June 13, 2007 by Lei.

Same drill in the morning. Stick at airport waiting for the landing window. 11:30, Dave came to announce: we need 3 people be ready to go! So Ian (bristish climber), Christian (german) and I, plus guide Zach got ready to go. we load stuff on to the airplane, changed into climbing boots, and stand by the airplane.
12:30, pilot came, but instead, started to unload our stuff from the airplane. So we took off boots, and went off to lunch. We put in order, but before the meal even arrived, Zach (assistant guide) showed up: we need 2 people to go! 4 others already there, just need 2 to go. So we all hurried the waitress to pack up our lunch and run back (Zach actually came with shuttle van to pick us up even it’s just 10 minutes walk from airport). When we got to the airport, we learned that the place already left with 3 climbers. So we now got more time to enjoy the last lunch. While I’m typing this email, I heard that plane already landed in basecamp and is on the way back (2:15pm). So highly likely, we will be all at base camp today (otherwise, the other 3 climbers would stuck there because the guides are here), though unlikely to move up the hill as I had hopefully wished.

A funny story heard from Jeff: once at the base camp airport, there are a lot of fresh snow that plane can’t land. So the base camp manager announced: who wants to go home? put on your snow shoes and run on the runway! So all climbers packed in lines to run to pack down the run way. Another time, the plane can’t land because of clouds. The plane made several dancing in the clouds to disturb the dynamics of cloud, finally break up an opening to land.

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June 13, 2007 by Lei.

There was one brief window this morning at 6am, but pilot said it was too brief that it would have been closed when we arrive there even if we tried to fly. So the waiting game again. The pilot said that normally June is flyable every day, the weather pattern is abnormal this year. Al Gore should have done somethings much earlier!:)

the condition on upper mountain is getting warm and calm these days. I read that a few teams are going for summit today, though 50 climbers from earlier expeditions are waiting at base camp to get get out as anxious as we are to get in.

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