Happy climbers in the CII cook tent

June 3 Camp II
    
So the uncertainty and days of waiting have passed. We are back in Camp II and everyone's excitement and satisfaction is growing by the hour. Coming back down to a more livable altitude and sensing the closeness to BC has definitely added laughter and smiles.

Tonight everyone hung out in the cook tent with the Sherpa and began to remember some of the spectacular moments on summit day as well as some of the more humorous moments. A couple of members of the Singapore team who also made the summit yesterday joined us for the laughs and conversation. Inevitably the talk turned to those that were missed at the summit. We had a wonderful team and unfortunately it wasn't quite as big at the summit but we were thinking of you all.

Tony, Danielle and Esther all deserve a great deal of credit for this summit. This was an incredibly frustrating season due to the overwhelmingly bad forecasts and seemingly poor summit possibilities. Each of them kept hanging in there keeping positive about a break in the chances. Climbing Everest is largely a mental game and they all stayed in it despite the tough breaks. And perhaps most importantly kept smiling and laughing throughout.

Tomorrow night Tony would like to write an account of our summit day. I'm looking forward to it seeing as how he hasn't stopped writing during this entire expedition. We'll also send off some summmit pictures.

We're up at 4 am to get through the icefall early and then showering and drinking beer in the afternoon! We'll be in touch with Tony's account tomorrow.

All the best,
Dave