Firat Eren

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

This will be the last report from May 21. By the time I write again it will be tomorrow. Step by step by step the team is making their way up the Triangular Face. It sounds like there have been some adjustments to oxygen masks, and some sorting out with people going different speeds, but everything is going well. It is still a beautiful night, although the moon has set behind Pumori so travel is strictly by headlamp. It will start getting light again at around 4:00 am. Our sherpas tending Camp 4 will be watching the glow worm of headlamps heading up the mountain.

Here at Base Camp Gopal and Narayan are entertaining all of us with stories (lies???) and views of the world. Unfortunately my Nepali isn’t good enough to understand most of it, but the laughter is good. We are drinking sweetened black tea and huddling around a nice propane heater. We even have a light overhead, run off of one of our battery banks. So despite being the middle of the night things are pretty cushy. Padam and the cookboys are presently sleeping, but soon we will be waking them up and trading off the radio monitoring duties. I’ll let you know whenever I get an official radio call from the team.

Ellie Henke at Base Camp