Firat Eren

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

Ahh… back in the land of amenities. The whole team is back in BC after a successful trip up into the Western Cwm. We spent a couple of nights in CI and a couple of nights in CII with varying degrees of sleep quality and quantity. Despite some sleeplessness (is that a word?) and a couple of headaches everyone was excited by the enormity of the environment.

Yesterday we took a walk half way from CII to the base of the Lhotse face. Everybody’s legs felt like lead as we made our way above 21,000’ for the first time on the climb… the next time our legs will still feel like lead but perhaps half the weight. It is a bit sobering.

Our Sherpa staff have been nearly running up and down from BC to CII over the past couple days and are on their last 2 days of carrying oxygen bottles. Later they’ll have a few days of moving those bottles from CII to the South Col. It’s a remarkable feat and as per usual the climbers are shocked at their strength. The trip down to BC from CII was pleasantly uneventful as the whole team climbed safely despite being a bit fatigued from the first acclimatization journey. The shower was quite popular despite the dusting of snow throughout the afternoon.

The next few days will be spent doing laundry, catching up on reading and will include plenty of poker games with Firat our Texas hold ‘em ringleader. If they haven’t already I’m sure the climbers will be sending emails to all their friends and family.

We’ll be in touch over the next few relaxing days!

All the best,
Dave