Hello all,

I just realised that I never posted the full list of our 2006 7summits.com/7summits-club.com Everest summiteers, so, though a bit late, here they are, 22 people, on 3 different dates:

1.Vladimir Lande May 15
2.Nima Wangde Sherpa May 15

1.Arkadiy Ryzhenko May 21
2.Igor Svergun May 21
3.Sergey Kofanov May 21
4.Kirk Wheatley May 21 (finished 7 Summits)
5.Noel Richmond Hanna May 21
6.Lorenzo Gariano May 21
7.Slate Stern May 21
8.Henrik Andre Olsen May 21 (finished 7 Summits)
9.Mingma Sherpa May 21
10. Furba Kushang Sherpa May 21
11. Passang Ghyejen Sherpa May 21
12. Mingma Gelu Sherpa May 21
13. Renjin Sherpa May 21
14. Pasang Sherpa May 21
15. Jangbu Sherpa May 21
16. Nima Sherpa May 21

1.Lincoln Hall May 25
2.Lakcha Sherpa May 25
3.Dawa Tenzing SherpaMay 25
4.Dorjee Sherpa May 25

I did not get a reaction to my latest email to Mounteverest.net about what really happened and their mistakes in the oxygen calculations. Frankly, their story does not make much sense, I might post a story about the correct use and calculations of oxygen one of these days. In the meantime, the number of anonymous threats have gone down, thanks very much for many of you who have posted or emailed kind words after reading through the slanderous 'reporting'.

National Geographic Adventure will come with a reasonable objective story in their September issue, which should be on sale soon. It contains some of my images, including a 2 page spread. But the best thing is that it gives some credit to Pemba and the other Sherpas, people that have been grossly neglected by all media, especially when covering Lincoln's rescue. There are some factual mistakes in their version of Pemba's story. You will notice those when you have followed all the reports from Alex and me and other teams. I pointed them out to Nat Geo, but they said they did not want to change anything last minute and in the basis most is correct.

Take care, keep climbing and be safe,

Best regards, Harry

Hi all, this morning I found the following email from MountEverest.net in my inbox:

Continue reading "Reaction to the MountEverest.net article about Thomas & Harry"

Following is the first draft of my story; my vision of the truth so to speak.. I will continue with Lincoln's part tomorrow as the generator is off and it is almost 0400 here and I do need some sleep after running down to ABC within 4 hours, Forgive spelling and typing mistakes, as far as I know the facts are true.
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Hi everybody,

many of you have already read or listened to reports about the things that happened on Everest the past few days. To avoid confusion, mis-translation, mis-interpretation, speculation etc I would like to give my own first-hand account of what happened the past week on Everest.

Just as a reminder, some basics:

Thomas contacted me to see if I could set up and guide a small expedition that could help him, a disabled climber, to climb Everest. His disability was: since a removal of a braintumor, he had noticed that his vision was deteriorating, whenever he got into a low pressure environment, whether it being a mountain (high altitude) or a test environment. Due to several reasons I accepted this challenge and agreed with my colleague, partner and friend Alex Abramov to give up my co-leadership of our joint expedition (we each have 15 clients in this expedition).

Instead I would lead a small expedition, consisting of Thomas, 2 personally selected Sherpa friends Pemba & Pasang and 2 climbing cameramen Milan Collin & Kevin Augello, who would be documenting the climb and everything surrounding it.

We started a dedicated
site, www.SightOnEverest.com , so we could post updates, but also give attention to a very special charity, Cureblindness.org. We want to raise awareness and funds for them, nothing of the donated money would go to our climb or documentary, we financed those ourselves.

We did not know in advance how far Thomas' sight would deteriorate and therefore would not speak of a 'blind climber', something that some media found easy to communicate. The only blind climber that summited Everest (and the 7summits) is Erik Weihenmayer, a great man and a formidable accomplishment. We also agreed that we would see how far the combination of Thomas' experience, visual problems, and mental and physical strength would bring him during the 2 months on Everest, one step at a time.

Lincoln Hall was part of another sub-team, to
get Christopher Harris (15 years) to the top, together with his father Richard and filmmaker Michael Dillon. Lincoln had already climbed (but not summited) Everest in 1984.

Our (the
7summits.com/7summits-club.com expedition) first team summited the 21st, the day we (team B) left for the higher regions of the mountain.

This is what happened from day to day:
Continue reading "Everest 22-27th May, what happened to Thomas, Lincoln & Harry"

SUMMIT!
we have been watching the team all morning, here is the first unofficial 7summits update. Mingma Gelu & Sergey K summited quite early as planned and waited for the rest of the clients. Apparently Slate Stern summited soon after and was going down quickly after, in good speed. Henrik Olsen also summited in good time and finished his 7 summits!

Ilya was having problems at the 3rd step and sat there for a long time, but our team is bringing him down now.
Noel summited about 25 minutes ago and is now going down and just a few minutes ago, at the end of our maximum time allowed, Lorenzo arrived at the summit, where our guide Igor Svergun was waiting for him, they will be coming down now and will be taking everybody they meet on the way. More Sherpas have summited as well, names to follow later.
Ronnie Muhl is now at the 2nd step, so we will have to take him down as he is going too slow to go for the summit safely, just as Igor Plushkin. At the moment we are not sure if Kirk summited or not, but so far everybody is safe and in good hands and we will make sure that all members and sherpas come down together. Maybe more later, we will be leaving with team B soon.

All the best, Harry

Hi all you friends and followers, here is a quick morning update, live from my tent at ABC. Sun is just about to hit, so hopefully it will warm up a bit!

To start with the positive side of things: Our first team has arrived at 7700m camp last night and besides some regulator problems (we have spares), all seems ok. It is one of the largest groups on Everest at the same time, today they will head for 8300m and after a short rest go for the summit tomorrow morning! All the best to the 12 clients, 2 western guides and 10 Sherpa guides:

Ilya Rozhkov, Russia
Arkadiy Ryzhenko, Russia
Igor Plyushkin, Russia
Lorenzo Gariano, UK
Kirk Wheatley, UK
David A. Lien, USA
Slate Stern, USA
Ronald Kevin Muhl, South African
Noel Richmond Hanna, UK
Petter Kragset, Norway
Henrik Andre Olsen, Denmark
Johnny Brevik, Norway
with guides Igor Svergun and Sergey Kofanov 

Our 2nd group including the Ozzies, yours truly/Thomas, Ron Morrow and Alex & Luda will wait for the first group to be safe. So today we can rest in ABC and prepare for what is to come   

Continue reading "20th May: summit push and fatalities"

Hello everybody. I know you are waiting for news about summit attempts, updates on rumours and what have you, but for now here is something to suit the cultural interested friends

We will be leaving Taschi Dzom in a few hours, on our way to BC, ABC, NC & ...... This little village is nothing more than a crossroad with a few mud houses, but I always love it here. If you take the time to just sit somewhere for some time an dlet local life pass you by, you can get some views like this, enjoy (?)...

Continue reading "Photo Impression from Taschi Dzom"

Hello all your friends and followers, it has been a week, so time for an update, live from Taschi Dzom, Tibet, 4200m above sealevel...

Last week tried to get back to ABC in order to spend a 2nd period at North Col. Though Kevin made it to middle camp after some struggle, he could not follow the pace to ABC next day and Nickolay brought him back to middle. Milan felt stronger and continued slowly and made it to ABC just before it got really cold, the first time for him! On the way I talked to Lorenzo, who had spent 2 nights at NC and even walked to 7600m, so from being behind at acclimatisation, he is now actually ahead of everybody, so it shows how Everest can change things quickly...

Meanwhile I was feeling quite bad myself, some bug had entered my body and I felt weak since leaving BC, getting worse every day...

After a rest day, Thomas and I went for our 2nd acclimatisation trip to North Col, this time the plan was to sleep there for 2 nights. The Australians were coming with us and Milan joined us as far as possible..

The day started out nice, but soon the weather deteriorated..

Continue reading "15- May: up to 7400m, down to 4200m..."

Hello everybody, here is a quick update about the past events at the 7summits Basecamp, 5200m.

Let's start with a quick (?) tour of our Basecamp. Milan & Kevin filmed me using the Manfrotto Figg Rig, which makes it possible to use strange camera angles, hand the camera over smoothly and much more. This video is a edited version, meaning the slow parts are speeded up a bit, but the entire thing was one (!) long take of 15 minutes originally, no cuts have been made. Mike in turn filmed us doing the filming, so in the larger version/documentary/DVD we can show much more. For now enjoy the Basecamp tour!

After long delays due to the cold Russian winter, finally our oxygen arrived a few days ago and it is now already in ABC, ready to be taken up the mountain by our Sherpa team. Many expeditions had delivery problems and apparently the black market prices of 2nd hand and not so trustworthy bottles had increased a lot. But we will only use Poisk, straight from the factory, all 200 bottles!

NC manager Sergey celebrated his B-day 2 days ago, which was accompanied by some great Russian singing and guitar playing. 'Computerman' Sergey did most of the playing and singing, great to hear and see. And of course the Stllichnaya & Smirnoff toasts were not missing. Sergey's actual B-day was yesterday, but then he already went up with our first big team, that is now on its way to spend at least 2 nights at North Col. It is the mix of cultures that makes the 7summits expeditions so special, the mountain is temporarily forgotten, the mind is cleared, so it can absorb great situations with ditto people.

Our 2nd team will leave today to do the same, so our next update might take a few days. In the meantime you might have noticed the new webcams on our websites. We have 2 cams in BC, one is pointing towards Everest, so you can see the current weather, the other is either showing the overview of BC or is placed inside one of our many tents. If you have some time on your hands, you can check the archive/tests and you might see some strange images

Signing off from cold but happy BC, let's climb!

Harry

Well, we are (almost) all back in Basecamp, having spent a night at NorthCol, 7000m! Unfortunately one more member has to leave the expedition. It took a while as we were all on different places on the mountain, but here is a quick update in words and images about the past week:

28/29 April: BC- ABC. We took it easy today, and started with a long interview of Thomas, with mighty Everest towering in the background. Will be interesting to redo the same interview in about a month’s time! Good to see Kevin and Milan working together in documenting this special expedition.

After the interview Thomas and I went together with the Australians and walked back up to ABC in 2 days, sleeping in our intermediate camp, next to the 'Ice sharks', the amazing natural ice sculptures at Interim Camp, sometimes 20 metres high! The hike up was a bit faster than the first time, but still we can improve there, which will be needed before we are fit enough for a summit attempt.

On our first day we met Bill (Tyler) coming down, who descended because of a serious back pain. Doctor Andrey (who already and again has helped members of different expeditions like) met him at Yak camp and while we were having lunch Bill received a few injections in his behind, open air surgery.. This should help and maybe after a few days of rest Bill can try again to go up.

Continue reading "28th April- 4th May: Basecamp- North Col - BC and first summits of the season and more members leaving.."

Milan made a small movie in the kitchen and dining tent. Click the pix below and see how the cooks are preparing, the team is eating and how the cooks are celebrating that all went well as usual

Meanwhile the first team headed up to Intermediate camp, planning to go to ABC tomorrow. Thomas, Kevin, Milan and I will go up tomorrow with the Australians. Not sure if Lorenzo will join us, he is planned to return from Taschi Dzom tomorrow morning, together with Frode, Ludmila & Nickolay.

All the best from a melting and hot BC,

Harry