Good day,

Paul and Attila have summited! A HUGE congratulations to these guys!

Such wonderful news reached us this morning at 0650hrs! They are
currrently (Wed evening) in Camp 2, and are expected to head to Base Camp tomorrow (Thursday).

Fiona and Reni can't wait to see them, and neither can I!

We (Pertemba, Fiona, Reni and I) hung out in the mess tent last night
waiting to hear whether or not they were going to make the push - there was
some hesitation and worry earlier in the evening when the winds were
strong, but they subsided enough for the boys to make the attempt.

They headed off at approx 2140hrs - we all stayed up for a bit longer, and
then Fiona and Reni brought in two small cots to sleep on, while staying
near the comms bay. This way, if Paul or Attila tried to make contact with
BC, they'd have a better chance to get the message. Pertemba and I stayed
up a little longer (I did some administrative work), but then it was time
to go to bed - after all, it'd been a whole lot of hours since I'd seen the
back of my eyelids for any length of time.

I awoke at 0430hrs, and headed to the mess tent. Standing outside, I
momentarily thought the expedition was over - it was dark and quiet, but when I peeked inside, there was Fiona and Reni, awake and waiting to hear from their boys. I joined them at this point, as did Pertemba - and we waited
for news. There had been no communication all night, so we were all keen
to hear how things were going.

Well, the morning wore on, when we finally got a call - they were on the
South Summit - Woohoo! - then Fiona, Reni and Pertemba placed bets (for
fun), on what time they'd get to the actual summit - I was the moderator,
and anyway, I agreed with Fiona's time. So, that gave us something to do!

Suddenly, at 0650hrs, we got the call that they were on the summit of Mount
Everest! The message was a bit garbled at first, but we learned that they
were okay. That was all we got from them - Fiona and Reni, naturally,
wanted to speak with them, but as the minutes ticked by, we all came to the
conclusion that they must be on their way down, without having an
opportunity for radio calls. It was wonderful news that they summited,
but they still had to come down. Later, that morning we heard that they
were at C4 - whew! Now, just get down to C2 (after a short rest, of
course!)

Radio contact continued to be sketchy all day, and at around 1700hrs we
heard they were in C2. Good job, you guys!

Later in the day, Martin came back to BC. He will not be going for the
summit , but he sure did attain a personal altitude record approx 7300m -
congrats Martin!

And so, tomorrow I'll pack for the trek out, and wait for Paul and Attila
to arrive - I can't wait to hear about their adventure.

Cheers!
Meagan