July 3, 2007 by Lei.

I’m at Denver airport on my way back. We did make the summit on the second attempt on June 30th after helping the member that collapsed back to camp. So many things happened on this trip that I was practically holding my breath until I stood on the summit at midnight that day, and I couldn’t relax until I finally got off the glacier.

After a midnight summit that coincided with the arrival of another storm, we made a slow and long descent through white-out conditions and didn’t reach the camp until 6-7am the next morning. Then after a couple hours rest, we descended with full loads to the camp at 14,000ft, our whole bodies still exhausted.

On Sunday, we woke up at 6:30am, then walked over numerous nerve-racking crevasses to finally arrive at base camp at midnight.

Detailed report will come soon! So glad to be back to the world of restaurants and flushing toilets.

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June 30, 2007 by admin.

Lei got through on the phone for a minute today. One of the members of the team passed out during this morning’s summit bid. They brought him back down and were thinking about making another attempt today. If things go badly, she is going to stay with the next group (which is already there) and make an attempt with them. Hopefully her current group will be able to recover from today’s challenge and summit today or tomorrow.

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June 29, 2007 by admin.

Lei’s group made their first summit bid today in apparent nice weather. As they were approaching the first high pass, the guide spotted a low cloud formation and turned them back. There’s now a gale blowing snow at the summit. Lei will get another chance tomorrow, hopefully the weather will be more cooperative.

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June 28, 2007 by admin.

Well, according to the guiding company they made high camp yesterday.  This is great news as the summit should not be too difficult.  Only have to wait for a good weather day to make the final push, and according to the weather forcast, they’ll have it!  Clear skies and winds up to 25 mph sounds like perfect weather for a summit.  Looks like Lei will bag this one for sure. 

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June 26, 2007 by admin.

Got word from Lei today.  They have been stuck at camp 3 for a couple of days now, waiting for the chance to move up to high camp.  She caught a cold from the guy on her team who has been sick the entire time (see the guiding company’s blog), but escaped with only a few days of symptoms:  runny nose for a day, scratchy throat for a day, and a slight cough.  Otherwise, healthy and strong!  In fact, she reports that she is nowhere near the weakest link in her team.  It is some of the bigger men who call for breaks or for the team to slow down.  Some do not show to much familiarity with crampons or walking in deep snow, and she is a little worried that they may cause problems on summit day.

Asside from avoiding germs, the team is waiting for good weather to move up.  With the time lost in getting to the glacier and the two days stuck at camp 3, Lei is a little worried about getting the chance to summit.  If it doesn’t come with this group, she plans to stay on with the next group so that she can bag this peak.

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June 21, 2007 by admin.

Lei left a message last night.  She is at camp 3, 14000 feet.  They’re planning on staying for four days, which I guess means heading to high camp on Saturday or Sunday.  According to her, “Everything is perfect.”  She’s in good health and feeling strong!  As long as the weather cooperates, she should have another summit under her belt very soon.

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June 20, 2007 by admin.

The guiding company reports that they’ve made the move to camp 3.  It looks like Lei’s group is zipping up the mountain after the delay in catching a plane out.  Still no word from Lei herself, but I’m sure she’s doing great!

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June 19, 2007 by admin.

According to the guiding company’s web site, they moved up to camp 2 (11,000 feet) on Saturday.  The most recent news was posted yesterday, that they were going to try to cache their food at camp 3.  Still awaiting a post to see if that last was successful.

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June 15, 2007 by admin.

No updates from Lei through today.  Assuming that means that she has made it on the plane to base camp.  Hopefully she will send us an update soon.  Good luck, Lei!

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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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