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Ive been sitting in basecamp waiting for a summit window to become available for the last 4 days.

From here it takes 6 days to get to the summit and back down to a safe level (7800 – camp 2)

So weather forecasting becomes difficult this far out…

We just came back from a big meeting in another camp, where a whole heap of team leaders came to discuss this weather, and a possible summit window. They are getting forecasts from 6 sources and trying to come up with an answer.

The weather at the moment is pretty crap, strong wind, and a 125km hour jet stream on the summit.. No chance for summiting today or tomorrow.

Another problem is that the fixed ropes are not fixed to the summit yet, they are only at 8300m. But our Sherpas have shown us a photo of all the rope fixing gear being cached at 8300m.

We know there is a descent window on the 17^th 18^th and 19^th. However the ropes aren’t fixed yet, so we believe the fixers will use the 17^th to get up there and the 18^th to finish fixing.

These rope fixers are a mix of Tibetian and Chinese. The 2 largest teams on the north side are the Chinese and the Indians. We believe the Chinese will be following the fixers up to the summit and the Indians won’t be too far behind them. That will be around 75 clients finished with. But they will take up the 18^th for anyone else to summit that day.

Which leaves the 19^th…

This day is good, but still will have a lot of traffic on the high mountain. AND.. the 20^th the wind appears to be picking up to around 50kms per hour.. which is not entirely impossible.. but will be very hard to climb in. (if this comes a day early, the 19^th is difficult as well.)

The general census at the table was that this year, is a very small summit window. Should we wait for a potential later one??

What if one doesn’t come?

Update: There is a possible second summit day on the 25^th. Will update as the forecasts come in.