Great news that the fixed ropes<\/strong> are now to the South Col at 7950<\/strong>-meters\/26,082-feet.\u00a0As soon as the weather allows, tents, stoves, fuel and oxygen bottles will be ferried up to support the summit bids in a week or so.<\/p>\n Flu or No Flu?<\/strong><\/p>\n A very strange article in National Geographic<\/a> with the misleading title “Flu<\/strong> outbreak rages near Everest base camp” but cites data from last autumn and concludes with “By and large, the Everest climbing community seems to have been spared so far. We haven\u2019t seen a lot of the flu up here.” So, which is it? Please let me know if there is a flu outbreak at EBC this spring. Thanks!<\/span><\/p>\n Maybe a Lot of Snow, Maybe No Snow!<\/strong><\/p>\n I’ve been talking about the cyclone in the Bay of Bengal for a week now and it made landfall today. I checked back in with Chris Tomer of Tomer Weather Solutions<\/a>\u00a0for his crystal ball on what Everest can expect:<\/p>\n The amount of moisture in the atmosphere over the Foothills will run +5 standard deviations.The question is how much makes it up to the 8000m peaks on the eastern Himalaya. I projected a rough foot for Makalu and Everest but the amount could vary wildly. Looking down the road, big jet wind SUN-WED then big drop and potential summit opening May 12-ish.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Stay Put!<\/strong><\/p>\n Adventure Consultants<\/a>, arguably the most experienced operator on the Nepal side has decided to stay at base camp and not risk a Camp 2\/3 rotation:<\/p>\n Well, tonight we thought we would be getting ready for an early start to climb to Camp 2 but the latest weather forecasts predict snow followed by high winds above Camp 2. Now we are already acclimatised to 6,500m, spending excessive time there could be detrimental to our overall condition. Also, the longer we spend there, the more food and fuel we consume which will need to be restocked in the future. So, a difficult decision was made and we are on hold again. This is part and parcel of climbing a mountain the size of Everest, and that’s one reason we have additional time in our schedule for unforeseen delays.<\/p>\n As frustrating as this is, our inconvenience is minimal compared to the thousands of people in India awaiting the potentially destructive landfall of Cyclone Fani. Again, time will tell how the cyclone develops<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And Mike Hammil, Climbing the Seven Summits<\/a>, also locked his team down:<\/p>\n With eagle eyes on the expert forecast, we\u2019ve made the decision to pull the whole team down to Base Camp today.<\/p>\n As you may know, there is a significant cyclonic storm about 450km from the Odisha Coast in East India called Cyclone Fani (pronounced Foni) which has been moving North. While it\u2019s meant to weaken, the effects of that storm mean we are likely to see significant snowfall and high winds on the mountain. We are erring on the conservative side and will have the entire team wait it out for few days in the safety of Base Camp until that storm has passed and things have settled.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Go Higher!<\/strong><\/p>\n But Madison Mountaineering<\/a> headed up and reported on the rope team he is hosting and managing:<\/p>\n Hello, this is Garrett<\/a> calling in for the Everest<\/a> climbing team.\u00a0 We had a great day!\u00a0 And we are up at Camp 2 and all settled in here.\u00a0 We had a nice dinner and we\u2019re going to take a rest day tomorrow.\u00a0 Some exciting news:\u00a0 our Sherpa rope fixing team, eight of our top Nepal Sherpas, were able to fix lines to the South Col<\/a> today to Camp 4!\u00a0 Dispite the high winds, they got to Camp 4 with the fixed ropes.\u00a0 So now the route is open all the way to the South Col for other teams to carry loads and acclimitize.\u00a0 Everyone\u2019s doing great up here at Camp 2!\u00a0 Sounds like there might be a little bit of snow in the forecast, but there\u2019s clear skies at the moment.\u00a0 We will keep our eyes on that and everyone\u2019s doing well.\u00a0 So, we\u2019ll check in soon.\u00a0 Thanks so much!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n IMG<\/a> moved up as well and noted high afternoon winds but calmed down by evening.<\/p>\n A few teams are tagging Camp 3 on the Lhotse Face from Camp 2 and not spending the night. Over the past few years, it has become questionable if the 12 hours spent at C3 acclimatizing does more damage than good. It seems many of the teams feel just spending a few minutes around 7,000-meters is good enough. The science says you need to spend longer to allow the body to respond but the tag technique has proven effective in recent years.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Fani-Cyclone-640x457.png\")
<\/a>Nepal – Preparing for the Worse, or Not!<\/h3>\n
Tibet\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n