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Part III of III:  Funds for Everest and apprehensions
 

He has the team, the goal, and Shishapangma as the testing ground.  There is a crucial element left for him and team to tackle: Funds.  For many climbers this is perhaps one of the biggest obstacles.  Back in the 80’s Steve’s teams were responsible for preparing a lot of the logistics and negotiating with different people for all the different parts of the expedition.  As Himalayan climbing has matured, most trekking agencies now offer an all-inclusive ‘land cost’.  The trade off here is convenience for more money.  All of his other trips including Shishapangma have been self-financed - for Everest this will not be the case.  Steve has put some feelers out there to see what people and some businesses thought and has had some positive responses.  He will wait until after Shish before he starts the all out fund raising.  With almost 2 years lead time he should be in decent shape come 2004.

As for apprehensions from Steve and his team, the biggest appears to be the political instability.  While he has no worries, some of team shares a concern for the tensions in Nepal between the Maoists and the government.  One member has even decided to stay home because of it.  At ExplorersWeb we have not heard of any problems from the climbers who have reported back to us, either from the Everest area or the Karakorum this summer.  Still, it was not more than a year ago when a bomb did go off at the Lukla airport and there have been rumor that the Maoists have been known to ‘ask’ for ‘donations’ along the trail.

The team will be leaving on September 27^th and will be staying for six weeks as they spend time acclimatizing on Shishapangma as well as on some of the surrounding peaks.  Steve is spending the next month and a half getting together some last minute things and researching communication solutions.  If all goes to plan they will be summiting at the end of October and returning to North America in early November.  

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