Good evening to everybody in cyberland out there watching the Alpine Ascents 2002 Everest Expedition.

It's actually morning for you guys, given that we're in Asia on the other side of the international dateline. We did a successful move to Camp III today, it was pretty much an all-day climb. It started out quite chilly in the shade progressing to rather hot again in the solar convection oven here in the Western Cwm. And then as we gained elevation later on in the day, we picked up a fairly cutting breeze so it kept the temperature down and definitely got my hands chilly, I don't know about anyone else in the party. Ha-ha, I think several people were in that category.

At any rate, everybody is here snuggled into tents and sleeping bags and this is actually our first for real use of oxygen. We will be sleeping on oxygen here at Camp III to try to recover better and also to preserve our strength in anticipation of the summit here in just a few days.

So it was actually a very scenic, very pretty trip up if you could remove your focus from you crampon points and your feet for a few minutes. Obviously going up 30- to 40-degree ice with several thousand feet of air below you demands a certain level of concentration in that regard, ha-ha.

In any case, everybody's here, doing well. We're definitely looking forward and very psyched, very excited to actually be moving towards our ultimate goal of, we hope, the summit of the world here.

Editor's Note: Jeff Mathy is currently at Base Camp with a GI problem. He is waiting to see if he feels better enough to make a summit attempt, but at this time that does not appear likely.

— Willi Prittie, Alpine Ascents International Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent

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