My Climbing Friends

Hello again! I know it is surprising for me to post again so soon after my last post, but I want to post about the incredible people I met as they make their summit attempts. Yes, that’s correct, Everest summit attempts are occurring even as we speak. I am so excited to witness from afar how my friends manage this incredible time in their lives!

As I mentioned before, I was able to spend a week in Kathmandu before heading up to begin the trek. There were two other incredible women who arrived as early as I did, so I spent the week with them. The first is Mia from Finland. Mia has been climbing for the last few years and she originally started in the Glacier School that I attended. Mia is climbing Lhotse, which at 8,549 is the 4^th tallest mountain in the world. It shares a route with Everest past Camp III, but Lhotse is a more technical and a more difficult climb than Everest. She is attempting to be the first Finnish woman ever to climb Lhotse, which I am sure she will complete successfully. She took a year off from work and has been climbing and enjoying herself – sound familiar? lol. Mia is one of the sweetest, kindest women I have met in a long time and I was so happy and proud to know her. 

The other women I spent quite a bit of time with before heading up the mountain was Sandra from Canada. Sandra is a lawyer who has travelled extensively for work. She spent the last two years in Afghanistan and will spend the next two years in Israel – I am so in awe of her! She went to Everest Base Camp 12 years ago and has been dreaming of climbing Everest ever since. She has spent years training and planning for the climb and I am so excited to hear all the details from her when she returns!

Since the three of us were the first to arrive, we were able to spend quite a bit of time with the leaders of the climb, Arnold Coster who would climb with us and Dan Mazur who would climb on the Tibet side. They were kind enough to take us with them when did their official climb meeting with Elizabeth Hawley. For those of you who have never heard of Miss Hawley, she is the queen of Everest. She was an American journalist who was in Nepal during the first summits of Everest and started keeping track. Now she is responsible for keeping all of the records of who has summited any of the peaks that are 7,000 meters or higher. She is currently 88 years old and feisty as ever! She has a nephew who lives in Evergreen, CO, so I felt I had a bit of a connection with her. She somehow knows the minute the leaders of each climb arrive in Kathmandu and she immediately calls them for a meeting. Dan did his best to provoke her and tease her and she just kept straight to the point. She was extremely close friends with Sir Edmund Hilary and she told stories about him, his apartment downstairs, and other climbers she had met over the years. She even told me my chair was the same chair Jon Krakauer had sat in weeks before when he was there chatting with her. She is an Everest legend and it was an incredible honor to meet her.

Above is the view from my tent window. I thought it was incredible and was so inspired to wake up to that every morning. As the week rolled on, we met more of the climbers who would be going up with us. Since I am completely intrigued by many of the Everest/Lhotse climbers, here is a short description of some of those I got to know well.

Grace: A lawyer from Canada (I know, those Canadian lawyers sure do love to climb!), she is climbing Lhotse. She and Mia make up the 2 person, all woman team who will be climbing Lhotse. Grace discovered her love of climbing 3ish short years ago and has been participating in one or two climbs per year. Grace is about the same height as I am, but she has to be the fastest climber I’ve ever seen!

Eric: One of the many in our crew from Denmark, Eric is another one of the group who has been planning this climb for ages. I don’t know much about his climbing history, I do know that Eric spent about 2 years looking for sponsors for his climb. He is very dedicated in reporting his status back home and giving the details about how he is doing. He was lucky enough to have his brother accompany him in the trek up to Base Camp, which I’m sure gives him plenty of motivation as he climbs to the top.

Jon: A Colorado boy! I am so honored to say Jon is from Colorado, because he is so impressive. He has a PhD, slept on all the 14eers in Colorado last summer and has a book coming out this year about his experience. He is working on his next book and he was working on a study this year to improve the conditions in the Khumbu/ Everest region. Jon spent the first few climbing rounds at the front with the Sherpas, so I’m sure he’s going to just fly up the mountain!

Richie: One of the most hilariously inappropriate people I’ve ever met! He is from the UK and spent the last 5 years working in Iraq, which should tell you quite a bit about him. If you were feeling down about anything, Richie would be more than happy to tell you a story or a joke to pick you right back up again - definitely a great person to have around! Richie has taken a year off and spent pretty much the whole thing climbing. He is insanely prepared for Everest.

There are, of course, others who I didn’t get to know as well. There is Steve, the Australian who now lives in Iowa. He is a motivational speaker, so I’m sure his experiences on Everest will give him lots to talk about! Joost from Denmark, who reminds me a little bit of your friend’s dad – you know the one. He’s hip and funny and you really wish your dad could be that cool! Marlise from Denmark, who works in a school. She seems so prim and proper, not like this badass who goes off in her free time to climb Everest. From what I’ve heard, she had frostbite from a previous climb and had to abandon her attempt to summit this year, which is quite unfortunate. Finally, there is Dave. He has already achieved the summit from the North side (Tibet) and is here to claim it from the South side as well. He has this wild mane of curly blond hair and the longest climber legs I’ve ever seen, so I feel like he could swoop up to the peak in about 10 steps.

I’m sure the motley crew I’ve described above will have an amazing time in their journey to the summit. There are, of course, others like me who were along only for a portion of the trip. As I look back now, I am so in awe of the people doing this climb. As they reach their final stage of preparation and climbing, I wish them all the best. Prayers and motivation, luck and strength. Hopefully my next blog post will include information about their successful summits. Until then, please join me in sending positive thoughts their way. Good luck on Everest/Lhotse!

EBC...all the details

Yes, Everest again! You knew this one was coming, so don’t act surprised. However, I do have to admit that I have been avoiding writing this blog post. It’s not because I had better things to do or because I have nothing to say. No, it’s quite the opposite. I don’t know how to even begin to describe to you how much this trip has impacted me. I knew when I choose to come back to this country that it had amazing things in store for me, but I didn’t know exactly what they would be. I learned so much and met so many incredible people, I guess it’s just best to get started!

I did absolutely no training for the climb at all. I had all kinds of plans of what I would do, but I was having so much fun in NZ and Australia that I just didn’t end up doing any of it. I did take the wonderful ice climbing course in Colorado and that did help me know what to expect with regards to my ice axe and my crampons. However, even without any training, the trek up just seemed so much easier this time. Don’t get me wrong, there was still huffing and puffing up some of the major hills, but I think knowing what to expect really prepared me mentally for the challenge. I knew where all the big hills where and what lay at the top of each one, so that helped propel me up them. I think the other major thing was being with these incredible climbers who were on their way up to climb Everest – if they could climb the tallest mountain in the world, I could certainly go up a few hundred meters without complaining. 

I was lucky that the schedule called for me to trek with the Everest & Lhotse climbers for the first 8 days. I got to know them and I have so much admiration for what they are doing. I have already written a post dedicated to introducing them to you – I’ll be posting that tomorrow, but I wanted to post my impressions first.  One of the things I wanted to clarify before I write too much is the difference between trekking and climbing. Trekking is the hike up to base camp, where you just wear normal boots and walk. Climbing requires much more gear and skill. It’s where you strap your crampons on, grab your ice axe and attach yourself to the fixed ropes on the mountain. Climbing is much more technical and dangerous than trekking, and I will try to refer to them appropriately here.

One of the things everyone here does is get blessed by a lama before going climbing. You get the blessing to keep you safe on the climb – it’s not about making it to the top of your climb, it’s just about returning home safely. We stopped at the monastery in Pangbouche one of the first few mornings of the trek. We all crammed into a tiny little room around the lama, who had to be approaching 80 years. There was incense burning as a part of the blessing. He immediately started chanting and throwing rice – I have absolutely no idea what he was saying, but you could just feel the peacefulness in the room. Even though everyone was a different religion, you’re all respectful of their traditions and appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this. After he did the group blessing, he tied a string around each of our necks and gave us an individual blessing. I was very comforted by it and thought it was a very moving moment.  

One of the things that really astounds me about this area is the people who work here. Everyone just works so stinkin hard. First you’ve got the porters, the people who physically carry everything from climbing gear to beer to toilets. They are loaded with up to 60 kg and then they make the trek, while I carry my 8 kg bag and complain about it. You look at them and can’t believe they could possibly walk at all. There are absolutely no roads or airports along any of the 62 kilometers that we trek, so every single thing you see has been carried in. These men break their backs for $3 US per day. 

When we separated from the Everest/Lhotse group, my climbing group got much smaller. There were 6 of us participating in the Everest View Glacier School, as well as 3 climbing sherpas, a cook, 2 kitchen boys and 5ish porters. Yes, the support staff was more than double the size of the climbing team. There is just so much stuff that you need – a kitchen tent, a dining tent, a toilet tent, a shower tent, food, as well as individual tents for each person, plus all of our climbing gear (I had about 25 kg by myself). Our training and our climb were pretty spectacular. I learned so much about jumars, moving up & down the fixed line, crampons, as well as how insanely difficult it is to be doing all of that exertion above 5,000 meters. It was really challenging, but I had a great time. After the climb finished, 2 of the people went down as planned, but 3 of the people had to go down early due to sickness. Since I had my heart set on making it back up to base camp, I was left on my own.

After I left everyone in Lobouche, I was on my own with the cook. I felt so bad – he is supposed to be cooking, and here he was carrying my bag and playing tour guide for me. He was all smiles, I was glad to have him with me! I spent a night in Gorakshep, which is just a couple of buildings in the midst of a bunch of rocks. It’s a horribly inhospitable town that pretty much everyone hates. However, you stay there because you get up at 4 the next morning to go up to the top of Kala Patthar. It’s this looming black hill that takes about an hour and a half to go up, but from the top you have an incredible view of Everest & Lhotse (especially during sunrise). I wasn’t feeling well when I was here the last time so I didn’t go up it, and it was one of the things I felt like I HAD to do this time – and I made it with no problems. I was so proud to conquer the challenge that beat me the last time I was here!

Finally, it was time to return to base camp. I was so excited for the opportunity to stay the night in base camp, it was another huge draw for returning to Nepal. It was also wonderful to know I had friends there to visit – I have friends climbing Everest! When I was here in the fall we looked at the tents and climbers sort of like you would look at animals in a zoo – now I am part of the exhibit :)

The day I arrived, the entire team was up at Camp I, so it was a quiet day to get setup in my tent and find my way around. Base Camp is incredible – there are hundreds of tents setup on top of a glacier. It’s constantly moving and changing – a lake one day may be gone the next, ice structures will melt and collapse, it’s an ever changing landscape. When you’re lying there at night, you can heat it creaking and popping underneath you – you just hope your tent stays in place. Also, I’m sure this is implied, but sleeping on a glacier is darn cold! I was sleeping on a foam mattress and an air mattress in a -20C bag, but I still got really cold every night. One of the tricks though is to have your Nalgene filled during dinner with hot water, then you put it on your feet to keep them warm – it works wonders! Some people also cuddle with their pee bottles (yes, you have a pee bottle. You don’t want to leave the freezing cold tent in the middle of the night for any of your 3 diamox pees!), but that was a little too intense for me. 

One of the other challenges of living on a glacier is that, of course, it’s not flat. Our camp was situated on a part of the glacier that was quite steep, so I would have a 10 minute walk from the dining tent in “low town” up to my tent in “high town”. My friend Sandra has a hilarious post about the layout of the camp – you can check it out at http://www.sandraleduc.com/blog if you have a minute. In the picture below, can you see the small tent in blue at the bottom of the hill? That is the distance from my tent to the dining tent. Since I was only there for 3 nights, I was still getting out of breath every time I had to go up to my tent, ugh! 

Another aspect of living at base camp is the avalanches. You hear them constantly – some are really quick while others might go on for a minute or two. You learn quickly how to tell which direction they come from, as well as whether they’re just rock or snow & ice. One of the mornings we were sitting at breakfast when everyone suddenly ran outside. Literally, chairs were crashing over and people were just jumping over them. The second we got outside, everyone’s eyes were on the Khumbu Icefall – an avalanche had occurred and spread it’s remains about halfway down the icefall. It was huge and there was just profound silence throughout camp. Nobody was talking because we all realized there was a large chance people had been killed. Our team had just come down through the icefall 24 hours before and they could have been there. It was a very somber moment. It took a few hours for news to filter down, but we heard that the avalanche had taken out half of the tents at Camp I. A cook had broken his back when he was thrown into a crevice, but luckily nobody was killed. It could have been so much worse…

There are so many other unique challenges to living at base camp. Electricity is a big one – the teams have lots of off days between their forays up the mountain, so they have lots of electronics to entertain themselves on the off days. There is a huge solar charger there, but it is only on for 2 hours a day. Some people have 3 cameras and computers and ipods – there are definitely fights about who gets to plug what in! The bathrooms is, well, interesting. It is a tall skinny tent perched on top of a pile of rocks built up around a plastic drum. #2 goes in the drum but #1 can’t or it gets to heavy, so the rocks are wet & it smells terrible – it’s somewhere I avoided visiting if at all possible!

The dining tent was the hub of all major activity. You could sit around drinking tea or hot lemon and playing cards for hours. It’s where people gathered when they were bored, went for meals, or my personal favorite, movie night! We had some guys who are quite techie, so they setup a project and movie screen and we got to watch movies at night. I think “Taken” was definitely a more thrilling movie when watching it at 5,340 meters J Our camp was situated right next to the helipad, so every morning you would get woken up by one or two helicopters picking sick people up to transport them back down. Hearing a helicopter zip just 15 meters above your tent will wake up even the most peaceful sleeper!  

All in all, my time at base camp and back in Nepal was incredible. I hope I’ve done a fair job at describing to you what it’s like to live in this crazy atmosphere. I only have a small picture compared to the people who live in base camp for 2 months to climb one of the big mountains, and I am constantly putting myself in their shoes and imagining how they must feel about this place. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to a few of my friends who are climbing… Have a great night!