The time has finally come…we are leaving early tomorrow morning (3am) from base camp for our summit rotation.

For the last couple of days, we have been preparing our gear, going on day hikes and taking our final showers before heading up the mountain. Two of the photos are from our day hike to the former location of Everest Base Camp. You are probably wondering what the thing is in the third photo. That is Walter – affectionately named by one of our team members. Walter is our heater that heats up our meal tent every day so we aren’t completely freezing while eating breakfast or dinner. He will be missed for the next few days.

It will take us approximately 6 days to reach the summit, pending any weather delays. The first day (tomorrow) we climb to Camp 2. The second day is a rest day at Camp 2. The third day we move to Camp 3. The fourth day we move to the South Col (Camp 4). The fifth day is a rest day at the South Col. The sixth day is summit day. It will take us 2 days to descend back to base camp: the first day we descend from Camp 4 to Camp 2 and the second day we descend from Camp 2 to base camp. So it will be about 8 days before you hear from me again.

Please follow our progress on the Alpine Ascents website since I will not be posting updates while on rotation. The link to the Alpine Ascents cybercast is on the home page of my blog. On summit day, they will make every attempt to post updates along the way. Please rest assured that if you don’t see a lot of updates during our summit attempt, it doesn’t mean that anything is wrong. There is just no guarantee that radio communications will be working 100% perfectly on summit day. They will officially broadcast who reached the summit (by name) so you will know if we made it.

I sincerely appreciate all your thoughts and prayers. We’ll be seeing you soon.