Firat Eren

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

Let the climb begin! The team is psyched to be on their way to the top. Kancha and Lakpa, two of our kitchen boys, woke us up this morning at 3:30. Gopal had breakfast on the table at 4:00, and everyone was suited up and ready to go by 5:00. By that time it was getting light, the dawn of a magnificently sunny and windless day. Everyone threw rice and said a prayer at the puja altar before heading up into the icefall for the last time. From base camp we could see a string of climbers as they made their way up through the “popcorn”. It was a long day for our team. They reached Camp 1 by about noon after about seven hours of climbing. But this time the day didn’t end there. After a rest and some lunch snacks they were on their way again, pushing on up to Camp 2 by 5:30 pm – 12 ½ hours of climbing. So this report is coming from base camp so the team can rest and get some food and drinks after their arduous day. We’ll have another report directly from the team tomorrow after they’ve had a good night’s sleep.

Also of note today were a pair of (unconfirmed BC scuttlebutt) Italian climbers doing a technical ice route up our side of Nuptse. We could see them up there today, and through binoculars it looked like they only had light day packs. We speculated that they were either up there for the day or were going to be doing a very cold bivouac. Later I was told that they were putting up fixed lines and would be going back up again in a couple days. So this will be future BC entertainment watching them work their way up a probable new route.

Ellie Henke
Base Camp Manager