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Countdown to Summit: 3 Days
Camp II - Friday, May 19, 2000
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Prittie

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Hello Mountain Zone, this is Willi Prittie reporting from Camp II on Mount Everest for the Alpine Ascents International Mount Everest program. We are enjoying spectacular weather up here it's been very clear in the morning, clear and sunny and way too hot in the afternoons, and usually a little bit of evening fog coming in. Very calm conditions, no wind really to speak of up high and people have been continuously summitting over the last few days. I would particularly like to give a big congratulations to the Nepalese Women's Expedition, which summitted yesterday; job well done for them.

Today we spent a little bit of a rest day this is probably going to be the last day until after we come down from the summit, hopefully, here at Camp II. We spent a little bit of time practicing doing clips and ascenders and carabiners with the heavy mittens on.

And then Vern and I, as we went up the hill, above Camp II, to get the information which Brad Washburn had provided us. We were able to locate out of the ice a couple of the NASA weather and pressure probes these little matchbox sized things that have been recording information the last couple of years here. So that can go back and they can correlate that scientific information with some of the other probes that some other teams have been recovering here this year as well.

It's a glorious afternoon, although like I say very, very, very hot. For those of you interested in numbers our O2 sat, as a group, was averaging 80, with an average pulse of about 79. Everybody is feeling good. Summit anticipation is growing, excitement is growing, and we're definitely ready for the next few days. So the plan tomorrow is to head up to Camp III and the following day IV [Camp IV], and hopefully the following day after that the top of the world.

We will be doing much more frequent reports, especially on summit day, , probably hourly reports as well on the day we go to the South Col so look for those on Mountain Zone as well. I guess that's all from Camp II where we're all turning blue, I mean that's all from Camp II where nobody is blue.

— Willi Prittie, Alpine Ascents Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent

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