April 20, 2001

Hello. This is Walter Keller of the British American Everest Expedition reporting on developments over the last 24 hours. Tim and Mike have gone down from ABC. They had spent quite a number of nights here. I believe that the two of them had spent eight nights each here. Basically at 21,000 feet your body needs a little bit of time to recuperate, so they’ve gone down to Base Camp for just a couple of nights to get a little bit of that thicker oxygen down there at about 17,000 feet. That’s still pretty high, but it’s amazing how well the body will recuperate if you lose just those couple thousand feet.

After their departure, Phil Austin and I went up to the North Col. We did our first carry to the North Col. We picked up some of the gear that Mike and Tim had cached along the way. We arrived at the North Col at about 12:30 or 1:00 in the afternoon. We went ahead and setup a tent and built a platform for a second tent. We plan hopefully to go back up again tomorrow. It was really quite a successful day, and we got a lot of things done. It’s a very beautiful sight from the North Col on Everest at almost 7,100 meters -- about 23,000 feet. It was a beautiful, beautiful day. The winds started to kick up as we came down. We got back to ABC at just about nightfall.

With regard to our cook, he did get sick and needed some medical attention. He has gone down to Base Camp. There was a rumor circulating here on the mountain that he had died. That’s completely incorrect, so we just wanted to clear that up and make it known that he did require medical attention due to altitude sickness, but that he did return to Base Camp with our cook boy and everything was OK.

Phil and I expect to go up tomorrow. And we expect to have Tim and Mike back here in ABC in just a couple days.

Walter Keller
2001 British American Lightweight Everest Expedition