at Leeds uni. He had trekked to BC this year looking at the geology area once again, replacing his old 35mm slides with Digital photos. Its amazing to be in his company, his enthusiasm is endless and one can't help but get caught up with it. Even as he came out the mess tent he was raving about what a great example of a granite batholith that stood behind basecamp (I had to rake my brains to recall what this was of course). Mike asked if I could collect a few more samples for him from high on Everest (like I did last year) and we agreed to meet in Oxford upon my return for a beer, something that I very much look forward to! So that it people, the next update will be in few days when we have a clearer picture of what is happening. Until then stay safe Kenton and the Everest team