Mt. Everest 2005: Catalan Team North Side:  THE LAST ATTEMPT

Tents (camp 1) North Col ©EverestNews.com

Update May 19th: We did not advance yesterday and today we haven't decided yet.  The last weather forecasts that we could compare don't coincide about the window of good weather for the 20 and 21, tomorrow morning we will start our last attack to the summit of Everest. The intention is to climb tomorrow morning to camp 2 and if the weather of the next day is proper, we will climb to camp 3 to make the final attack to the summit on the morning of the 21.

It has been more complicated to prepare this attack than we thought, because we had already planned to go down to Advanced Base Camp on the 20th, and the fact that it takes three days to return has made us make intense negotiations to make yaks and transport be adequate to our needs. We have seen that negotiating with the Chinese authorities is not easy, especially when there is money in the middle.

Good night.

Translated from Catalan by Jorge Rivera

Update May 18th: After the frustrated attempt because of bad weather, the expedition will attempt again for the last time before going back to Katmandu.  They will leave from the camp on THURSDAY, May 19, with the intention to reach the summit on SATURDAY, the 21st.

Update: The night in Camp 2 has been extremely hard, the wind that started to blow hard on the last third of the climb to Camp 2 made it very difficult for the planned installation of the tents, ours and the Sherpas. Camp 2 showed a very terrible image by the last hour of the afternoon, where besides us there was anyone else. The strong wind blew all night and as you can imagine, there was little sleep.  During the first lights of the morning our hope, that the wind would diminish according to the weather forecasts, had vanished after talking with the Sherpas if it was ok to leave to Camp 3, and despite having everything ready we saw it was not a good decision. That made us change all the strategy that we had planned and after discarding our stay at 7,600 for one or two night, waiting for an improvement for which we didn't have any guarantee, we decided to climb down to Advanced Base Camp, tired, and why not say it, defeated because all the plans based in weather data crashed. We clearly realized that a forecast is just a forecast, especially in the Himalayas.

According to last hour news, they plan to go to CAMP 2 on Thursday and attempt the summit during the weekend.

We'll keep you posted.

Sergi Guirado

Translated form Catalan by Jorge Rivera

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