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Highest Weather on Earth
Mon Sep 05, 2005
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I’m Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook. On May 15, 1991, Rick Wilcox became the 323rd person to stand on the top of the world.
The Everest experience is a weather experience; everything you do on Mt. Everest has to do with weather, high winds, Arctic temperatures. So, Everest being 29,000 feet tall presents a problem that you got the 150 mph wind ripping off the summit pretty much all year round. I mean you can’t even set up a tent in that kind of wind. So, really, really nasty cold. Night time temperatures were approaching a minus 40 degrees.
We were ready to go around the first week of May. We went up, got blown off, came back down and rested up. Went back up and on May 13th, ’91 the wind went away. It sounds like a freight train up there for the entire spring. It’s just blowing hot. And, then all of a sudden it gets turned off. You might have five days: you might have ten days. And, that’s when you have to scoot up there and get the summit and get back down.
We went up to the South Col at 26,000 feet. Rested on May 14th and at midnight on May 15th we left the camp, climbed the south ridge.
It warmed up to zero on the summit day with no wind, absolutely beach weather on Mt. Everest. Spent an hour at the top and we were back at camp early in the afternoon to avoid the afternoon wind and clouds.
BY: What was your feeling? Did you have time to really enjoy it like “Oh, my gosh; I’m on top of Everest!”
You mean after we’re done crying?
Wilcox owns International Mountain Equipment, in North Conway, NH. The Weather Notebook is funded by Subaru of America.
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