Cold and snowy, Hot and clear
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to sit tight and let the sun do it's job. The strongest Sherpas will break trail and dig out the lines leaving the climbers to take the day off.
High altitude mountaineering is a sport of extreme ... patience. It requires great bursts of sustained energy followed by long periods of mind-numbing boredom. Kind of like taking a taxi ride in New York. Anyway, the climbers use the time to wash clothes, email, sleep, eat, repack gear, sharpen crampons, sleep, eat, review routes and - oh did I mention - eat and sleep?
And now for some weather reports dated April 20th, Everest time:
Ken Stalter from the north "...More snow today in CBC. We were lucky to come down before the snow started as it was a 12 mile walk. We had good luck at ABC and got up to the North Col. Weather was very cold, below zero at night and high of 15-20 during day. Strong gusty winds."
And Fi Adler on the south "...we hardly received any new snow today and much of the day was warm allowing some of the recent snowfalls to melt and consolidate. In fact, for a while it was pretty hot with some of the team members stripping down to only shorts and T-shirts."
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