Guides: Mike Pond, Dustin Byrne, Tad McCrea
Climbers:
Jim Bonadonna (New York), David Wain (UK), David Pritchett (UK), Todd
Fletcher (Australia), Peter Menne (Germany), David Martin (Australia),
Mark Mueller (California), Philip Mace (Bermuda), Brian Knowles
(California)
Mike called at 3:46 PST on 6/13 with the following dispatch:
“Hi this is Mike – Dustin says Hi too – We’re at 14,000′ and spent the
last couple days doing camp maintenance. We’ve had 2′ of new snow, so
it’s been a bit crazy . It’s been pretty interesting seeing some gnarly
avalanches, but we are a safe distance away and we have the best walls
at camp.
Alasdair’s team left about an hour ago. The weather is ok, generally
clearing up today and tomorrow, but the forecast keeps getting pushed back
and getting worse. Apparently people at 17 camp have been getting battered.
One quote from climber up there says it is the worst weather they had
ever seen. Ever.
But ya, we are pretty psyched at our Planet Hoth base camp here.
Spirits are up and everyone has been telling jokes and having a good
time.
Sorry we haven’t been too regular on our dispatches here. We’ve had really low signal strength with all the bad weather we’ve had,
and also our solar panel wasn’t charging the phone very well. But now
we have swapped panels with Alasdair since he is heading out, and it is
working much better. That’s it for now!”