May 17, 1999

Nuptse Summit: Corfield Attempting Everest

(Note: Nationalgeographic.com does not research or edit dispatches.)

Greetings, this is Terry O’Conner reporting from Everest Base Camp. I have some good news to report. After a number of days fixing line under the intermittent snow of a monsoonal flow, a team of three including our Jeff Rhoads, Gyalzen Sherpa, and fellow American Andy Latkas, summitted Nuptse today at 3:05 p.m.

The route seemed less than pleasant as the team noted post-holing in deep snow on most of the upper rib. Jeff described the consistency of the route as sugar snow with powder on top, resulting in a sort of one step up, one step down sort of affair. Pete and Bill will make an attempt on the same route tomorrow morning.

Our hypoxic hero, Charles Corfield, is currently staging his run on the Everest summit tonight from the South Col. He is backed up by a strong Sherpa team, a good weather report, and of course, our thoughts and prayers. We all hope that tomorrow we can report two safe and successful summits, but until then our sirdar, Chhongba, and I sit here in the Comm tent anxiously awaiting news, sipping away at some hot cups of cocoa under a fairly still and serene, starry sky.

Well, this is Base Camp signing off for now. Let’s keep our climbers in our thoughts. We'll talk to you soon. Bye now.

Best wishes to all of you,

—Terry O’Connor