Firat Eren

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