Contents [Ski Everest Home] Front page for the Skiing Everest Cybercast [UPDATES] Climbers call from Everest on a sat-phone [The North Side] Climbing guide Eric Simonson describes the Northeast Ridge Route [Meet the Team] The 1997 Everest Ski Expedition members [EVEREST '97] Rich multimedia cybercast from Everest [Sponsors] Companies that supported this effort The Everest Bookstore Click on a book for details and ordering info from The Mountain Zone Bookstore. "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer An epic, first-hand account of the 1996 tragedy. "Everest" by Walt Unsworth Thorough compilation of historic climbs, triumph and tragedy. "Everest Map" by Brad Washburn National Geographic centennial map, Washburn's Everest map and more. "Everest: The West Ridge" by Tom Hornbein The pioneering ascent by Unsoeld and Hornbein. [The Mountain Zone] More stories from The Mountain Zone			Updates From Everest Click here to get the FREE Real Audio Player to hear sat-phone calls. Calonica Icebox Up at ABC Thursday, September 25, 1997 (Everest North Face advance base camp, Tibet) [Click to hear the sat-phone call.] Transcript: Hello, this is Craig Calonica and Jim Bridwell, Thurday the 25th, 3:25 pm, up at advance base camp at 6500 meters. Checking in to say hello. I'm going to turn you over to Jim right now so you guys can have a little bit of a mixed grill as to hearing someone different for once. Here you go: (Jim) Greg and Martina have come up from below. Martina seems better now. We've been using the last few days skiing down the glacier and getting some acclimatization in to prepare for something on the mountain itself. So we've been occupying ourselves with getting an idea of the feel of the snow, snow conditions, and just getting a little bit of acclimatizing in. The jet stream has dropped south here so it's over the mountains the last few days. So we can use the time locally down below here, whereas we couldn't on the mountain. Theoretically some of the teams are preparing to try to go up. The Colombians are sending a team up today and Jean Troillet is hoping for a summit bid which he figures will probably be his last. The Catalonian team of Jordie and Carlos are planning the push tomorrow to see how high they can go. So anyway, there's a little bit of action now. The hope is that the jet stream will drop back up north and give some opportunity for maybe a summit bid. We'll still be spectating because of just logistics, basically. So we'll be cheering them on, I think, more than anything. We have a few more plans for down here as far as acclimatizing and getting some skiing in. The summit teams are not present here right now. The Spanish team is mostly down below and the British team is down below. It's sort of a smaller group but everyone's getting along well. Some people are running short on certain types of food and they'll be trading with other people. It's pretty interesting and fun. I'll turn you over to Craig here and he'll give you a personal report. Here you go: (Craig) Well, that pretty much sums it up. Everyone is kind of hoping that the weather will permit them to go past camp I or camp II; camp I being at 7080 meters and camp II being at 7800 meters — to date and even today that has not really been a possibility due to the jet stream being right over us. But we hope that that will change. It'll be a nice change in the spirit for all around here to see someone to get up here. We'll probably be in a position to make a summit attempt in about ten days or so. Anyway, the skiing has been great. Today was a rather lazy day. It's kind of like a little kid with a huge plate full of food. After we ate our plateful of food at lunch time, it seems like one by one each one us slipped off and fell asleep and we woke up just now — and well, oops. It's okay, we can use a little rest. We've been pretty much going every day doing something. So that's about it from the icebox at ABC. As soon as the lights go out, it is cold. And we kind of curl into our little shells and drift off into hopefully some sort of nice dream and not a nightmare. Okay, I hope all of you are doing well at home. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Bye. — Craig Calonica and Jim Bridwell PREVIOUS UPDATE | UPDATES HOME | NEXT UPDATE

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