Tuesday 14 April 2009

Base camp blog












































A number of people have been quite ill over the last 6 or 7 days with a mixture of coughs, upset stomachs and altitude sickness. Two people have had to desend to Lobuche Base Camp and others have had to use oxygen. Thankfully most now seem to be recovering.

Temperatures vary wildly from night to day. My tent has been getting down to around -10C at night so that all my breath freezes on the inside of it. Then when I start to move in the morning I get a shower of ice down my back! After that I have to put on clothes that have become stiff with the frost. The sun hits camp about 7:30 at the moment and things quickly warm up from then on. Yesterday at midday a little thermometer I have showed a temperature of 35C in my tent!

Yesterday Chris Bonnington, the very famous British climber dropped by the camp to say hi to Russ and today Mons, the Danish asmatic, who has appeared on the last couple of Discovery programs dropped by the camp to say hi to a few people. He is climbing with another party this year and is again going to attempt it without oxygen.

I think that that is about it for now. Having a rest day today and tomorrow and then potentially going to try and climb Lobuche. I will post another blog once I am back from that trip so probably a week or so.

1: Puja ceromony, the picture shows the pile of equipment that all climbers and Sherpas bring to the ceromony to be blessed. The smoke is juniper that is burned as an offering and of also burnt when any climber goes high on the mountain.

2: The food and drink offerings at the Puja.

3: Me after the Puja ceromony with flour on him. This flour was put on by the Sherpas and is meant to bring good luck in the mountains.

4: The whole team of Sherpas

5: The whole climbing team. (clients.....or members as Russ likes to call us)

6: Me standing on a nearby hill which overlooks the Base Camp and onto the ice fall and up to Everest. Everest is still a number of Kilometers away and is the black mountain in the background. Some of the other mountains in this photo look bigger but they are a lot closer. In real life it looks massive!

7: If you look closely Russ's Base Camp can be seen in the middle bottom of this picture the main base camp is further to the left at the bottom. Everest is the black monster in the background.

7 comments:

jdovell said...

Hey chris have u tried a pot of marmite before u go to bed and then hopefully your breath won't freeze !News this side liverpool got knocked out in 4-4epic at stamford bridge by Chelsea - Boo! Kids all send their love and asked me why u were making such a fuss about what seems [ in the pic!!] a v. small mountain !! take care brother-john

jdovell said...

forgot to ask...did the scalectrix make it out to base Camp ? brother-john

Unknown said...

Hi Chris, remember me from 2007 Cho Oyo? Glad to see you're back to Himalayas,what did u or Russ do to convince yr family letting u do this?? take care & i will follow yr blog closely.Pls send my regards to Jim and Russ, tell Russ I'm back from NZ.----Henrietta

Patrick said...

Chris,

Patrick the Trekker here. We ( Katey, me and John ) are wondering how the climbing of Lobuche went ?

Stay save, make it to the top and come back alive.

Patrick said...

Chris,

Patrick the Trekker here. We ( Katey, me and John ) are wondering how the climbing of Lobuche went ?

Stay save, make it to the top and come back alive.

Sarah/Steve said...

Hi Chris, just back from a fab week in Cham - hot & sunny at the start of the week with some snow at the end! Really enjoying the blog - keep it up! Take care of yourself and come back in one piece! Sarah, Steve & Jasmine xx

jdovell said...

Hi chris - hope all well and aclimatising well...just back from heli-skiing in Zermatt....got dropped at top of monta-rosa glacier...pure powder dream !!I went up with dom judd who sends his best as does Geoff buckle who joined us sat night ! Actually saw the only high altitude helicopter to have touched down on the summit of everest in Zermatt...v. cool. Take care and looking fwd to hearing more news - brother-john