Ed Viesturs and David Breashears and the rest of the team left today, about 5:30 this morning (Sunday).

Everyone's great; they got to Camp II about 10:30 this morning. They will be there tomorrow, one more day. And then on Tuesday they'll head to Camp III. Then Camp IV--the South Col--the next day. They hope to summit Thursday the 9th.

Some of the Sherpas have been up to Camp IV, and they've been spending a lot of time up there getting the route secured. So David is having them take a day to rest.

It's been a little bit of a circus up there. They've done a lot of communicating with other expeditions, more than ever before, talking with other groups. We don't really want to have a bunch of other people up there with us during filming of the IMAX movie. And they don't want to be with us on the route as well. So we are trying to work it out.

A couple of groups are going for the summit on the 11th and another on the 12th.

On the 3rd there was a Swede (Goran Kropp) who went up and he had to fight through the snow.

I know that David was really anxious when he heard that the Swede turned around, about 50 meters from the summit. It's really tough for them when the weather is good and people are up there. Everyone gets really anxious, wondering if the weather will hold and wanting to just get up there.

But Ed had a permanent grin on his face for the last few days and was ready to get on with this summit bid.

Hopefully, because of the snow, we can get some Sherpas up there before our guys. But it's still nice and clear at the summit. The only thing, really, seems to be the winds. We just got an updated weather forecast and supposedly the weather is going to hold. And these forecasts have been accurate so far. The only issue is the wind.

-- Paula Viesturs, base camp manager