DISPATCHES

Mazur

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Walter: Well, the 24th.

Dan: They summitted on the 24th of June. They had kind of a whiteout and cloudy day, and then three days later...[speaks to Walter again] we summitted on the 27th, huh Walter? ... and three days later three more of us summitted, that was Walter Frehner, Mathijs van der Plas, and myself, Daniel Mazur. And we were lucky; we had a clear day. I shot about 60 pictures off the summit, several panoramas, and some really direct shots, shooting right down the new route. It was very lucky to have that kind of clarity of weather— I've never seen that on the summit before.

We're going be setting up the satellite system and the computers this afternoon, and connecting those to a four-wheel-drive car, so we won't have any problems with the power supply. The nearest power lines here are something like 150 kilometers, so that's really the only power source is an automobile. We're getting ready to go around the backside right now Walter Keller, and Anne Ramzy and Chou Young have already gone around to the back and are preparing things—negotiating with the Uigher shepherd people, and getting our stuff moved up the Kuksay Glacier.

We're getting in position to do this new route. I am very psyched; I think it's going to go well. I think it's going to be extremely difficult, and from looking down at it, pretty dangerous possibly as well, with some big avalanche potential. I'm not sure, but I feel pretty good about our team. The main climbing segment of the new-route team now is going to be Walter Keller, Jon Otto and myself, Daniel Mazur, and hopefully, within four or five days, we'll be starting on that route. We'll be sending you transmissions as often as we can, hopefully daily.

Anyway, I'd just like to really thank Peter Potterfield, and Alan Ramadan, Jonathan Chester, Matt Stanley, Sara Machlin, Tup Wright, and definitely like to thank all the folks at Quokka and Mountain Zone. You know, so far your stuff has been working really well, and it's been a real pleasure to have you folks supporting us here and receiving our images and media, certainly has been getting some great response from some of the team members' family and friends who said they've been following the site with excitement, and that's just really super great.

You know, it was a real pleasure be able to reach the summit with all the team, basically, with the exception of Lakpa Tamang from Nepal, all seven of us getting to the top in two groups, I think that was a real privilege. We definitely couldn't have done it without you folks back there. So your support is really wonderful.

Please hang in there with us for the remainder of the expedition, as we go around to the new route and really throw ourselves at it. You know, we're well acclimatized, everybody is healthy and very fit. Our equipment is really honed to perfection, and I'm just so psyched. I think we have a pretty good chance for it, and, if we do pull this off, this will be the first ascent of a major new route on a 7500-meter peak. This kind of thing doesn't happen at all anymore—it's so rare that you even get an opportunity to even get close to something like this— so hang in there, and really appreciate it. Take care, this is Dan Mazur, singing off for MountainZone.com

— Daniel Mazur, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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