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 Home > South Col Dispatch Index > May 26 (4:30pm PST) Dispatch

Getting Back Through the Icefall
Camp II - May 26, 2002 (4:30pm PST)

Benitez
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Good Morning everyone back there in cyberland, this is Luis Benitez reporting for Alpine Ascents International and Mountain Zone. We're just about all back at Camp II right now and really, really happy about that fact.

The Sherpas have done an amazing job today under the guidance of Lakpa Rita and have brought down and completely cleaned the upper mountain. Camp IV, Camp III, is gone. Now for the uninitiated person back home, understanding that might be a little difficult, but to put it in perspective, imagine carrying upwards of 50-, 60-, 70-pound loads at close to 26,000 feet, 8,000 meters. Just incredible, incredible, incredible stamina from our Sherpas here and obviously without them we would never be able to climb the mountain.

"People are all feeling surprisingly good, especially Al Hanna who obviously is all of our hero, for coming up to the South Col, supporting all of us on our summit bid, and just showing a lot of class, a lot of panache..."
So getting back down here we're all resting and eating. Ang Tshering is making some of our favorite foods that we've all sort of been craving up on the mountain since we lost our appetites.

And as always people are starting to talk about home, family, friends, things that they're going to do. I think it's very, very easy after you summit a mountain to sort of turn your sights downhill, back towards life and the daily ins and outs of what people need to do to get by.

But for now we're trying to focus on more good hard day through the Icefall to get back down safely to Base Camp tomorrow. Obviously it's going to be an early start to get through the Icefall before the weather gets too bad or too warm, in which case it would make the Icefall a little more unstable.

But everybody is raring to go. People are all feeling surprisingly good, especially Al Hanna who obviously is all of our hero, for coming up to the South Col, supporting all of us on our summit bid, and just showing a lot of class, a lot of panache, by just giving us all warm wishes and bearing no one any ill will, and just being right there for all of us. We couldn't have a better friend than Al Hanna with the way he's been treating us.

It looks like the last of our folks just walked in and everybody is giving me the thumbs up. So for now this is Luis Benitez, reporting for Alpine Ascents and Mountain Zone, off to eat as much as I possibly can.

— Luis Benitez, Alpine Ascents International Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent

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