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Thursday, February 24, 2000
 Pierce | |
Hear Jamie's Call from Africa |
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Hello Mountain Zone, this is Jamie Pierce calling from approximately 12,500ft on the Shira Plateau. Another beautiful evening and wonderful day that is just getting wrapped up right now. The mountain is poking through the clouds. For the most part we've had excellent weather today. We've had no rain to speak of clouds have built up on the western side of the mountain a little bit, obscuring most of the western Breach Wall from the Heim Glacier, over towards the Arrow [Glacier].
But this evening it's clear and presented itself with beautiful views. All of the folks, all of the climbers, have had their cameras out and enjoyed lots of good moments of photography. Once again, the brush fire that I have been talking about has really made the atmosphere very photogenic as the sun is setting and it's presented itself as just absolutely fantastic, surreal landscapes. Once you do start to get up a little bit higher, the visibility becomes much, much better.
The health of the group is phenomenally well. As I mentioned yesterday, I think, climbing very well together and everyone is showing very good, strong signs of strength and it's a lot, obviously, to attribute that and that's everyone's been very pragmatic and very thorough with their training and that makes a very enjoyable experience for everybody.
One of the notes that I didn't touch upon leading into this expedition was the fact that we had a mistake that occurred. One of the climber's bags did not arrive in Nairobi and that bag did have a lot of the equipment that he needed to do the climb with, and so it's been really kind of interesting. But the group pulled together and got everything needed for him for the climb and it's come together. So, that was kind of nice and the group, like I said, pulled together nicely to take care of that. I think for the most part the person, Jim...[transmission fails].
Yeah, this is Jamie again, didn't finish that transmission. Anyway, the group is doing very good. We've prepared ourselves for another early departure out of here from the Shira Plateau to Barranco Valley, which puts us pretty much under the Heim Glacier, and that ice climb, that famous ice climb that Reinhold Messner pioneered up the mountain. Everything is looking good. So, anyway, the group is doing phenomenally well and we're all having a phenomenally good time and that's really about it. I will give you a call tomorrow with our progress and update you once I get into the Barranco Valley. As of right now, everything is going great and I will be signing off for right now. Take care, bye-bye.
—Alpine Ascents Guide Jamie Pierce, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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