This email is to introduce everyone to the blog and our ‘blogmaster’, and explain how to subscribe.

Thanks to Chuck Aude for taking on the task of being our stateside contact. He’ll be able to forward emails to us, fix unforeseen blog problems, etc. He (and thru him, we) can be reached at chuck@chuckaude.com.

The Blog

I have set up a blog at http://monty-val-everest.blogspot.com; it is live with the first post already up. I'll be (re-)posting the second entry in a couple days.

It works pretty well; we can send an email and it’s automagically posted to the blog, photos included. You can subscribe to the blog via email right on the site, and posts, including photos, will be forwarded directly to you. If you prefer an RSS feed, the subscribe link is http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/PNfc.

On the blog page, just give it your email address, then there’s a ‘type the letters you see in the box’ check, and it’ll send you a confirmation email. Emails will be sent to you once a day, although it’s unlikely we'll ever do more than one entry in a day. We don't mind if you invite others to join the site; it’s all public. If you subscribe but don't ever get email, check your spam folder. You're welcome to leave comments on the site; there’s a comment link at the end of every entry.

Some of you know I tried doing this with yahoo, but most of you didn’t get the message, and those who did, had problems subscribing. So I've switched to feedburner.

Many of you know me, many know Val, and some of you may not care to read blog entries of someone you’ve never met. So we will preface our individual entries by our names, so you can choose to read mine, Val’s or both.

We've added some info on a non-profit that Val’s supporting – Room To Read. There’s a slideshow and a link to their website.

Profiles of Val and me have also been added.

IMG Blog

IMG, our outfitter, will also have a blog on their site http://www.mountainguides.com. This will give generic info on the team, such as ‘we’ve begun the acclimatization to Camp2’, but no info on, or from, any individual climber.

The Everest page is http://www.mountainguides.com/everest-south.shtml. This is chock full of info on the climb, including bios of our staff and the climbers.

Once they have their blog up I'll try to send the link out to people. If you want to be on their email list in addition to this one, please let me know and I'll have them add you.