Mt. Everest 2005: Waldemar Niclevicz One-day late!

"05/28/05

68th day of Exp. Celebrating 10 years of Brazil in Everest

Basecamp (5400m)

One-day late!

Dear friends,

Today we were going to start our final attempt, but we decided to postpone until tomorrow, because the weather forecast is a mess, and weather itself is completely crazy.

Last night, between midnight and 1 am, we had a violent lightning

storm over basecamp. It was more than an hour under scary lightning and thunders. In the beginning I thought it was an avalanche, but later the noise became so loud that made me actually get out of the tent. Then I heard consecutive thunders  followed by lightning in the middle of deep fog. This morning, after the storm, it was one of the prettiest days ever.

Well, if the weather itself keeps us confused, and we are here observing it, imagine for the metheorologists that have to make a forecast! The result is more confusion! The "window" that was going to happen in the first week of June is already out of question. We will have unstable days, variable winds and possibly one or another storm. The monsoon already started its movement, but it will reach Everest after mid-June.

But our hope never fades away, we will go till the end!

Because of reasonable weather forecast, which means winds at 30-50 km/h and relatively clear skies, I believe there will be a summit possibility between May 29 and 30, and between June 1st and 2nd. We're still at basecamp, so we hope today's "attack groups" are already at Camp 3 enjoying the 1st opportunity. We will climb tomorrow to Camp 2 hoping we can get the second opportunity.

That's it folks, stay tuned, the next days will be pure emotion!

In today's picture you can see the big "mushroom" of clouds over Everest during yesterday's sunrise, announcing the night storm. The wind blew at an absurd speed, certainly more than 130 km/h, but the cloud over Everest didn't move. It started on the south side and faded in the north side.

A big hug,

Waldemar Niclevicz

Translated from Portuguese by Lucia Andreia

Altitech2: Digital Altimeter, Barometer, Compass and Thermometer. Time/Date/Alarms. Chronograph with 24 hour working range. Timer with stop, repeat and up function. Rotating Bezel. Leveling bubble. Carabiner latch. E.L. 3 second backlight. Water resistant. 4" x 2-1/4" x 3/4" 2 oz. Requires 1 CR2032 battery. See more here.

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