PathWrangler

I just received a quick note from Eric.  The IMG Hybrid Team made the summit a little while ago.  Due to everyone waiting on the North and South Side, it was pretty crowded up on the summit.  Everyone is down safe.  Now Eric’s team is waiting for their window.  Eric Simonson reports:

The weather for the next few days does not sound too good with higher winds back in the forecast. By the 25th, however, it is supposed to get calmer again, so the Classic climbers are getting geared up to hit this next favorable window. They will be heading up in the next day or two to get in position for their summit bids.

Stay tuned.  The big day is coming soon.

Today’s Adventure Destination Photo: Gokyo Lakes, Nepal

This is for all of you business owners (start-ups, tour operators, guides, etc) out there.  It is critical to your business to have a mission statement for yourself that reflects the core values of your organization and your team.  It is a guide, if you will, for the soul of your organization and it could determine your success or failure.

With this in mind, my good friend Kevin Lincks has created a new mission statement for his Emeryville/Oakland California-based company Red Cloud.  Their business provides wireless solutions.  In order to meet their demanding market, Kevin has written the single greatest mission statement in the history of commerce.  Red Cloud provided us with a quality sat phone so that we could communicate between Antarctica and San Francisco.

Feel free to pass along and even implement in your own organization–if you are audacious enough:

Red Cloud’s pioneering global initiative has leveraged mind share with C-Level contacts from iconic, archetypal Fortune 500,000 firms to form a dynamic go-to-market 21st century repurposing, a sleeve of visionary value propositions addressing top-of-mind concerns of mobile workforces with a confluence of transformational, enabling mission critical enterprise technologies utilizing a spectrum of symbologies to iterate a convergence of game-changing next generation mashable application suites, field mobility solution sets and integrated system portfolios platforming on secure, capacitous, resilient, robust I.P. infrastructure seamlessly optimized through modular, scaleable, integritous software-configurable digital interoperable broadband future-proof architecture, with best-in-class attributes.

Red Cloud’s compelling ROIs evangelize bleeding-edge network-enabled data capture forklift solutions, empowering stakeholders to drill down, take a deeper dive, go granular, leverage core competencies and streamline actionable synergies, liaise with their diverse, progressive, value-add partner community in a holistic, collaborative interprofessional lifelong learning framework, maximizing knowledge capital in an immersive clickthrough to the event horizon of a paradigm-shifting sea change: a critical path analysis of percolating entrepreneurial inflection points, incentivizing both brick-and-mortar and virtual cloud-based downstream constituencies to think outside the box, proactively transcend their corporate lexicon and relanguage organizational shibboleths, become thought leaders in their professional métier, and cross the digital divide with transparent management visibility into alternative, crusading new economy venture bizmeths promoting best practices, situational awareness, ethical accountability, gender equity, social responsibility, green energy utilization, renewable resource sustainability and organic wellness.

Red Cloud’s innovative B2B cross-platform transmedia algorithmic workflow designs bring to the table real-time benchmarking, client-centric, eyeball-driving social presence bookmarking and differentiated throughput analytics, elaborating go-forward lifecycle management, ensuring investment protection while enhancing supply chain integrity, limiting burn-in, speeding productized deliverables, rightsizing cost, rightshoring assets, limiting risk, ensuring balance sheet integrity, maximizing revenue with cross-border collateral into dark liquidity pools, augmenting upstream equity toward totemic valuations, while compounding shareholder value through responsible, value-focused corporate governance.

Achieving win-win outcomes for going concerns at the end of the day.

In short, we sell radios. Call us (888-855-5353).

After a long series of rotations up to camp two and three, we descended down to the more comfortable accomodations of Base Camp.  After an enjoyable two nights at Everest Base some of us decided to backtrack even further into the lower elevations of the Khumbu Valley.  So on the 9th we packed our backpacks with the essential items needed for comfort down low and proceaded to descend down through the Sherpa villages of Gorakshep, Lobuche, and Pheriche until we finally stopped at the hillside community of Pangboche.  Pangoche is situated right about an elevation of 13,220 ft (3900 meters) and is beautifually situated beneath the towering mountain tops of Ama Dablam, Thamsurku and Kang Tenga.

The rational for descending down to these lower elevation is to allow our bodies to reep the benefits of the thicker air and take a much needed mental break from the stark landscape of the high Himalaya.  Being down here among the juniper trees and vegitation that would be so alien to us up high is a welcoming home to all that is bountiful and living.

Till then we are closely monitoring the weather for the upper mountain and keeping all of those Sherpa in our thoughts as they transport the vital loads up to South Col and “fix” the remainder of the lines to the summit.  This 2012 season has been a test of mental and physical dedication to climbing the tallest mountain on the planet.  So far, so good.

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Today’s Adventure Destination Photo: Kazakhstan

It was five days since I last reported, and I have finally returned back to Everest Base Camp after a challenging acclimatization rotation up to camp 3 (24,500 ft).  I began on May 3rd with a single push from Everest Base Camp to Camp 2 (21,300 ft); this 4,000 ft gain was a challenge since I needed to pass through both the Khumbu Ice Fall and the Western Cwm in the early morning hours.  The following day (4th), I did a rest day at Camp 2 and it was a day of new snowfall here on Mount Everest.

On the day of the 5th we did our first of two acclimatization attempts to Camp 3.  The conditions were super challenging on this day with winds and snow making our high point about 23,000 ft due to the inclement weather. On May 6th, we did another attempt and this time the weather was blue sky and no wind.  This day was absolutely spectacular and we were able to make it to Camp 3 in good style.  The views and overall location of our high point for this day was a highlight of our trip thus far.  We are preparing ourselves mentally and physically for what lays ahead as we climb this amazing mountain called Everest.

Early this morning we braved the Khumbu Ice Fall yet again, and are now resting comfortably at Everest Base Camp.  The thicker air and great food provided by our cook staff is a welcome addition and now it is time rest our bodies and minds after such a challenging four days up high.  We successfully completed our acclimatization rotations, and now it is time to wait for the right opportune summit rotation.

Conditions for “fixing” the route have been challenging this season, but we have been doing our best to think “out of the box” and expand our minds for a safe solution for attempting the higher slopes of this daunting mountain.  I am a firm believer that the mountain “decides” whether it wants you to summit (or not), and hopefully we have done enough to prepare ourselves mentally and physically for such an opportunity.  Maybe this opportunity will allow us a chance to “sneak” up and down the mountain before it has a chance to notice we have set forth our passage.  Regardless, this place is a magical and spiritual point on this amazing planet in which we all live, I value and respect my time here and hope that this season proves to be a safe and successful one.