Scott Hamilton Wednesday, May 19 Everest Base Camp, Nepal

What a morning ! It snowed all night at Everest Base Camp, and despite the difficult conditions the E-3 team was hard at work by 6:00am. The team had another educational teleconference organized by OLYMPUS, and involving a group of high schools throughout a number of states. As an added bonus, we learned that the educational program was going to be re-broadcast on America Online, broadcast.com, and the Channel One educational system. E-3 support team member Claudia Biondi organized the entire event, and member Alex Elman, from The Seeing Eye gave an introductory presentation. The conditions at Base Camp were a bit difficult as the team members answered a large number of very good questions from the students while sitting outdoors in a snowstorm.

Later this evening (Wednesday morning in the USA) Dr. Chris Macedonia, Dr. Jennifer Grin, and Dr. Ken Kamler will be conducting a live interview on the NBC television news network, and will be demonstrating advanced medical technologies in use in the E-3 research program at Mt. Everest. As an added bonus we have made arrangements for Babu Chhiri Sherpa to appear with our E-3 physicians. Babu Sherpa set a World record last week by spending 21 hours on the summit of Mt. Everest, without supplementary oxygen, in a Mountain HardWear tent. Dr Macedonia may be able to provide live digital Doppler blood flow images for Babu Sherpa's carotid arteries. Dr. Jennifer Grin will demonstrate an OLYMPUS digital opthalmoscope providing images of from another climber showing retinal hemorrhages. Live is exciting at Base Camp !

Bu Bu Lu Bu - A grateful Mexican climber came by the E-3 camp at lunch time today to offer thanks to Dr. Jennifer Grin for treatment she rendered to him a few days ago. As has been typical at Base Camp, gratitude is often expressed with food, a far more useful medium of exchange than currency. The E-3 team was treated to a large bag of traditional Mexican treats known as Bu Bu Lu Bu. Truly a unique and welcome change in fee-for-service medical care, and reminiscent of the way things used to be done in the medical profession.

Tomorrow the E-3 team will be breaking camp, in order to begin our return journey to Kathmandu, and eventually home. Porters and yaks are already arriving at Everest Base Camp in anticipation of our next move. Base Camp Manager Rick Satava has been busy the past few days organizing group equipment and logistics for the journey. Our next stop will be tomorrow night (May 20th) at the Italian Research Facility also known as the 8,000 Meter Pyramid Lobuche. The entire day of May 21st will be dedicated to additional medical research at Pyramid Lobuche before resuming our journey to our next stop, Deboche Village. Along the way we will continue to provide digital images by expedition photographer Robert Hyman, as well as updates on our research and adventures.

Scott Hamilton