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HIGHER Everest Snowboarders Half Way Up the Japanese Couloir
21:13 p.m. EDT Sep 9, 2003
08.00 PM EST (06.00 AM local) Eric called in. Listen to the voice dispatch:
 Audio - Eric calling in 06.00 AM (local)
"This is Eric Henderson here, Sept 10th at 6am. It's a beautiful day here in Tibet. The storm has subsided and the climbers are half way up the Japanese couloir. Looks like its going to be just a splitter day all day long, temp is -12C. The climbers are quite tired, just talked to them on the radio, it has been a tough evening. They are looking for maybe extending their climbing to 3 days or potentially just taking a rest now and trying to climb during the day and then getting some more in this evening. Everything seems to be fine, and everyone is healthy. Stand by for future updates."
Stephen Koch aims to snowboard the Seven Summits. With only one left to go – Everest – he chose the hard way; down one of the world’s most famous direct lines, the Hornbein Couloir.
Jimmy Chin plans to climb to the top with Stephen and then ski down. Eric Hendersen will follow part of the route and do the communications. The team also chose their two sherpas, Lakpa Dorje Sherpa and Kami Sherpa for companions on the climb: "Lakpa has summitted 4 times without oxygen and Kami has summitted 2x with oxygen. They are great partners and we are excited to have them along."
Off season, in the Monsoon, there are no fixed ropes, no camps and no O2. Stephen, Jimmy and Eric are friends from Wyoming. The expedition uses Contact 2.0 software to provide Web updates.
Image courtesy of Everest Snowboarders.
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