Dispatch 48: Super Sherpa and Mountain Madness Teams Summit

GreatOutdoors, this is Dave and I'm at Base Camp. Exciting day on the south side of Mount Everest. Willie Benegas a Mountain Madness guide and leader with his Sherpa team paved to the way to the top today. They summited before 8 in the morning our time, their whole group, that's great. Willie had fixed the route in other years, at least one year that I know of, in 2005, and that's a big job, hard job but Willie did it and then his team was down safely to the South Col in no time. So hats off to Willy, I'm jealous but at the same time I'm glad he was doing that hard work and I wasn't. The timing isn't quite right for me to be up there yet, as I was mentioning yesterday there will be a number of climbers ahead of me in our camps and I think I'll give them some time to take their shot before I go. Also we noted today that the super Sherpa summit team summited. Apa Sherpa summited for his world record 17th times today and made it safely down afterwards with his team so that's pretty good for them. Again I'm jealous but I'm happy enough to be in base camp getting ready. Not too many of our team are left in base camp. Most of the IMG team are in Camp I and Camp II.. I went hiking this morning out in the ice fall, exploring, feeling pretty good and strong, well rested now, a couple more days of this won't hurt me. I think the Weather is shaping up nicely, the jet stream is moving farther away and I'm optimistic I'm going to get a good shot at the summit in the coming week and want to really be ready to take advantage of it.