The plan for the next few days ...

April 21

Having trekked down Gorak Shep to find a connection have found you a good overview map to walk you through the next few days. The acclimatisation seems to have kicked in as it was only 1:23h (i like my stats..) versus 2:15 last time up with little altitude difference. Met Paul in the lodge who is joining our group today (did Everest last year, sponsored to do Lhotse this year..) and he had it down to 49 minutes to get small doses of civilisation. Nice to be able to sit on a bench in a warm room. One of the nice side effects of these trips is that one appreciates the simple things in life a lot more. Lets see how long it lasts after the end of the trip.

For the next two weeks we are planning three trips to get accustomed to the mountain. An overnight trip to Camp1 possibly with a touch of Camp2 (hopefully tomorrow if the snow stays away), a 3-4 day trip to Camp 2 with a walk towards the lower end of the Lhotse Face, and a third trip with a touch of Camp 3. Many teams sleep at Camp 3 but given that most people don't mange to sleep at that altitude anyway, Henry's view is that it costs more energy then the benefit it delivers.

Once all of that has worked out, the team is ready for a push to the summit once the weather window is there. Typically there are a couple of windows in the course of May. In past years, the whole team has been up by May 5th but more typical is mid May. The final push from Base Camp to Base Camp is a seven day turnaround; move to C2 ( hopefully one is able to skip C1 by then), C3, up to the South Col/C4, spend a day a there, summit day which typically kicks off at 11pm, stay at C4 after the return, and then move back down to BC. Then the question becomes of repeating Kim's hike (an amazing 60k over two days...) or the quick chopper option...