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14 APR 2001
 Audio Dispatch
Viesturs
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Hi, it's Ed Viesturs reporting on the evening of April 14th.
We've just spent our first full day here at Advanced Base Camp. Last night, during the night, it snowed intermittently and we woke up to about an inch of new snow, but it was bright and sunny during the first few hours of the morning and then it quickly melted away.
We had a nice breakfast, Veikka and I were then able to, for the first time, brew up a couple of nice steaming pots of fresh Starbucks, which was a real treat for us. Then we spent the rest of the day organizing our gear, getting our solar charger set up that will help us recharge not only the phone batteries but also our video camera batteries. The rest was spent acclimatizing, wandering around the area, buttoning up our tents and making sure everything was set for the rest of the time that we are going to be staying here at Base Camp.
The plan for tomorrow is to take a load of gear along the moraine. The mountain lies basically directly to the south of us, and the sun rises to our left and goes straight overhead and then sets to our right in the west. We'll then wander along the moraine, which parallels the glacier. By staying on the moraine we can avoid the ice pinnacles at the lower end of the glacier. After some distance then we can step off the moraine onto the glacier directly, but will have avoided most of the difficult route findings through the ice pinnacles.
So the plan for tomorrow is to carry a load of tents and climbing gear to the end of the moraine where we can set up a deposit. We won't need to be bringing our boots, crampons, ice axes, and climbing rope all the way back to Base Camp every time we go up to do the climbing. Initially our plan is to try to do the climb with two camps. We are going to be using small lightweight bivi tents made by Mountain Hardwear, they weigh about 4 ½ lbs. each. The less gear that we take up the faster we can move, and also the less gear then that we have to bring down.
So that's our plan tentatively for now. It is to get moving tomorrow still to acclimatize a bit, take a load of gear up and then the day after tomorrow perhaps rope up, step onto the glacier and work our way towards what we will hope to establish as Camp I higher on the mountain.
Right now it's a little bit blustery. This evening it's been windy up high for most of the day. We've seen clouds covering the summit. It snowed off and on during the late afternoon with some winds, but we will just have to see how it goes tomorrow. We can easily make it to the deposit at the end of the moraine.
We are looking forward to getting moving again tomorrow. It's been a nice day to hang out and get our systems acclimatized to the altitude but it's time to keep moving on up the hill.
So thanks for checking in and I'll report once again tomorrow evening.
Ed Viesturs signing out.
— Ed Viesturs, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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