4/20/2007 10:47:48 PM -- While the SuperSherpas Expedition makes its way to base camp for an historic summit attempt on Mount Everest in May, an elementary school in Draper, Utah, is starting an expedition of its own.
    Willow Springs Elementary in Draper [see accompanying story] has started a project to climb their own Mt. Everest. For the next month students in each grade will wear pedometers and keep track of their progress on a drawing of the tallest mountain in the world. They will check in with actual members of the SuperSherpas Expedition for a comparison.
    An e-mail from SuperSherpas Expedition member Jerry Mika Friday [Saturday morning in Nepal] let the students know exactly what they are up against.
    "On the first day [of trekking] from Lhukla to Phakding were took 12,336 steps," Mika reported. "We started at 9,000 feet and dropped 700 feet in elevation."
    The team left Kathmandu and flew to Lhukla on Thursday. They are walking to base camp from there and will take about a week to make it.
    "On the second day from Phakding to Namche we took 13,689 steps and climbed from 8,300 feet to 11,000 feet. We also went up and down over 9,000 vertical feet because of all the up and down," he wrote. "For comparison, it is like going from the tram deck at Snowbird to Hidden Peak and back down three times."
    Mika reports that the team is strong and doing well.
    The connection with Willow Springs is due to the fact that Apa Sherpa's daughter, Dawa, is a student at the school. For the first time in his 18 previous attempts to climb Everest Apa's family is on a different continent where they are living in Mika's Salt Lake Valley home.
    — Brett Prettyman, The Salt Lake Tribune