News: Leaving for the First Summit Bid
Eric Simonson - Basecamp
Sun, May 06, 2001 5:50AM

Today our first summit team of Jake Norton, John Race, and Tap Richards left Base Camp. They plan to go all the way to ABC today to meet up with the Sherpas, take a rest day there, then head for the North Col, Camp 5, Camp 6, and... Well, we'll just have to wait and see.

These three climbers have all been to above the First Step, about 28,500 feet, so they know what its is like to get close to the top. That is good, because they have all had a few years to review, consider, reconsider, and second guess their previous non-summit, and get psyched for this try!

All of us previous summitters (Eric, Andy, Brent, Dave) are psyched too, because we know how much it means to these guys, and how motivated they are. This is a big deal for them, to get this opportunity. They know it, and we know it. They will make us proud, I'm sure.

As for the rest of us, we don't plan on just sitting around. We'll be sending up another search team in the next few days to continue our high altitude work. There are several "hot spots" we still need to check out, and we have all the logistics in place to keep searching. In addition, Jochen and our video tech Riley Morton, are heading up to IC today and ABC tomorrow, to be in position to record the action on the mountain.

The next couple weeks should be exciting!

This team would like to say a sincere thank you to all our friends, supporters, and well wishers. We really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Eric, Dave, Andy, Brent, Jake, John, Tap, Lee, Jochen

Eric Simonson, Expedition Leader

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