Chinese Summit Everest

Great Outdoors, this is Dave Hahn. I'm calling you from Everest Base Camp. And I'm calling you in the middle of the day and there's finally no restriction on calling, which is a good thing. The Chinese summited this morning. That was big news all over our side of the mountain, or the side of the mountain, or the part of our side of the mountain that we were allowed to be on. I started out today with Nicky up at Camp II, 21,300. I got out of my tent at about 5:30, looked up and saw a mean, ugly cloud cap on the summit and at the same time, though, saw the Chinese jet that's been flying around the summit this last week. I talked to Mark Tucker on the radio right then to say how ugly it looked up above and that's when he told me that, in communication with Eric Simonson back in the states, that the Chinese climbers were on TV on the summit at that very moment. So pretty dramatic circumstances up there. We, of course, are very relieved that the Chinese summited. We probably have a slightly different reaction to they're being up there then I imagine most people watching on TV and linking it with the Olympics had. But in any case, they're up and the restrictions are off of us. And Nicky and I came down today, after this was our fifth day up at altitudes. We came down to Base Camp today. I'll get back in touch here in just a couple minutes.