Day 19: This was a full rest day for us and a day of remembrance for the 2014 icefall tragedy. Our guides spent the day walking around Base Camp talking to other teams to get a feel for when they were going up for their first rotation. Our goal is not to go up with crowds of other teams. After their recon mission, our guides determined that we would leave for our first rotation on 23 April.

There are also high winds forecasted up until the 23rd so that is yet another reason to wait.

Today was shower day! Yea!

Day 20: We went on another day hike up Pumori, but this time we went up a little further to the Pumori base camp. It was an even better view than on the previous hike. We could see a little more of Everest behind Nuptse.

Day 21: Our three guides left at 4am to go to Camp 1 to check out the icefall and to make sure there wouldn’t be any surprises for us. There were reports that this year’s icefall was the safest they had ever seen. Great news: our guides agree with that assessment. Our entire team was excited by the news. It seems there aren’t as many ladders as there have been in the past. Even with good conditions, they estimate it will take us approximately 6-7 hours to get through the icefall to get to Camp 1. Ben, our lead guide, made it to Camp 1 and back in 4 hours! We couldn’t believe how fast he did that. Glad he’s our guide.

Day 22: Today was another hike to keep our blood pumping and legs moving. We are only a couple days away from our first rotation so we prepared our loads for the Sherpa to take up to Camps 1 and 2. Our initial loads include our full body down suits, -40 sleeping bags and high altitude mittens…things we need higher on the mountain.

Tomorrow we are going to spend a few hours climbing in the icefall as a trial run and to get our gear dialed-in. We are all looking forward to the start of our climb.

The photos are from our day hikes and my attempt at night photography. If you are still trying to figure out which mountain is Everest, in the photo with three distinct peaks shown, Everest is the one in the middle/back.