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!

Nepal? Again? Really?

Yes, it's true, I've returned to Nepal! I absolutely fell in love with the country and the people the last time I was here, and I just felt truly called to come back here. In all the places I saw this year, this is the one that pulled me back. I couldn't ignore that feeling, so here I am.

I enjoyed the trek I did to Everest Base Camp last time, but this time I wanted to do something more challenging. However, not surprisingly, I don't have the skills necessary to climb on glaciers and ice faces. The solution? Attend a glacier climbing school. I know, I never thought I would be going to school in the middle of my year off, but here we are! I am doing a school that will take 22 days and we will end it by summiting a peak called Lobuche East (not to be confused with the city of Lobouche). The peak is 6,119 meters high (or 20,065 for you Americans), which will make a new high for me personally. It will be a week of sleeping in snow and on glaciers and working my tail off, but I am so excited for it!
After we finish the school, I will be heading up to Everest Base Camp again. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, the last time I went there I was feeling pretty sick, so I was unable to climb the hill of Kala Pattar. This has one of the best views of Everest and I was really disappointed that I missed it, so I wanted to try again. Second, I spent a week in Kathmandu and I am doing the first week of the trek with some people who are attempting to summit Everest and Lhotse. Their stories just fascinate me - how they started climbing, what influenced them to attempt such high peaks, what they are hoping to gain from this experience. I will be able to catch up with them at base camp and see how they are acclimatizing, how their trips up to camp I and II went, and just generally see what it's like to actually be part of an expedition that lives in base camp for two months. I think it will be a wonderful experience!

Once I finish my climb in early May, I am planning to volunteer for a few weeks back in Kathmandu, either teaching english or helping at an orphanage. I think it's going to be a wonderful experience! After that, it is back to Australia for a few days, then back home. Phew! What a great way to end the trip. Can't wait to tell you all the details!

Australia - East Coast

Australia, Australia, Australia. My hub of travel for the last few months, so of course I’m back again. However, this time it’s not just me – I’ve got my sisters in tow! I picked them up from the airport early in the morning and we spent the day exploring Sydney while I played tour guide. I think they were a little angry at me because I refused to let them go to sleep, but how would they ever get adjusted if they went to sleep straight away? See, I wasn’t being mean, I was looking out for them :-)

We only spent one night in Sydney, then we flew up to Cairns for a week. We spent the first day getting ourselves adjusted, figuring out what we wanted to do for our time in this lovely city. We wandered in and out of travel shops and hostels, chatting with people around us to figure out the best things to do. After we had everything booked, we went back to our amazing apartment. We had decided to rent an apartment instead of staying in a hotel and I’m so glad we did. It was so big and spacious and had a great view of the water. It was probably over a million dollar apartment, so we felt quite luxurious!

Of course, one of the first things we did was going scuba diving & snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. I dived on the reef a few years ago but it was before I was certified, so I was really excited to head back there. I found a couple of guys to dive with – one was a pilot from Canada living in Luxembourg and the other was a lawyer from Miami and they were both really good looking, and I had a great couple of dives with them! We saw a manta ray and a sea turtle and heaps of amazing fish and coral. After our dives I went snorkeling with Gina and Sierra and we saw reef sharks and turtles there as well. It was a beautiful day out on the reef!

We also did a couple of different day trips. The first one was up to the Daintree Rainforest. I knew Gina was really looking forward to seeing the rainforest, so I’m happy our day up there worked out. I do have to say that it rained nearly the entire time we were in Australia. We were so frustrated by it, but there’s really nothing you can do but keep pushing on and finding fun things to do. Rain in the rainforest isn’t so bad, but on a beach day it can be pretty frustrating! Anyhow, our adventure to the rainforest was great. We saw some spiders that were the size of your palm (I think Sierra almost walked into one of them face first!), as well turtles, iguanas and in the afternoon we went on a crocodile search. We did see a croc sunning herself on the bank of the river – nice to look at but not to pet!

We spent a day with Uncle Brian’s adventures – what a fun day! It was a bunch of backpackers and they take you up around the tablelands. It’s a day centered around swimming and enjoying all of the trees and the landscape. The first place we went was a river with a huge rock in the middle of it. We asked what it was and the answer was “a natural waterslide!” Our guide said the water was quite high and just under the allowable swimming limit, but that if we were confident swimmers we could jump in and give it a try. A bunch of guys starting climbing in, so of course I had to jump in and represent the ladies! 

After a great lunch we went to a beautiful waterfall. Our guide had us all pose and do these shampoo commercials…you do a hair flip and they take the photo while the water is all flying off. I was not the most coordinated person in the world while taking the photos, but I think they came out pretty good anyway!

Finally, the best part of their trip out to visit me….finding out that Regina is pregnant! She and Andrew are expecting a baby in September! They haven’t found out yet if it is a boy or a girl, but they say that Gabe can’t wait to be a big brother. It will give me something to look forward to once I return to the monotony of regular life. Babies are always so much fun!

As expected, I had a wonderful time when Sierra and Gina came to visit. It was great to be a part of their first independent international travel experience. They flew out and back with no problems and had to learn to deal with some of the cultural differences. Hopefully this sparked something in them and that they might one day again have the ability to travel. I know I loved my time in Australia with them!

New Zealand - Part 2

Yes, I’ve finally returned to finished writing about New Zealand. It’s just been so busy traveling around that I haven’t had time to sit down and do it. Oh well, here we are now. So the last I wrote, I was in Queenstown loving the adventurous culture. There was always something going on or some new adrenaline challenge, I could have stayed there for a month! However, since we only had a few days there, we had to narrow it down to a few of the most important activities. 

One of the things I knew we had to do was go to visit Milford Sound. However, I wasn’t really keen to drive all the way there in our sweet rental van – it was 5 hours each direction, so it would have been one really massive day or it would have taken us two days. However, we got lucky and found a great deal to go on a Jucy bus. I am so glad we did that, because then I could just spend the whole drive enjoying the scenery. In my opinion, the scenery on the drive was better than what we saw in Milford Sound itself.

There were just towering mountains all around you, waterfalls everywhere you looked and such vibrant blue sky above you – just beauty everywhere you looked. The sound itself was carved out by glaciers thousands of years ago, so the cliffs are almost completely vertical. There is no gentle slope, they simply fall from the top all the way into the water below. Truly beautiful surroundings, I’m so glad we were able to see it. 

The final thing we did in Queenstown was the Nevis Swing. For those of you who have never heard of it, it is a huge swing that does a 70 meter freefall, then swings you across the valley for a few minutes. I really wanted to do a bungy jump, but I’m so afraid that my feet will come out of the bindings, so this was a great alternate. The other fun thing is that Zach and I were able to go together. You walk out on this skinny little bridge into a little enclosure that is just floating in the middle of the gorge. I think the walk out there is one of the scariest bits, since the wind is blowing and you have so much time to look down and think about what you’re doing, but once you get out there, it goes very quickly. 

They encourage you to try different ways of swinging, so the first time we went backwards. It is so scary because you can’t see where you’re going! They also surprised us, so there was no countdown or anything, just a drop. It was so incredible, before we were even finished the swing we had already decided to do it again. The second time I decided to be really daring – I went upside down….wow, did that really double the fear factor! Zach went right side up so he could get pictures of us – I really love the one below. I was so terrified and loved it so much that I made Zach go one final time on his own, so that he could also experience the upside down drop. The Nevis Swing was definitely our highlight of Queenstown!

 

After we finished our adrenaline kick, we started working our way up the west coast. First stop? Franz Josef to walk on the glacier.
 I know, more adventure activities for us! I do think it’s funny that I had to come half way around the world to walk on a glacier – we have a few near us in Colorado, but I don’t think they’re anywhere near as famous or exciting as Franz Josef. We did the full day glacier hike and it was amazing. You walk about an hour through the rainforest to get to the face of the glacier. There, you strap on your crampons and charge up the ice. Once you’ve got the crampons on, you can go up and down the ice face, climb the stairs and go along the rocky bits with no problems. The ice is so beautiful and blue, you can’t help but stare up at it. We were able to go into a few ice caves and walk in a few crevices, it was heaps of fun. Some of the crevices were so narrow that you had to take off your backpack and shuffle your feet to get through them – definitely an adventure. 

After Franz Josef we continued our trek up the west coast. We stopped at a few of the towns either to stay for a night or just to grab a quick meal. One of my favorite stops was to see the Pancake Rocks (called Punakaiki). To this day they still have no idea how the rocks were formed, but somehow they grew in layers that cause them to look like pancakes. We were there at the wrong time of day and were unable to see the blowhole in action, but it was still a really cool site. 

Our last couple of days were really calm. We were just enjoying the beautiful views along the coast, where you’ve got rainforest on one side and beaches on the other side. It’s difficult to keep your eyes on the road when all you want to do is look everywhere!  Our final day we had to drive from the west coast, across the “mountains” (I know, I’m really spoiled by Colorado) and into Christchurch. Normally this wouldn’t be a huge deal, but we were in the super sweet campervan, and she just didn’t do well on hills. It also didn’t help that it was pouring down rain – you can see below how much fun it was to drive over the pass that day! 

Finally, we arrived back in Christchurch. It was so sad to say goodbye to Zach! I had an absolutely incredible time with him in NZ, minus the crappy weather we had the whole time. I am so glad he was able to come out to visit – hopefully now that he’s experienced a new country, he’ll keep traveling and discovering new things. If not, at least we had an amazing campervan experience in the South Island!

After Zach flew out, I met up with my friend Angela again. She was kind enough to let me stay with her for a week, and just tag along with her wherever she went. The first thing we did was go to a horse show. She has a sweet horse named Milan (who I got to ride!) that she does shows with. I had never been to a horse show, so I didn’t know just how much work goes into it – they put horse mascara on, put hair extensions in their tails, paint their hooves black and braid their entire manes! It takes hours to get the poor horses ready for these shows. After all this work and effort, I was soooo excited that Angela won Supreme Grand Champion. That meant she won the entire show and got to lead the parade! 

 

Afterwards we went back to her house for the rest of the weekend. It is not a super old house but her landlords are complete jerks, so imagine my surprise when I got e-coli! Yes, I made it safely through India, Morocco, SE Asia and other third world countries without getting sick at all, only to get e-coli in New Zealand. What are the chances of that? Good thing that I had the antibiotics to kill it. Needless to say, I think she’s glad she was already moving out of that place! We spent the rest of the week going up and down the west coast for her job. She sells fertilizer and feed to dairy farms so I got to learn more than I’ve ever wanted to know about dairy cows. I was lucky enough that one of her clients even let me come and help with milking the cows a little bit! Quite an experience and I only got a little bit of poo on me. Finally, at the end of our week of exploring, we went to the amazing Hanmar hot springs. It was nice to relax and just think about all of the incredible scenery I had experienced while in New Zealand. What an absolutely beautiful country!!