Details and plans for the next 2 weeks

Jim and I plan to go to Camp 1 on Monday April 19th and we will stay at least 2 days but more like 3 days. This would include a full trip through the Ice Fall which would be about 2-3 hours more than what we did the on the training day. Camp 1 is roughly 19000 ft. 1 day while we are there, we will walk about ½ of the 7 miles up to camp 2. This gets us around the corner to be able to see camp 2 and then we will return home.
Our support staff has been up the mountain every morning the last 4 days to help set up the camps at Camp 1 and camp 2 so they will be taking tomorrow off to rest a bit and help Jim and I finish up the last little details of base camp setup. Then some of them will return down the mountain to get more supplies for our trip.
After we return home, I will stay at base camp for about 4 days and then proceed up the mountain again to camp 2, which is 21000 ft. I will go with the lead Sherpa guide (Nima Tashi) to work on our relationship. (Speed, habits and Language). We will need to work on our language issues as his English is not the best and neither is mine (South Alabama) which makes it worse for him because he doesn’t hear well. So we will have to work on a few signals to make this work. Don’t worry, Nima Tashi is a great person, an accomplished guy (summitted Everest 11 times) and is generally considered one of the hardest working Sherpa’s on the mountain. I climbed with him on the Grand Teton last September but this is a completely different climb with different rhythms. Martin spent 45 days in Oct/Nov (Baruntse) with him being the lead Sherpa including the entire crew (guides and Kitchen crew) and feels completely comfortable with them so his recommendation meant a lot to me.
I spent quite a bit of time discussing this with Jim this morning while we worked on the tent setup. This part is another essential part of the success of my summit attempt. I have had failure and have had success with a pretty stringent program over the years and I know what works for me to make it to the top so we just have to spend some time together to make sure the basics are messed together. I always walk in the back of the pack as this gives me time to adjust to almost anything and with me being the only one in between 3 Sherpas I am a bit uncomfortable with it since it a roped climb including mostly fixed ropes due to the severe steepness of the mountain especially on summit day so I just need some comfort with who I am with. Sherpa’s are real animals on the mountains and their pace can be quite fast and I need them also understand my little idiosyncrasies so we can be successful. Nawang Pasang is the other lead guide who speaks very good English and this will be his 4th summit attempt (with having 3 summits in the last 4 years) with numerous times up to the Southern Col and Dawa Tsuring will be the 3rd Sherpa and this will be his first summit attempt but has been up the Southern Col many times as a working Sherpa.
I feel pretty good about all of these guys as I have met and spent time with their families as we came up the valley to get here so I understand their motivation and commitment to get home safely as they have families who depend on them and Nawang’s wife will actually have their baby when we are on the mountain and she told us to bring him home safely personally when we had dinner with his brother and her.
I will fill the rest as we move through these next few weeks and once we start you can fill in your calendars as I will not be able to post blogs or answer emails when I am on the mountain.