Greetings to everybody out there in MountainZone cyberland, this is Willi Prittie again, reporting from the South Col, but not for long.

Final preparations are just starting to get in gear for our summit bid tonight. It is actually just after 5pm here in Nepal and our first contingent will be leaving the South Col and beginning their summit climb at 8pm tonight. So that's in only a little less than 3 hours.

All the Sherpas have been sorting oxygen cylinders to make sure everybody has the correct number of cylinders for going up. Dinner is in preparation, a lot of water production is in preparation so that we can, you know filling water bottles, so we can stay hydrated during our summit climb. The weather has moderated a bit more over yesterday. It's still a little bit socked in and snowing, but not nearly as much as when we got up here yesterday and we think it will be clearing sooner than it did yesterday. And we're expecting a clear evening and a very clear morning for actually, potentially, getting our summit.

So everybody's excitement is at a high level, guides and Sherpas and climbers, we're all in the same boat at this point and really getting antsy to get out of here. So, there will be the first contingent going up, as I said, at 8pm tonight. The second contingent will leave at about 10pm tonight. We're a little bit concerned about breaking trail up here in fresh snow and breakable crust conditions.

I actually went part way up to wand the descent route from the ice bulge where those things do close in. We have both a wand line to follow, we also have a, two of us have compasses set for a compass course to follow, and we also have a GPS line to follow, so it's not an option, not finding high camp after the climb.

Preparations are well underway and we'll be giving you frequent updates as the climb progresses this evening. (Listen closely and you can hear a wahoo! in the background.)

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

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