Mt. Everest 2005: Valencia: Summit push aborted

Update: The climbers have just called from CIV, with gasps because of the lack of oxygen at 8,000m.  They decided to leave for the summit, they will start walking in 1 hour approximately (22h Nepal).  The wind hasn't receded so it may be possible they have to come back soon, anyway they will climb without looking down and if they have to turn around they will do it without looking at what is left behind. The Brazilians and an American expedition that has been in CIV since yesterday will also leave upwards

Update: After 20 minutes of ascent, David decides to turn around because of the cold.  He is already back in CIV.  He has the satellite phone, and Jorge and Haya have gone up with the walkie talkies.  They have very little battery left, so please don't call so that they can use it in case of need.  He is fine and is resting in CIV. All the English bottles they had failed except for 4 which Jorge and Haya took up.

Update: The blizzard is harder and the 4 bottles of English oxygen have failed, so Jorge has decided to go back to CIV, and Haya also did it later.  Now the 3 of them are in CIV sheltered from the blizzards without problems. It is forecasted that no climber will get to the summit of Everest with these conditions. They will spend the night in CIV.

The climbers are back in CIII, once they unmounted CIV and CIII they want to go down to CII to spend the night.  They are well physically.   They don't know much about the Brazilians, they are still up. 

They are happy because at least they tried. 

The plan after sleeping in CII is to go down tomorrow to sleep in BC and after 3 days of trekking, take the plane from Luckla to Katmandu.  It looks like the British will refund the money of the failed oxygen bottles

Update: Jorge, David and Haya are in Camp II They plan to climb to Camp III tomorrow morning, Tuesday, May 31, on Wednesday, June 1 climb to CIV and on Tuesday, June 2 reach the summit. 

It was very hard for us to get to CII yesterday, it took us 9 hours.  The 20 days or more without climbing beyond BC, are evident.  We have lost some acclimatization and the fitness has also fallen because of the lack of activity.  David was a little better than Jorge and Haya on the way up.

We will stay all day in CII as we planned, trying to recover that acclimatization partly lost to get our bodies gradually used to the physical effort required to climb and eight-thousand.

We slept 5 in the same tent in CII (3 of us and the 2 Brazilians) and we tried to mount a kind of advanced BC where we play our dice games and we try to drink and eat everything possible.  The truth is that at this altitude we don't accept food as in BC and it is a real effort to get something solid in our mouths, but we force ourselves because we know it is necessary.  At least hydration is being done very good and we have drunk more than 2 litters of water each one in afternoon of dice.

We got really good news from CIV, our friend Jesús Calleja, from Leon, has reached the summit this early morning and he is resting in CIV to try to go down to BC tomorrow in one try.  We have spoken to him through the satellite phone.  He told us that he was feeling very good during the whole ascent since he left BC.  With him was Willie Benegas, an Argentinean mountain guide of whom we told you days ago.  He was the one in charge to open the Hillary step.

The trail is stupendous for us, because there is an open trail up to the summit and it is rigged with fixed lines up to the south summit and the Hillary step.

The meteo, we better not mention it because it is all so contradictory that we don't know if we should trust it.  It looks like the day we chose (June 2) in which winds looked under 30 Km/h have changed to 60 Km/h.  we hope that as we get closer to the date they will recede. 

From tomorrow we will only carry the voice phone and the data phone will be left at CII.  So from tomorrow we will tell the chronicle to Endika and he will transcribe it.  The pictures will be taken from other publications and web sites, but when we are back to CII, we will send all the audiovisual material we can in take in these days of altitude.

Tomorrow we will try to climb to CIII and we have set our alarm clock to 5 in the morning. 

We want to close today's chronicle with a phrase by Irivan, one of the Brazilians, we like it because it lifts our spirits in the moments of exhaustion: "If you give one more step, you are not in the same place anymore". We hope to write tomorrow from CIII.  Don't fail us, Expeadicts.

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

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