Sunday May 18. Camp 2 Rest Day.
I slept well last night. We were in bed by 8pm which was ok since I had been up since 3:30am and had a full day. I slept solid for most of the night. I did hear the Sherpa get up at 2:30am to head up to the South Col with one final load. They made it to the Col and back to camp 2 in eight hours.
Today will be resting, packing, eating and drinking. Tomorrow the real climbing begins. The best way for me to approach the next few days is to block it into sections. If I look at the whole thing it is overwhelming. From camp 2 we still have about 2500m to climb which is equal to 71% of the mountain from base camp. This is pretty big.
Therefore, tomorrow I will concentrate on getting to camp 3. The following day my goal will be to get to camp 4. The goal will be to do these without burning too much energy and resting and eating well when I get there.
I have not figured out what my strategy will be for summit day yet. Will I break it down into a series of goals; balcony, South summit, Hillary step, Summit, or will I just focus on the top. Most likely I will just put my head down and go.
From the information that I have (which could be correct or incorrect) it appears that the following teams will also be going for the summit on the same day as us: Mountain Madness; Altitude Junkies; Summit Climb; RMI; Nepal Women's Expedition; Project Himalaya; Jagged Globe; and Kari Kobbler Expeditions, and likely a few others we don't know about.
Not all team members from these expeditions will be going at the same time, however. Some team members will have left, some will not go for the summit and some will be broken into multiple waves. Our team will travel as one.
12:00pm Update: We have just received our oxygen mask and regulator. The system we will be using is Poisk from Russia. This is the standard system on Everest and probably around 70% or more of the people here will be using Poisk. The only other systems really in use are a system used by the guiding company IMG and Top Out.
IMG's system is exclusive to them and is not compatible with Poisk. My understanding of why they use this system is because they feel it is a better system (the bottles are heavier, but hold more oxygen), and no one will steal the bottles as they can not use them.
The other system is Top Out which is a new style mask that works with the Poisk oxygen cylinder.
We spent some time reviewing our plans for the next few days. We will depart camp 2 at 5am tomorrow morning. This should get us to camp 3 around 11am if it takes us six hours as it did last time. The rest of the day at camp 3 will be spent drinking, eating, and resting.
We will depart camp 3 for camp 4 around 5am as well. We will leave camp using oxygen at a flow of 2 litres per minute. The trip from 3-4 should take 5-6 hours. Once at camp 4 we will rest, drink and eat what we can.
Our plan is to depart for the summit around 9pm.
This is our plan at this point. It could change based on many different factors. I will take my PDA up with me, but I'm not sure how often or if I will post. My intention will be to post, but we'll see what happens. We will also have the phone up there so I will be able to do voice dispatches.
Leaving camp 2 seems like the big move. From here forward it is the real thing.

Messages:

Susan, I have changed my mind regarding the email messages. The old way is best. The new way takes up more space and therefore more time to download (more $).

Scott, great to hear from you. Glad you and Gryffin are enjoying the stories. Wish you were here. You would love it.

M.C., thanks for the note and the encouragement. I will pass your message/song along to Alan.

Mom, thanks for the message and the encouragement . I look forward to being home soon.

Dale, I will say hello to Dan for you if I see him. Thanks for your Note.

Kathy & Wayne, thanks again for your message and encouragement. Soon it will all be over.

Mary, thanks for your note. It was a lot of work to do the letters, but I enjoyed it. I look forward to time by the pool.

Pat, Nima may or may not be the same one. Conversion is a challenge. Regardless, he is strong and I look forward to climbing with him.

Karen, Phil, Nathan, Maggie, thanks for the message and your encouragement.