Everest Updates 5/9/2017

Climber Christo­pher Hill updates us on rest days and moun­tain fashion:

“We’re cur­rent­ly in a small vil­lage called Ding­boche where we are rest­ing and build­ing our strength for the final ascent. The alti­tude here is about 14,500 (the first and prob­a­bly only time I’ll con­sid­er this alti­tude relax­ing, and yes we have to retrace our steps a full 7,000 ver­ti­cal feet just to get to Camp II. Since we have a cou­ple of days before ascend­ing again I thought I’d share some oth­er ele­ments of the trip. One of the biggest ques­tions is how cold and how do we deal with the cold? So far, it has been ​“rea­son­able” by most stan­dards. The cold­est we’ve had is at Camp II where it hit ‑11F (-24C) dur­ing the night. Team­mate Ivan is seen here mod­el­ing the type of down­suit we wear at Camp II and above to stay warm (i.e., we will live in it almost ²⁴⁄₇). They are very com­fort­able and prob­a­bly the warmest thing I’ve ever worn. We do look like a group of mul­ti­col­ored Miche­lin Men though.”

The team is work­ing their way back to Base Camp, and will begin the final push to the sum­mit in a cou­ple of days.