Simonson

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Hello Mountain Zone, this is Eric Simonson calling from Advanced Base Camp on Cho Oyu. We're taking our second of two rest days and packing and getting ready to move up to Camp I tomorrow. The next day we hope to move up to Camp II, which is over 7,000 meters, and spend at least one night up there for acclimatization.

I'm happy to report that today our five Sherpas led by sirdar Ang Pasang and including Kami, Da Nuru, Pa Nuru and Tashi, all made it to Camp II and finished fixing rope into the Camp. They had a heck of a time over the last two days with deep snow, in places over a meter deep, but they were able to fix, all total, about a thousand meters of rope into the Camp II area and also get some of the gear up there. So tomorrow we'll finish hauling tents and equipment into Camp II and set that Camp up and hopefully be able to spend the night there - I should say not tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow.

Everything's going well here at Base Camp, we're still hoping that the monsoon breaks pretty soon, because we're getting snow every afternoon and it's getting a little tedious. Fortunately, the temperatures have been fairly warm so the snow that's falling is settling fairly rapidly and hopefully isn't presenting too much of an avalanche hazard, though we do see signs of activity on the upper mountain, which, from our way of thinking, is good, because it means the mountain is equilibriating and trying to shed its burden of snow.

Otherwise, everything is going well and we'll be heading up to Camp I tomorrow and should be back in a couple of days. Okey-doke, that's it from ABC at Cho Oyu and talk to you guys later. Good-bye.

— Eric Simonson, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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