Firat Eren

From a series of dispatches from the Alpine Ascents 2007 Everest Expedition team.

Hello from Base Camp.
I notice that we seem to be missing a report about the team moving up from Base Camp to Camp 1. So until I can entice one from the folks who actually did the hard work, here in the base camp perspective. The first move up above Base Camp is always a special day – in many ways it is the day when the climb actually begins, so it is pretty exciting for everyone. The adventure actually begins the day before with packing food, warm clothes, sleeping bags, and other gear to go up the mountain. The climbers always carry their own survival gear: warm clothes, lunch for the day, water, and climbing gear (including harnesses rigged for traveling on fixed lines, crampons, and ice axes). Our excellent team of sherpas help them out by carrying sleeping bags and other food, and by having the tents already set up at Camp 1 before the climbers arrive. Only the western climbers sleep at Camp 1, so it is more of a temporary camp that is taken down as soon as they leave. The sherpas only sleep at Base Camp, Camp 2, and Camp 4 at the South Col.

The big day actually begins in the dark, with everyone rolling out of bed at about 3:00 am. This time we started in two teams of 8 climbers and guides each, so the folks in the second team got to sleep in a little later. We do this so everyone can get a little more spread out on the fixed lines. At this time of the morning the stars are shining and a glow-worm of headlamps can be seen of other teams starting up the icefall. Our team enjoyed a power breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and bacon before putting on their climbing harnesses and backpacks and heading out. The first steps always include a stop at the puja altar to offer a prayer and ask for safety by throwing blessed rice three times. The second stop is a hundred yards or so out of camp to put on crampons for safe walking on the fins of ice.

Here at Base Camp I am awake with the climbers. I start monitoring the radio as soon as they leave Base Camp and stay with them all the way to Camp 1. When the first daylight comes at around 5:00 am I can see our team in many places as they progress through the icefall. They check in periodically to let me know everything is ok. Normal is for the climbers to reach Camp 1 in 8 to 10 hours, and that was the case with this team as well. Everyone is tired by the time they get there, and are glad to lay out their sleeping bags, get hot drinks, a little dinner, and fall asleep.

Ellie Henke
Base Camp Manager

From a series of dispatches from the Alpine Ascents 2007 Everest Expedition team.

Namaste from Everest BC. It’s the night before we head up for our first acclimitization trip. There’s a bit of snow falling and everyone is heading off to bed. The past couple of days we’ve been playing in the ice pinnacles getting our gear dialled and our skills sharpened.

Yesterday a couple of us headed up to the top of the icefall to check out the route and see how the icefall is faring so far. It is a bit more broken up this season than in the past few making a bit more ciruitous route. The rest of the team headed up the icefall a couple of hundred feet to the second ladder.

The team is psyched about the chance to get up higher tomorrow. We’ll spend 2 nights at CI and 2 nights at CII if things go as planned. We are all looking forward to seeing how the Sherpa have done setting up our camps. But most importantly everyone is excited to see the Western Cwm and the first views of the SW face of Everest as well as Lhotse and Nuptse.

We’ll be in touch from the Western Cwm!

All the best,
Dave

From a series of dispatches from the Alpine Ascents 2007 Everest Expedition team.

Hello friends, family and loved ones,

Our acclimatizing is going well as our bodies adapt to the rarified atmosphere of 5,300 meters. So today we put our skills to the test on the glacier very near to our camp. Team members work on ladder crossing while Amy, Dave and I set up a rope course amongst the towering seracs (towers of ice). Amy climbed up the highest serac and set up a rappel station and Dave fixed line over a varity of rough terrain. I anchored ladders over a water hazard which led to an ice climb that took climbers back up to where Amy was. It was a challenging circuit designed to test member’s abilities with several important skill sets. Our ultimate goal is to be able to move safely and efficiently when we actually begin to climb Everest. It was evident that climbers learned as they did multiple laps on the course. Fun was had by all even the ones that fell through thin ice into the icy water below. Even with wet boots their spirits were not dampened. Find out what happens tomorrow when we venture into the lower Khumbu icefall.

Namaste,
Vern

From a series of dispatches from the Alpine Ascents 2007 Everest Expedition team.

Today was a pretty restful Sunday at Basecamp. We are continuing to settle in and get all the tents up and working out radios and other gadgets that go along with a two month long expedition. This morning many of the team leaders got together and exchanged radio frequencies and discussed coordinating rope and snow and ice protection up higher on the mountain, basically who has what to share. And most importantly we learned that there is a bakery at basecamp this year taking orders of bread and birthday cakes and also a certified massage therapist offering $20 massages who happens to be one camp over from us. Our team members had more showers and emailing time this morning followed by lunch and ladder practice. We have a nice progression to learning the techniques for climbing Everest, starting with walking on ladders over close to and over flat ground in tennis shoes. Then we up the anty with mountain boots and finally crampons. Within a few hours everyone was dancing up and down the ladders and finding them quite easy to travel on. Things will change when we are walking over a 200 foot deep crevasse but we will take it with ease and confidence. We will continue practicing what we need to know for the icefall for the next several days.

We are so happy that everyone on our team is well and healthy. Some of the other teams have colds so we have been keeping a safe distance from them. Firat is quite fired up about playing poker and has taught several of the team members. Our evenings have been filled with eating, scrabble, and last night we watched a movie. We’ve been wanting to ask you, the audience, if you think we should except Jame’s scrabble word “squids”?

Ellie had to go escort the trekkers down valley until they meet up with Pete in Pheriche and we are expecting her back tomorrow. We really miss her and can’t wait until she rejoins us. Ellie is a top notch basecamp manager, unrivaled by any other basecamp manager in the world. She manages basecamps for us in South America and here for 5 or so months a year and this is her 7th season at EBC! We can’t imagine life without her here.

It’s getting to the cold part of the day and these fingers aren’t working too well on the keyboard. So that’s life here at Basecamp for now. Hope you are all enjoying your winter into spring at home as it is starting to snow lightly here.

Tashi Delek!
Amy

From a series of dispatches from the Alpine Ascents 2007 Everest Expedition team.

Well we are back at it again after a short hiatus. Hopefully that will have been the last of the breaks in the cybercasts.

It’s the evening of the 14th of April and we are here in BC. Our staff chose a perfect spot just on the far side of camp; below the Lho La and outside of the chaos of the center of ‘town’. The team is settling in well and everyone was quite strong coming into camp. The entire group is even sleeping well which is a great sign. We arrived into camp late afternoon of the 12th. Our climbing team was joined by Jules and Nina who decided to leave the trekkers for one night and come to BC with us. As always we had a great welcome from the Sherpa staff. All of the tents were set and there was little for us to do except grab a cup of tea and relax in the comfy BC dining tent.

Yesterday was spectacular. We decided while in Pheriche that the only appropriate dates for a puja at BC would be the 13th or the 19th. That meant that in order to get to BC for a puja on the 13th we would skip one of our two scheduled nights in Lobuche. We did not want to wait until the 19th because it would mean that our Sherpa would be carrying many loads through the icefall before a puja ceremony. That is still considered appropriate though not as desirable as getting it done before. The main objective is to have your puja before anyone sleeps on the mountain- meaning above BC. Anyway, the group responded well to the stepped up schedule and we started our puja yesterday morning after arriving just the afternoon before.

Because many of our climbing Sherpa are previous monks we are able to use our staff to perform our puja instead of brining someone from down valley to BC. In fact Phur Kancha, one of our climbing Sherpa, still resides at the Thame monastery and is a practicing monk. The ceremony was colorful and fun for everyone as always: lots of tea, chaang, Coke, beer, tsampa, Tibetan bread, and dancing. The trekkers were also able to get in on the action. Dr. Bruce made it for the whole ceremony while Ellie and Ricardo and Lulu came in to BC for the end. We blessed our climbing gear, pictures of loved ones back home, flags, sponsor banners, etc. and took dozens of pictures and plenty of video. It’s all part of expeditions in this era. The blessing as a whole is designed as a request to Miolangsangma, the goddess that lives in Everest, to allow us to climb Chomolongma with safety and respect for the mountain.

The afternoon following the puja was spent organizing our ‘homes’ here in BC and getting our communication tent up and running. There’s plenty to do here in order to have our camp in order. Our communication tent is run entirely on solar power and runs our radio communication on the mountain as well as the tech stuff we need in order to communicate with home. By this morning I had it running well enough to have our power up and computers charged with the satellite modem working again after intermittent lapses.

Today was more of the same with the shower tents getting good use and our team heading out to camp to locate other teams and friends. Tomorrow our Sherpa will be carrying their first loads to CI and CII though we already had a few go up days ago to mark out our CII. The Icefall Doctors have been busy fixing lines to CII while we were trekking to BC and at this point everything is set. Tomorrow morning an expedition leader meeting will begin to address the fixing above CII and other things that come up here during the climbing season.

Image uploads still are not working so I’m sending some images of the puja to the office and hopefully they will post them.

We have a showing of ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ starting soon so I’m off.

My best,
Dave

From a series of dispatches from the Alpine Ascents 2007 Everest Expedition team.

We’ve just arrived here in Lobuche and decided we would send along the old dispatches that didn’t make it while our communications were down. So here they are. Tomorrow early we’re off to Base Camp and we’ll be in touch from there.
Dave

April 7 – Khumjung

A big hello and Namaste from the village of Khumjung.

The gang arrived here this afternoon in the midst of a little snow squall. So we all looked a bit like drowned rats as we rolled into the Khumjung Hotel. Hard to call anything up here a Hotel but we’ll go with that. It sort of makes it feel a little bit more upscale. Anyway, the group is doing very well and everyone’s health is excellent so far. Tomorrow I’m guessing we’ll wake up to blue skies and fresh snow up high. The views of Ama Dablam are excellent from Khumjung and tomorrow morning they should be even more so.

During our hike into Khumjung we came from Thame via Lama Zhangbu’s gompa high above the trail and the Bhote Khosi. The place is called Gendukpa and consists of the prayer room cave built by Lama Zhangbu’s grandfather and the home for the family. We had another blessing from this Lama. I think we’re on pace for a record number of blessings. We will gladly accept them all! Pete and a couple of the trekkers came with us to Gendukpa and during tea Pete did a great job describing some of the iconography and thanka paintings inside.

We’ll just spend one night here in Khumjung then head to Deboche tomorrow for one night via Tengboche. In the morning some of us will go to visit the Khunde hospital and Hillary school before starting the walk to Deboche. I’m certainly looking forward to Deboche as it is one of my favorite spots in the Khumbu: large rhododendrons, grassy fields, running streams, beautiful views up valley.

It looks like the we are slowly getting through the shower line up and soup is almost served.

We’ll be in touch.

All my best,
Dave

April 8 – Deboche

Khumjung to Deboche today. This morning Lakpa Rita gave us a tour of the Khumjung school where he was a high school student. He walked three hours each way from Thame for three years and was the fourth person to graduate high school from Thame. Bruce, Bill and Dave went took a tour of the Khunde hospital with Dr. Kami.

We dropped down to the river at Phunki Thanga, otherwise known as Funky Town and sometimes Fungi Thanga. We had a picnic lunch there and spent time airing our bare feet in the sun. Phunki Thanga has many prayer wheels that spin by the energy of the river’s water flowing through underneath them. Like prayer flags blowing in the wind, this is another way of saying prayers without having to do anything The Tengboche hill was the business section of the day and went by slowly and easily in just a couple of hours. In Tengboche we went to the bakery, visitors center and monastery. At the Monastary the trekkers and climbers were treated to a meeting with the Tengboche Lama before dropping a couple of hundred feet down to Deboche.

Enjoying the oxygen at 12.000 feet tonight!

Subbayatri!
Amy

April 9 – Pheriche

Today we trekked from Deboche which is situated in the Birch and Rhododendron forest to above tree line and a few Juniper shrubs in Pheriche. Pheriche is also the base for a high altitude medical clinic. Today was perhaps one of the most important days of our expedition because we got blessed in Pangoche by Lama Geshe, the most revered teacher of Buddhism in the Khumbu Valley. He met with the trekkers for a full hour and then blessed the climbers and gave us each a postcard of the Chomolungma deity to bring to the summit of Everest. He has given fifty hand written postcards out and every one that has gone to the summit has made it home. It was a beautiful and meaningful experience and has helped us to cultivate our minds for being ready to climb on the mountain we are heading for. After our blessing we had a delicious lunch in Shomare and then walked up to Ang Nuru’s Himalayan lodge in Pheriche. Everyone is feeling well in Pheriche and most of us are enjoying another hot shower here. Looking forward to a day of rest…

Tashi Delek!
Amy

April 10 – Pheriche

Hello friends, family and loved ones,

Vern Tejas reporting on our progress toward base camp. We have been heading to Everest ever since we left Thame three days ago and we been gaining elevation along the way. Our acclimatization schedule is conservative as we are climbing no more that 400m.on the average per day. This is the prescribed climbing rate according to the latest medical studies. But every several days we like to rest to allow our bodies even more time to adapt. And such was today. Pheriche at 4200m. is located where the Imja Khola river forks, the East branch drains the South face of Lhotse and we hike up the West fork comes from the Khumbu glacier where our base camp is being erected. To get a good lay of the land and acclimatize we climbed the ridge directly to North of this Sherpa village. We were treated to some great views of sister town of Dingboche and incredible rugged peaks of the high Himal.

Of course we returned to our usual delicious lunch. It should be noted lunch was prepared by Deepak who is filling in for Gopal our usual cook. Sadly, Gopal’s father has passed away and Gopal will be spending with his family for the next few weeks. Most of the team attended a great lecture about altitude illness that was sponsored by the Himalayan Rescue Association, which maintains a clinic in Pheriche. They always put on a good class and we learned about the many different altitude cases these volunteer doctors have treated this season….the take home lesson was Oxygen is good and more is better. Go fast and you won’t last but when you go slow you climb like a pro.

The highlight of our day was enjoying the amazing Mr Lee on guitar and vocals. Mr. Lee is a member of a Korean trekking group that was also staying at our lodge. He is talented troubadour with a diverse repetoire of songs. We sang our hearts out for hours in eight languages and our very own trekker Ricardo got into the action with harmonica and Italian serenades. What a night!

See you again soon,
Vern

From a series of dispatches from the Alpine Ascents 2007 Everest Expedition team.

Just a quick note that our system is up and running again. Tonight we will post some old cybercasts as well.

It’s 6:45 am and we’re off this morning to Lobuche. The team is healthy and we will be in touch tonight.

All our best,
Dave

From a series of dispatches from the Alpine Ascents 2007 Everest Expedition team.

Hello Everyone,
The team is experiencing some satellite connection difficulties today. They are currently in Pheriche and will resume regular dispatches soon.

The Staff of Alpine Ascents

From a series of dispatches from the Alpine Ascents 2007 Everest Expedition team.

Namaste friends, family and loved ones,

Sleep is coming easier now that the team is adjusting to the rarified atmosphere. Of course, sleeping in the home of the most accomplished Everest climber in the world may help to put our minds at ease as well. Pancakes and eggs for breakfast also has a wonderfully calming effect on us. So, we were in a delightful mood as we climbed up to the ancient Thengbo monastery above Thame. This particular Gompa was established over 350 years ago by three Tibetian monk brothers. Inside is an exquisite hand written library, ornate murals and a multitude of religious relics and musical instruments. The gregarious Lama prayed for our safe return and blessed each of us with Kata scarfs and Shrudis(prayer strings). This ceremony was accompanied by his drum and bell playing and affected us deeply as we meditated on the days to come.

Afterwards we scrambled up to the top of the ridge where we had some great views up toward the Nangpa La and the mountains of the Tibetian border. The tallest of which is Cho-oyu, a lovely peak that Ferat, Amy and I climbed last October. I suppose you could call us “repeat ascenders”. It was then our appitites called and we ran down to Apa’s for lunch. Our Sirdar and good friend Lhakpa is originally from Thame so we were eager to visit when his mother invited us all over for tea. Her home was a simple stone structure yet it was filled with love and human warmth. It’s easy to understand how Lakpa became such a wonderful man, one we have all become quite fond of.

The trekker went to the Gompa or monastery as well in the afternoon and visited with Lakpa’s family. They will be calling in their own cybercasts from now.

Stay tuned,
Vern

From a series of dispatches from the Alpine Ascents 2007 Everest Expedition team.

Tashi Delek from Thame! Today the trekkers and Bill are taking an “active rest day” in Namche with Pete and Ellie. They are visiting the Sherpa museum, taking hot showers, shopping and eating. The shopping in Namche is really nice as the friendly shop keepers are not aggressive like in Kathmandu and there are so many yak bells, colorful homemade hats and socks, and carpets to buy as well as all the useful things like cough drops and batteries. Many of us are enjoying seeing friends we’ve made over the years both on the trail and in the villages so there is much visiting involved along the way.

The Climbers walked to Thame today along an unusually flat contoured trail. In fact there is no word in the Nepali language for flat. We lunched in Thamo on Khumbu potato French fries and a spread of yummy food. The Khumbu potatoes are famous because they taste like roasted chestnuts and are absolutely the bet potatoes in the world. We would have been able to look up and see a lot of peaks today including all of the peaklets on the south side of Cho Oyu but we were treated to a refreshing and foggy day and didn’t get to see much far away but were treated with the things close in. We saw miniature purple Himalayan Iris and Tibetan Mastif mix puppies and about 5 Thar in a drainage that Todd spotted with his super powered bow hunting eyeballs. Thar are like mountain goats in shape and size but they are brown. They live with the same habits as mountain goats and are impressive to watch climb up and down rocks. We also saw a Danphe pheasant, the national bird of Nepal. They are iridescent and green, purple, and white.

In Thame we are staying for two nights at Apa Sherpas lodge, Everest Summiter lodge. The name is fitting for Apa who holds the record for climbing Everest at 16 times. We have been treated here to a wonderful art showing of of beautiful folk paintings Pasang made and the amazing thing is that he lost all of his fingers when he was young when he got caught in a storm on the Nangpa La while he was carrying for traders. Tomorrow we are planning a puja, a Buddhist blessing, at the Thame Monastary. The first of several to come.

So that is what we are up to now. Really roughing it up high in the Khumbu, enjoying every moment of it!

Be Well everyone and thanks for checking in with us!
Amy