Tracker Question

Hi All, Walid here. I just receieved a question from Sandy Omeara, Max's mom, regarding the tracker. She wrote;

Q: One thing that bothers me, it always seems according to the GPS that he looks like he is lost, goes one direction then back then over then back. I know I'm probably missing something simple but can you explain? thanks

A: When you look at the maps and the routes I have drawn it seems that all is in a straight line, which is not the case. The route he is climbing goes around crevasses, cliffs and other obslacles. He is also climbing very slowly at that altitude so the tracker will place lots of dots near each other, which could also be caused by some errors in its fix. Also, when he got to the North Col he probably rested for a little while then went out to catch the sunset, check out the route of the next day and walk around camp. He could have taken the tracker with him.

The climb up the North Ridge, which he will begin tomorrow starts by going up a small rise from the North Col camp and then traversin the Col before ascending again. He may well have climbed that small rise to check out the conditions of the ridge for the next day.

In short, do not worry about what you see on the tracker. There are a million benign reasons why it looks like he is lost. It is one of those situations where we don't have enough information from the device to make any conclusions other than he is approximately at some location at some time. Tomorrow is a huge day for the team, arguably one of the toughest, so lets throw some good karma their way as they move on up.