Up EVEREST

 I Had the opportunity to sit next to Ronnie Muhl during a 3 day course recently and only found out the second day of his claim to fame:   He has climbed Mount Everest to the Summit.  He is now on his way up the mountain again but climbing the other side this time - I receive updates from him on an ongoing basis and will be posting them on this blog as I receive them.  Apparently there has been more people on the moon than have climbed ~Everest on both sides !

 Here is his post :
With the trekkers on their journey home, the climbing team, with Ronnie as leader, tackled the Khumbu Icefall for the first time last Tuesday to brush up on their ice climbing skills! Out came the crampons, and they got to work with fixed lines, ladder-balancing across crevasses, and abseiling! Everybody did a good job and that night they slept well while it snowed around them in temperatures of minus 10 degrees.

Wednesday was a rest day for them before leaving on Thursday to make a 3–4-hour push up Khumbu Icefall to about 5000 metres and back to BC as part of the acclimatisation process. This area deserves its reputation as one of the most treacherous sections of Everest and some massive seracs had recently crashed in the upper Icefall. A secrac is a huge block of ice formed on a glacier. Often house-sized or larger, they are dangerous to climbers as they can fall at any time. The fact that these seracs fell already is good news for our team as it means they won’t fall on them! They did, however, cross many a creaking crevasse on ladders and see seracs the size of cars looming over their route!

After that mini-adventure, the team needed a good rest, so on Friday, Saturday, yesterday and today they chilled in Base Camp. They had been due to push to Camp 1 yesterday, but this plan had to be postponed and this week they will push to Camp 1 and Camp 2 to acclimatise.

Have a great week, and keep an eye on that summit!

Ronnie Muhl