Monday, April 27, 2015

Still waiting for the helis

It's 8am on Monday EST, and I spoke with Pat throughout the night. Helicopters had been coming to Camp 1, and everyone but the Summit Climb team has left. It seems a few different decisions were being made -- whether to climb down, whether to wait it out a bit because of rumors of chaos at Base Camp, and whether they could actually get on the flights because of their insurance policies. In the case of rescue, climbing insurance companies will send flights to pick climbers up. So they thought they needed to get on flights sent by their insurance, but here, that's not the case. I spoke to Global Rescue (who have been fantastic) & they said these flights are all part of the government rescue, so anybody can get on them. So now Pat & his team know.

The flights have stopped for the day -- they don't have the instruments to fly at night. Global Rescue said they should resume tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will be good. I asked Pat who is on the mountain with them -- they are the last people up there as far as they know. These are all people with Summit Climb:

2 Romanian climbers (couldn't catch their names)
Meti from Finland (sorry about the spelling)
Pat & Jim from the U.S.
Sam & Alex, Pat's climbing buddies from the UK
Dan Mazur, Summit Climb's expedition leader
8 Sherpa (didn't get their names)

I spoke to Pat and Sam, and they sound good. Global Rescue knows they have provisions for a few days & knows they're waiting. Someone told me they had read a post that said that Dan Mazur said they were at Base Camp. They are not. They're at Camp 1 waiting to be picked up.

All your prayers, thoughts & positive vibes needed to clear the skies tomorrow morning so the helicopters can get in & they can get off the mountain!

Thank you everyone :)

Kathy

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