Weather Window success for ‘Mountain Professionals’ Team
A great day on Everest for the Mountain Professionals team thanks to a good weather window call.
Despite challenging conditions and a slim weather window, the Mountain Professionals team has made it to the roof of the world! Seven of our ten team members reached the 29,032’ summit of Mt. Everest on the afternoon of May 23rd, while the remaining climbers made the wise decision to turn back near the midway point of the summit triangle in order to conserve energy and make it back to camp safely.
Today’s climb was a little different than other years. Marc De Keyser, the team’s weather advisor, provided a 10-hour “keyhole” window where winds would be mild enough to summit, but with one catch – the gap was in the middle of the day. Nonetheless, this was welcome news after the team’s tents had been battered by high winds throughout the night of the 22nd.
Since most teams planned on summiting in the evening, our group decided to take a gamble and embark on a day climb in order to avoid potentially heavy traffic on the Southeast Ridge. Leaving high camp at 5 AM is nearly unheard of, but their gamble paid off. The team experienced zero waits along the route, climbed mostly in the sun, and managed to completely avoid any strong winds. Big shoutout to Marc for the excellent forecast!
We are so proud of our team members for their awesome work today and want to congratulate them all on a job well done! Their hard work and dedication paid off and we’re incredibly thankful that everyone made it down from the summit safely. The team will be descending to lower camps shortly and we’ll continue to provide updates as they head down to thicker air. Thank you for all your prayers and well-wishes!
