I need to apologize if this turns into a long blog post.. theres much to cover, and we have little time before kicking off in two days for our Summit Push through the Icefall.
I wanted to pass on a story that Willie and another guide who is here, Kenton Cool told us at dinner the other night. It was so unique and filled with both the hazards of climbing on Everest coupled with humor that Francisco and I found ourselves even talking about it the next day:
I need to backtrack a few hours and make this dispatch start at more like 13 1/2 May… reason being that the afternoon events of yesterday are worthy of mention. Sorry if that throws the blog universe out of whack somehow, but I figure that there’s only a minor risk of that happening and I’ll try to keep last night’s stories as entertaining as possible. Because it was truly a good night. Read more »
This morning my head was swimming with ideas and to-do’s.. both to get ready for the summit push which will happen in just a series of days, and things that need to be taken care of afterwards. Waking at 6am for some bizarre reason, I even beat the cook team out of bed and was in the community shelter looking over items when G-Man came in and had quite a surprised look on his face. Read more »
Doug.. Doug… Doug….
Gently, the tent shakes. “hmmph..” “It’s six o’ clock. Get up” I had sort of a crappy night sleep for God only knows why, so when I finally started drifting off at around 4am, the Sherpas were just starting to stir. I threw in ear plugs to try and get some sleep, which worked well until Indra started shaking the tent and all the snow crystals clinging to the roof of my tent- thanks to my breath- started falling on my face. “Ok, ok, I’m up.” Francisco gave me a funny look when I finally did appear in our cook tent. Today’s the day we return to Base Camp, after all. Read more »
Today is Francisco’s shot at Camp III and I gave him all the encouragement I could, pointers on the trail and super props before he stepped off. I also made sure to fill his head with as many Patches O’Houlihan quotes from Dodgeball that I could to keep him smiling. Most can’t be repeated here, but if you have seen the movie, hopefully they bring a smile to you too. Read more »
At 5am, Indra came and woke us up, all cheery and prepared with breakfast of bacon and eggs. I wolfed down some extra rice, and then we were off at 06:00 on the nose for Camp III, halfway up the Lhotse Face. We set out at a relatively easy pace, and after 1 1/2 hours we were approaching the fixed lines when Francisco encountered some altitude problems that forced him to turn back. Read more »
Any false impressions I had about the Base Camp II push being the hardest day we would have on this climb were quickly erased today. Francisco and I made a push to the base of Lhotse, and as expected it took us close to 2 hours from the top of Camp II. The issue is air. It’s 21,600′ at the Lhotse Face entry point, which puts Camp III at close to 2,000′ feet above and straight up the face. Read more »
All things considered, it was another quiet and down day at Base Camp. We were originally going to go up today, but then yesterday afternoon Willie had a sit-down with the Nepai Army leadership here at Base Camp who outlined a national policy plan for the Nepal side of the mountain to be shut down from 1-10 May to overnight climbing.. this to end as soon as the Chinese get to the top with the Olympic torch. Why? Read more »
I woke this morning to the now familiar sound of a jet circling the summit. But we have heard this sound at least five times since first arriving at Camp II last week, so noone is getting their hopes up too high that the Chinese actually pull this torch thing off. The first time I heard the jet screaming around overhead I jumped out of my tent and everyone was pointing at the sky. This time the sun hadn’t hit the tent yet and there was a little bit of a breeze, so I just hunkered down and didn’t even move. What’s the point? You see this little white dot in the sky zipping along as it circles the mountain right behind Camp II. It circles and circles, then it disappears and you are still cold looking like a Lemming at the sky along with everyone else. Read more »
Last night was fairly restful, Camp II location considered. I slept the whole night through with the occasional nose blow or pee bottle excursion. When the sun hit the tent, it warmed the inside by 15 degrees instantly. After a hearty breakfast, we were greeted by Danubu and Tendi, making another gear run. Read more »
