Mt. Everest 2005: The Chinese abort the Second Push at 8400 due to strong winds!

Update: Mt. Everest 2005: The Chinese abort the Second Push at 8400 due to strong winds! After the Chinese kicked butt yesterday (to our Chinese readers that means they did very very good, and much better than the rest of us.), they had the turn back last night. As our forecaster predicted, the high winds are back...

Update: 22 Chinese summited and they broadcasted live from the Summit of Mt Everest again! Below are some of the many reports from our friends in China and Hong Kong,

Report: The climbers were composed of The re-measuring team, The Chinese Women Expedition and Tibet Climbing Club. The tripod had been erected at 11:50 (Beijing Time). Height of the Tripod : over 2.0 meter. Result of the measurement will be announced around in August, 2005.

Report: The Chinese Measurement Expedition is on LIVE by CCTV. Beijing Time 11:35    15 members have summited. ( 3 are female NOT confirmed) They would have stayed for an hour. Temperature on top: - 29.8 deg C. Wind: Grade 7 ; Weather: "fairly fine."

First summit: 11:08 (Beijing Time)

From 11:35 : Started to set up the Tripod.

On May 22, the 2nd assault team should have climbed up from Camp 7,790M to their Final Camp  8,300M. Summit push on 23rd May.

The Chinese started to descend at 12:25 (Beijing time). They stayed for around 77 min.

The CCTC.com had issued 22 updated summit photo on its web site. You could see the tripod the radar disc in the first instance. see here.

It looks that the Chinese were using modern gas mask and apparatus on the Top, weren't they? 

The Chinese had (or will ? to be confirmed) erected a "permanent" GPS monitoring station at the small "Rocky Land" near the top, in addition to the tripod mounted on the Top. At least two GPS detectors were installed , according to the  CCTV report.

Reports from successive Summiters would bring us clearer picture of it. 

For more pictures see here.

WOW!

Previous Updates are below

Update: Chinese Summit Everest! They were fast...

Update: Chinese report they are all above the Second Step, but there is a "20 minute delay". [Hey who knows... we could speculate but we won't...]

North Side: The Chinese report that they are 20 minutes from the top! [20 minutes in these conditions might be a bad estimate.]

Update 7.04PM 5/21/2005 in America: The first group started 3:30 (Beijing time) . They think, they'll need 7  hours to reach summit. Some of the climbers, who are in charge of  re-measuring Mt. Everest's height, intend to stay from 40 minutes to 1 hour  on top where they want to erect kind of a plate (which reflects - maybe -  signals, don't know ) and do other work

Update: The Chinese are on a summit push right now! And measuring the Peak ! Stay tuned and we will let you how it turns out. We are told 22 climbers, not sure if that is 22 plus Sherpas (Tibetans to them) or 22 total...

The Chinese have announced they are starting up to ABC. Around thirty Chinese scientists are planning to re-measure  Qomolangma (Mount Everest). Kang Shichang is the research leader of the expedition and a famous fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Qomolangma has been measured 4 times by the Chinese with the last being 8848.13 meters by Chinese scientists in 1975. However scientists believe because of global warning the mountain has shrunk. The Chinese plan to install a GPS to re-measure the height of the mountain. A joint team Chinese and Japanese women team will also attempt the Mount Everest, the lines between these expeditions appear hard to define at this point.

Some ask, why don't they just take a GPS up there and see what it says! GPS's do not measure very well at 7000 meters and above. Therefore the Chinese plan to use/install a dish! They also plan to a sophisticated radar detector to measure the current height of Mt. Everest.

If it could just see pictures of George Mallory's wife...

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