The hot news - 16 summiters !
Today May, 21, at 8 a.m. Tibet time ( 4 a.m. on Moscow ) the first climbers from our expedition have reached the summit of Everest. There were a guide Sergey Kofanov (Russia), sirdar Mingma Gelu Sherpa (it is his 6 ascents), 3 more Sherpas. Slate Stern (USA), Henrik Olsen (Denmark), Arcady Ryzhenko (Russia) and 2 more Sherpas have summited after them a bit later.
At 10.00 Igor Svergun (a guide of expedition from Ukraine) has transferred by a portable radio set, that he is on the summit, together with Noel Hanna (Ireland), Kirk Weatley (England) and Lorenzo Gariano (UK - Italy) and 2 more Sherpas have joined them soon. In total we have 16 summiters today. Now all members and guides go down. The weather is rather good, but the wind is more strong as in the morning.
In ÀÂÑ all did not sleep since seven mornings - we were on communication with climbers. A summit attempt began at midnight. Thus, the first climbers came on the top for 8 hours. Before breakfast all of us by turns looked in a telescope at a summit triangle where rather precisely we saw all ours climbers.
For breakfast Simone Moro has come to us on a visit. He has congratulated our team on success. Only yesterday he has made a traverse from the South through the summit of Everest and has gone down to the North. For now he has decided to live in our camp and gives interview about his feats with pleasure.
Norwegian Vikings Peter Kragset and Johni Brevik, and also David Lien yesterday have gone down in ÀÂÑ from the height of 8000 m. On a portable radio set guides have informed also, that three more members who have left today on attempt - Igor Plushkin, Ilya Rozhkov and Ronni Muhl have reached the height about 8700 m.
Now the second group leaves upward from ÀÂÑ. These are four Australians: Chris - 15-years climber, his father Richard, 2 more operators - Lincoln and Michael, and also Harry Kikstra and Òhomas Weber (blind climber), Alex Abramov and Ludmila Korobeshko. So, taking into account ascents of Vladimir Lande and Nima Sherpa, we have 18 persons have risen the summit of Everest on our expedition now.
Alex and Luda
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From Harry’s blog: Sunday, May 21. 2006
SUMMIT!
we have been watching the team all morning, here is the first unofficial 7summits update. Mingma Gelu & Sergey K summited quite early as planned and waited for the rest of the clients. Apparently Slate Stern summited soon after and was going down quickly after, in good speed. Henrik Olsen also summited in good time and finished his 7 summits!
Ilya was having problems at the 3rd step and sat there for a long time, but our team is bringing him down now.
Noel summited about 25 minutes ago and is now going down and just a few minutes ago, at the end of our maximum time allowed, Lorenzo arrived at the summit, where our guide Igor Svergun was waiting for him, they will be coming down now and will be taking everybody they meet on the way. More Sherpas have summited as well, names to follow later.
Ronnie Muhl is now at the 2nd step, so we will have to take him down as he is going too slow to go for the summit safely, just as Igor Plushkin. At the moment we are not sure if Kirk summited or not, but so far everybody is safe and in good hands and we will make sure that all members and sherpas come down together. Maybe more later, we will be leaving with team B soon.
All the best, Harry