원정 개요

C1 at North Col.

Tent at C3 blown away 17 May. 18th Germans told them, so used Moro's tent at 7600m 27, 28 and 29 May. 29th both started up for top intending to rest in other's C3, but Wilco tired at 7700m and returned to C3. 29th again both up to 7700m and again Wilco tired and back to camp while Hans on up and he got to 8300m, sat in Russian tent. Hans cold in only down suit and 30th May up at 2:00 am (all Chinese Times). On top about 12:00 noon (9:45 NST) in winds. Found nothing at top and could take no pictures in clouds and cold; on top 1 minute and back 8300m, where picked up his pack, back down to 7600m tent to sleep. Wilco gone down to North Col because no stove at 7600m. 31 May to ABC where Wilco was already. Wilco had planned to paraglide from summit, but his paraglider was amongst all their possessions in C3 when their tent was blown away.

Source of above information: Van der Meulen


Email to Mr. Jeevan

In fact I want to add a thing to the information I gave to Miss Hawley concerning her interview with us after I summited Mount Everest on the 30th of May this year. At the question of her "If I saw something on the summit when I was there," my very direct answer was "no, I did not see anything." The reason was that I was so completely focused on the view from the summit that I understood: "What did you see from the summit?" I stayed no more than 1 minute on the summit because Everest was in big clouds, surrounding me, so I could not see anything around me.

The next thing she asked was: "how could you know you were on the summit" and I said: "because this place was the very highest point." At that moment of course I could have understand the first question better as it was meant to Miss Hawley but I did not. During the interview I was still very tired from the climb. A few days later this part of the interview came back in my memories. Of course I was not satisfied about my answer concerning the summit because in fact I had seen a bunch of prayer flags swirling around on the summit, and I did not tell to Miss Hawley. To be clear: so I saw nothing else on the summit, only a bunch of prayer flags. With this statement I wish to correct the interview about us and I hope of course that it will not cause any confusion.