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 Home > South Col Dispatch Index > May 24 (2:30pm PST) Dispatch

The Cavalry Arrives
The Balcony - May 24, 2002 (2:30pm PST)

Prittie
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Greetings everybody, sorry for the delay there, I'm trying to handle the microphone with my heavy mittens on. It's getting colder as the night progresses and we're picking up a little bit more wind, maybe five or six miles per hour. It's quite chilly up here right now.

"The last about 300 feet has been very, very difficult trailbreaking, knee-deep windslab up here so we were very glad to see the cavalry arrive, in the form of Pete Athans and Brent Bishop...."
We're just at the base of the Balcony. The first part of the contingent and everybody else is about maybe 50 feet below the Balcony. It still remains a beautiful evening — a beautiful moonlight, you don't need headlamps up here at all. There's a a little bit of high cirrus moving in and we're looking down on a huge cloud down below us.

So it remains a beautiful evening, everybody is moving quite well, especially Joe who's putting in a really strong performance up here. The last about 300 feet has been very, very difficult trailbreaking, knee-deep windslab up here so we were very glad to see the cavalry arrive, in the form of Pete Athans and Brent Bishop and Sherpas from the National Geographic team to help us break trail to get here to the base of the Balcony. So thank you very much guys, that was a big help.

So we're continuing on, making very good time here this morning and we'll keep you posted as we continue progressing upward here on Mount Everest.

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

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