EVEREST LIVE
May 25, 2001
From: Kevin Cherilla
HISTORY WAS MADE ON MT. EVEREST!!!
Namaste to you all!
Today was a day that will go down in history as one of the greatest mountaineering feats of all time! Today, the NFB 2001 Everest Expedition broke four records on Mt. Everest:
- Erik Weihenmayer became the first blind climber to summit Mt. Everest or "Touch the Top of the World";
- Sherman Bull became the oldest climber to summit Mt. Everest at age 64;
- Sherman and Brad Bull became the first father and son combination to summit Mt. Everest together; and
- Our team had the most summits by one team on the same day from the same side of Mt. Everest, 19 out of 21 climbers.
Luis Benitez became the second Ecuadorian citizen to stand on top of the world. Congratulations to all of them! All 21 of our climbers left Camp four by 9:00p.m. on Thursday, May 24th, 2001 heading for the summit of Mt. Everest. By 10:45 AM on Friday, May 25th, 2001 the 19th climber of 21 arrived at the summit. Sherman Bull lead the way and arrived at the summit of Mt. Everest at 8:15 AM -- not only was he the oldest climber in history to summit, Mt. Everest but an hour and fifteen minutes ahead of the next climbers, his son Brad and Chris Morris. When Brad finally joined his father on the top of the world at 9:30 AM, they became the first father and son team to stand together on the top of Mt. Everest. While the three of them were on the summit, eight team members -- Erik Weihenmayer, Luis Benitez, Eric Alexander, Charley Mace, Michael Brown, and Jeff Evans -- all worked together in order to get everyone up the Hillary Step together, at approximately 28,800 ft. This is one of the most dangerous sections on all of Everest and the eight of them worked together to accomplish such a monumental task. At 10:00 a.m. the eight of them reached the summit of Mt. Everest as a team and Erik became the first blind climber to stand on top of the world's highest point. By 10:30 a.m., when Didrik Johnck and Mike O'Donnell set foot on the summit of Mt. Everest, they broke the record as the 18th and 19th climbers from one team to summit on the same day from the same side of Mt. Everest. Mike O, Didrik, Charley and Mike Brown left the summit together and headed back to the South Col.
The journey back to the South Col will take from four to six hours depending on the weather. While the climbing team was high on the mountain working together, the the Base Camp communications team, worked from the communications tent or "Love Dome" to produce timely updates of the climbers' progress. First, the climbers sent information from hand held radios to our head climbing Sherpa's base station at Camp 2. He would then relay the messages down to me at my base station. This relay was necessary because our base station in Base Camp could not pick up the radio calls from the South Col through the summit. We would do radio checks every hour, as long as the climbers were not in dangerous climbing areas, to check the status of their status. Reba Bull and Maurice Peret transcribed the radio calls on notepaper or the computer and then dictated them to Brian Buhrow, our webmaster in California, via satellite phone. Brian would then update our Web site every hour for the millions of viewers to follow along!
Kim Johnson, Base Camp production manager and camera person for the documentary, "Vision of Everest", being produced by Newport Productions and Aperture Films and sponsored by Allegra, filmed the 36 hours of drama right next to the base station. She captured all of the emotional and trying moments of the climb and the documentary should be available for all to see sometime this fall. Kim also assisted in making phone call updates to Brian.
Matthew Sanner and Zac German were in charge of all the Internet communications with the lap top computers and satellite phones. They took and sent all of the pictures that were put up on our team web site during the summit push. We hope you enjoyed all of the pictures, and we can't wait to see the ones from up high, and especially at the summit! All of us were up for 36 hours straight to bring you this exciting information and history making day and event. To pass the time between the hour updates we did the following activities in order to stay awake. We played at least 100 games of Poker Dice, which is similar to Yahtzee, drank 20 gallons of coffee, listened to music, danced around the "Love Dome", read and replied to many emails, and just plain relaxed! As the climbers approached the summit the energy level in our tent was tremendous. There were so many emotions and feelings that we bonded together as team very well. We passed this energy on up to the climbers during every radio check in and assisted in the their efforts to the summit! From all of us here at Base Camp and for the climbers above, we hope you enjoyed the coverage as much as we enjoyed sending it to you. We thank all of you that followed along on a daily basis and during our summit push and for all of the positive thoughts and prayers that have been sending our way the last two months and especially today. You are all a part of the success of the NFB 2001 Everest Expedition. Thank you very much!
Make yourself a great day!