July 20, 2007

Guide Danny Uhlmann called this morning with a dispatch from Illimani:

"All five members of Team Mabunga left for the summit attempt on Illimani early this morning. Myself and Kurt Gusinde set off at 3 am, and Juan, Steve, Joey, and Rob left at 4 am. The weather was quite warm - we had clear skies, bright stars, and our route was in very good condition! A third of the way up, Rob was feeling a bit sick, so he went down to High Camp with Juan at 6 am. Kurt and I continued up to the summit, but there was a large crevasse that had opened up 50 feet from the top, so we turned back at that point.

"We began the descent, meeting Joey along the way at 10:30am. After getting our beta, Joey and Steve continued up, taking an alternate route to the summit while we continued down to High Camp. The decent was pretty mellow, with a few steep places.

"We are at High Camp now and it's gorgeous, with views of Huayna Potosi. High camp faces west, and so you can see the night lights of La Paz - its pretty cool. I can't confirm that Joey summited, but at this point I'm assuming that they did."