Team Still Going Up

A quick update on the team...

Two members of the Philippine All Women Everest Expedition are still climbing higher on the mountain. Carina Dayondon and Janet Belarmino have climbed to the North Col or Camp 1, which is at 7,100 meters, to spend the night there. Tomorrow, Wednesday, the two women will try to climb a bit higher, probably midway up to Camp 3, which is at 7,500 meters. They will then proceed all the way down to the Chinese Base Camp (CBC) to recover, maybe stopping at an intermediate camp if it gets too late.

Everest Summiter Erwin "Pastour" Emata is at Advanced Base Camp with the other team members Noelle Wenceslao and Dr. Ted Esguerra. Noelle and Dr. Ted will go down to CBC tomorrow as Noelle continues to experience symptoms of altitude sickness.

The whole team will regroup at CBC Thursday for some much needed rest the next two to three days. Pastour reports that it is extremely cold (of course they knew it would be cold, but he says it is really cold) at ABC aggravated by the strong winds. They are really looking forward to going down to CBC and be back in contact with the outside world through SMS and cellphones.

Members of the support team are now in Kathmandu preparing for their trip to Tibet. Last year's expedition leader, Art Valdez and one of the team's sponsors, Zsa Faminialagao of Sandugo are expected to leave Kathmandu Friday or at the latest Saturday to meet up with the team at CBC.

Everest Summiter Leo Oracion, Fred Jamili and John Fortes of PALMC are also expected to begin the trek to Everest Base Camp on the Nepal side. They will set up the camp that will welcome the women after they cross Everest from Tibet to Nepal.