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Heading Around the Mountain
Mustagh Ata Base Camp - Wednesday, June 28, 2000

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Otto

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Hi, this is Jon Otto calling from the Mustagh Ata First Ascent team here in Base Camp. I was just in the middle of sending you a bunch of photos, but the computer ran out of juice. I'm recharging it, so I hope you get those soon. More will be on the way in the next two days.

Just want to do an update here. Chris, Krzysztof, Jon and Walter summited on June 24th. It was a fairly warm morning; it was still kind of cold. It took me two hours for my toes to warm up as I headed for the summit. Conditions got worse and worse. Eventually, we got whiteout conditions on the way down where you can only see like 20... maybe 20-30 meters in front of you, only to the next wand.

We summited with the Austrian team in tow, breaking the trail. Also, they were on top. When I got up there, I broke out the oven and stewed up some Ramen, then went over and looked at the — tried to get a look at the new route—but it was too foggy. We skied all the way back down here to Base Camp on the 25th, where we've been enjoying Chinese food and pancakes, which we have taught the cook how to make, and he is making splendid pancakes.

Dan, as you know, is still up on the mountain. He's been taking two other members, Keith and Wally (Walter), from [Unintelligible] up to the summit, and they made the summit on the clearest day we have had yet, on June 27th. And then they went back down to Camp III, spent the night, and they should be coming back to Base Camp today, breaking down all the tents on the way.

We have been spending the last—us here at Base Camp, Walter Keller and myself—are going to spend the last couple of days preparing all the gear for the new route, and we're going down today, and we're going to start heading around the mountain and up the Kuksay Glacier. So that's the situation here right now. We're getting it off a little late. I'll try to get the rest of these photos to you and Dan will get his photos to you. He got a panorama 360 shot from the top of the mountain and great views of the new route, so we'll be sending those to you your way too. Okay, thank you very much. Hope all is well in Seattle. Bye now.

— Jon Otto, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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