May 8, 2021
Upper Icefall to the Lhotse Face (Phunuru Sherpa)
Good news today from up high on Everest, with the 12 members of the fixing team reaching the summit. Congratulations to these men, they are the first Everest climbers in nearly two years! Now the route is open and hopefully the various teams will soon start making their summit bids. By getting the fixing work done early in the season, there will be more time in the coming weeks to spread out all the summit bids, which should mitigate any traffic jam problems (like in 2019 when late fixing and bad weather caused the summit bids to get compressed into just a few days).
Our IMG climbers are doing well on their Camp 3 rotations.  Today our Team 1 made good time on a cold and breezy climb of the Lhotse Face to Camp 3, where they took a nice break for eating and drinking before returning to Camp 2. Tomorrow they will descend to Base Camp as the Team 2 climbers move up into position. Over the next couple days the Team 2 climbers will also be climbing to Camp 3 and then descending to Base Camp.
With the route fixing done and the Camp 3 rotations underway, the final phase of the expedition is now beginning to take shape. The IMG climbers will all be back to Base Camp for a final rest before heading back up for the summit bids when the weather looks reasonable!
Greg Vernovage