Saturday May 10. Camp 2.
8:00am Update: Last night was a good Night. Dinner was at 6pm and was fried rice and pasta with sauce. It was pretty good. We sat around talking for a while as we did not want to go to bed until 8pm.
Our head Sherpa, Lama Babu, came in to talk. He had just returned from the day working on ropes to camp 3 and setting up camp 3. Eleven Sherpa had spend two days working and everything is completed. They have set an up and a down line to camp 3 and tent platforms have been carved out of the ice. He said the ice on the Lhotse face is very hard with no snow. This will make climbing more tiring as we will need to kick our crampons into the ice with every step. Over the passage of many climbers this will become easier as steps will begin to form. We will go up tomorrow. We are meeting about our plan later today.
I slept well last night. I have my down suit - sleeping bag system all figured out. I was quite comfortable and not cold at all. I took a Diamox before I went too sleep. This drug will help me to further acclimatize to camp 2 and I also find it helps me sleep. Not that I think I needed much help in that department after yesterday.
I'm not sure exactly what today will hold. I will do another update later.
The sun just hit my tent at 8:13am. It is warming very fast.
4:30pm Update:
We just got back from a walk towards the Lhotse face. We went up for 50 minutes and it only took us 20 minutes to get back. The start out of our camp is at a good angle and is pretty continuous to the top of camp 2. Although not too steep it was quite tiring until my body warmed up. We got to where the "Stop Climbers" sign used to be and it was gone. It would have made a good souvenir.
At the high point of our walk we hit 6580m and we still had about one hour to the base of the Lhotse face. From here we had a good view of the route and the tents at camp 3. There are three sets of tents each set 50-100m apart up the hill. Our tents are in the middle set. I could see a long line of climbers and Sherpa on the route. Above camp 3 I could see about 10 Sherpa setting the rope to the yellow band and towards the Geneva Spur. I was told by our head Sherpa that it takes a team of 16 Sherpa 2 days to set the rope to camp 4.
Our plan is to depart camp 2 around 5am. We figure it will take 2 hours to get to the base of the face and an additional 3 hours to get to camp 3. I am looking forward to getting there, but know the trip there will be a al test physically. We will carry up the absolute minimum to spend the night reasonably comfortably. It will be a long night and we may not get much sleep.
There are various philosophies regarding camp 3. Only about 50% of the climbers here will spend the night at camp 3. The other 50% will just touch the camp and go back down. The Sherpa will not sleep there. They think it is too scary a place and they don't need it for acclimatization. There is a debate if spending a night at 3 gives you more acclimatization than just touching it and going down. Some say the the ability to acclimatize above 7200m is questionable. We have decided to sleep there because we feel it will give us some additional acclimatization.
Not much else to tell for now. I don't think I will take the phone to camp 3. I will send another dispatch on May 12 when I get back to camp 2.
Hugs to Susan, Amy and Colin.
Scott SS

Messages:

Susan, Amy & Colin, glad you had fun in NYC. I wish I could have been there. I miss you all very much.

Liane & QE gang, thanks for sending a package. It is always great to get deliveries at BC. I will let you know when it arrives. I should be able to post most days now. I'll be up on the Lhotse face tomorrow and will let you know all about it.