Firat Eren

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

Namaste and Tashi Delek everyone out there!

I’ve been a bit out of the loop here in cybercasting land since I was under the weather for a few days after our drop back. I’m slowly coming back around and my body is starting to cooperate. Everyone around camp is abuzz with summit hopes and ideas. Many people have already headed up on their summit pushes and many more are on their way tomorrow and the day after. It’s an exciting time of the season for everyone!

We are planning on having at least another day here at BC before we head up to begin our long march to the summit. The forecasts are starting to solidify and come together in a good way for us and I’m optimistic how things are shaping up. Today we had a mix of rain and sun. We’re still enjoying the luxuries here in BC. That includes a great game of Texas Hold ‘Em tonight with another American team coming over to utilize our professional chips. Hopefully the local boys do well. With sun out each day we we’ve also been able to enjoy some movies the past couple of days- a great distracter to keep the mind off the summit push until we actually begin.

The team is healthy and strong with no real sickness or difficulties to hang us up at this point. We’re looking forward to an exciting and wild 3rd week of May here!

We’ll be in touch soon.

All the best,
Dave

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

Friends, family and loved ones,

Thanks for bearing with us throughout our technical issues. Hopefully we are now out of the woods and will continue to have improved communications for the duration of our expedition.

We have made it back to Everest base camp stronger than when we left. Team members noticed their endurance and acclimatization were vastly improved over our first trek up to base. Our spirits and physical beings are now ready for the next phase, the actual climb itself. Us, guides are now concentrating on our weather reports to divine the correct moment to start our summit push. In preparation for our upcoming ascent we put on a half day oxygen school. The main thrust was to familiarize all team members with the proper care and use of our O2 delivery system. Now the team feels comfortable enough to change O2 bottles and regulate oxygen flows should anyone need to in an emergency situation on summit day.

On a somber note, we are sad to have lost Victor from the team. He had to make a difficult decision to go home to resolve some important issues. We will miss him and his sense of humor in the days to come. Hopefully there will be a more opportune time when he will be able to return again to attempt Everest. Best of luck in all Victor.

Namaste,
Vern

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

Hello friends, family and loved ones,

Ah the first day of R&R. As part of our acclimatization program, we traditionally drop down real low after we climb up to camp III. And today was the first day of the process and it feels great. We had a leisurely rise this morning with most of us succumbing to “Bag Suck”, the inability to leave our sleeping bags. With all the oxygen at base camp we felt compelled to sleep as long as possible. Most of the team has not had a full night of sleep for over a week so hence the “bag suck”. All that said, we hit the trail down to Pheriche well rested and rearing to go.

Over glacier and across moraine(glacial rubble piles of rock) we move quickly toward even thicker atmosphere and the world of the living. We could smell the vegetation before we got to it. First there was mosses and occasional lichens, then grasses and prostrate dwarf Juniper. Pink flowers(family Primulacae) and vocal little birds welcomed us back from the heights. Babbling brooks and freshly born yaks frolicking amidst the stone villages reminded James of his Scottish highlands. Proud Chortans(memorials to fallen climbers) etched against the swirling mist humbled our passage. Yet each step was a step into the world of life and joy.

Join us tomorrow when we eat the Teahouse!

Namaste,
Vern

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

Back in the thick air of 17,300’! The return to BC today was a bit of a homecoming. It was a return to better tasting food due to more oxygen here. It was a return to warm showers… a return to modern communications like email… a return to clean clothes… and a return to our homes away from home- our BC tents. It really does feel like we’ve come back to a luxurious setting compared with the thin air of C3.

The experience up high on the Lhotse face was dramatic for everyone. Many of our climbers had not slept at that altitude ever before, let alone climbed at that altitude. It was an accomplishment in it’s own right despite our expectations for the next couple of weeks. The three nights we spent at C2 readying ourselves for the trip up to C3 were well worth the patience. A couple of the climbers were able to recuperate from a bit of the generalized altitude ‘yuks’ by spending a third night instead of the expected two. Everyone who was already feeling on top of it were able to do a bit more reading, napping, and music listening. By the time we set out on May 2 towards C3 on the Lhotse face everyone was ready for the journey.

Camp 3 is set on chopped ledges in the Lhotse face at the head of the Western Cwm. It’s a commanding spot with views down the Western Cwm towards Pumori, Cho Oyu, Gyachung Kang, Lingtren and Khumbutse. There really is nothing to compare the views to… unless it’s Camp 4 but we’ll get there later. The late afternoon and evening we spent at C3 was spectacular because of the combination of snow flurries and late clearing up high. The entire Cwm and lower valley where BC sits was covered by thick clouds and as the sun set it also was obscured. It made for a wonderfully surreal sunset.

The following a.m. the gang descended the fixed lines which string together the route from C3 back to the flats of the Western Cwm. This year much of the route is bare ice rather than snow coated blue ice. It makes for a bit more excitement really. The team handled it well. Lakpa and I added a few hundred meters of needed fixed line in spots where only one line was fixed. Having an up and down line in those spots is essential to keep teams moving.

This morning as we sputtered out of C2 after a brilliantly restful sleep we heard that the Korean team next to us had two members within a couple hours of the summit of Lhotse. A couple of us were able to use their spotting scope to check out their tracks leading into the couloir which leads to the summit. We assume that they did summit later in the morning and we send our congrats. It was the first summit of the season on this side of the mountain though there were north side Everest summits earlier in the week.

Tomorrow we head down valley for some needed rest and relaxation. We’ll be bringing the computer so we can send dispatches and the team can email family and friends.

We’ll be in touch soon.

All the best,
Dave

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

We arrived at Camp 3 at about 4:00 yesterday afternoon and got right into the tents. We were tired after a nine hour climb. We went right to work making pots of water for our water bottles and ramen noodle soup, garlic shells, fruit cups, and all the various accoutrements that go with dinner at Camp 3. The evening was very beautiful with the full moon. We could see all the way out through the Cwm. Then it started snowing through the night. I thought it was snowing pretty hard all night, but when we woke up in the morning there really wasn’t any accumulation. It was just a flurry of snow crystals hitting the tent all night long. The temperature went down to about -10 F.

We all slept pretty well, although restless. Everybody did very well throughout the night. We were impressed. This morning we got up when the sun hit the tents at 8:40 and started the stoves. At 10:30 we made our way down to Camp 2. It was very hot. We wanted to take all our clothes off it was so hot. It took us four hours to get down to Camp 2. Dave and Lakpa (after Lakpa carried a load to Camp 3) fixed a down rope most of the way from Camp 3 down to the bottom of the Lhotse Face.

We spent the afternoon resting in our tents enjoying some fresh beautiful snow at Camp 2, and now we’re getting ready for another delicious meal. Tomorrow we head down to the luxuries of Base Camp.

Amy Bullard from Camp 2

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

This is the Alpine Ascents Everest Expedition calling in from Camp 3. We just drug our weary little legs in here a little while ago. We’re just firing up the stoves and looking forward to getting rehydrated. Firat has made a beautiful bed out of our tent palace here. We’re about half way up the Lhotse face with a view that goes on for miles when the clouds aren’t around. It’s been snowing for the last hour or so, but everyone is very happy to be here. We have a little coughing going on in the group, but for the most part I’m pretty impressed with how everyone pulled in here. There have been no major problems, which just goes to show that our acclimatization program is hard to beat. We’ve been doing everything right, so we’ll see how we sleep tonight.

The whole reason for being here at 7,000 meters, perched on the hillside, is to acclimatize. We don’t anticipate that it’s going to be an easy night, but it is going to stress our systems, and that will hopefully encourage us to form more red blood cells and to adapt in many ways to the high altitude rigors that are in the days to come before we go to Camp 4 and then on to the summit.

We also must thank our splendid Sherpa team. They have chopped out our tent platforms – there are six tents up here. They carried all of our sleeping gear up here as well, so they did a yeoman’s duty today. Our tents are relatively level, which is impressive seeing as how this is a blue ice glacier. They chopped them out of about a 40 degree angle, which is predominant throughout the Lhotse Face. They found a low angle part of it and put up the tents in two tiers, sort of like terraces for farming rice.

We hope everyone has a wonderful evening, sleep well, and think of us in the morning when you wake up. I’m sure we’ll be feeling the altitude, so we just want to share our joy with everyone. Ciao for now and have a good night.

Vern Tejas at Camp 3

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

A big hello and namaste from Camp 2. We’ve been making the most of our rest day here at Camp 2 today with people wandering around through camps, saying hello to people, with that beautiful sun interspersed with some snow showers, making the Lhotse Face look as beautiful as it possibly could. Tomorrow we’re going to take another rest day, making sure everyone is feeling up to par before we head up to Camp 3 the following day. We’re in good spirits, people are healthy here. The Sherpa also had a rest day today, so we spent some time today getting to know them better. We had lots of laughs, lots of card playing, and lots of pictures. Everybody here is doing well, and they send all their best wishes to everyone back home. We plan to be here again another night here at Camp 2, a night at Camp 3, then another night at Camp 2 before returning to Base Camp where everyone is looking forward to showers and thick air. So that’s it for today; we’ll be in touch soon.

Dave from Camp 2

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

We woke up at 6:30 yesterday morning at Camp 1. We had a great breakfast with lots of bacon. We headed out of camp at 8:30 going up the Western Cwm to Camp 2. We were able to make it into camp about 1:00, which was pretty quick time. We were able to shave at least an hour off our previous time. The weather was overcast, a little bit cloudy, so it wasn’t too hot. So it was a perfect day to be hiking up the Cwm, probably better than any other trip. We got to Camp 2, had some snacks, wandered around, made camp, stretched, read, did puzzles, and then we had a nice dinner in the evening and told animal stories. Then everyone slept really well last night.

That’s all from Amy at Camp 2 (21,300 ft/6,500 meters)

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

Hello Friends, Family, and Loved Ones,
It was an early morning as we got up, ate our breakfast, and got our gear ready to move up to Camp 1. The icefall has been moving quite a bit recently due to warm weather conditions. However, it stayed in place for us, which we very much appreciated. The morning started off windy but mellowed out through the day. The north wind coming in from Tibet kept the Indian clouds at bay and we ended up with a very bright, sunny, beautiful day to come up through the icefall. Everyone was feeling their oats. We moved slowly but with good efficiency, and we were able to get up to Camp 1 in roughly seven hours for the slowest part of the team. So we did really well and everyone is feeling much more acclimatized. Our acclimatization schedule is paying off.

We came into camp with Nima fixing hot soup for us, and then everyone lay down and took a siesta. It was a wonderful dry afternoon that helped us dry out socks and clothes. Everyone had a very enjoyable evening.

Ciao for now from Vern Tejas
Camp 1

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

The name of the game today is WIND. Gusts rattled the tents from about midnight through the wee hours of the morning, making sleep a little difficult. It was still blowing around 4:30 am when our intrepid team members roused themselves out of their warm sleeping bags, wolfed down some breakfast, put on their climbing harnesses, and headed up into the icefall for their second acclimatization trip up the mountain. From base camp we watched a line of dots as climbers from several different teams left base camp and headed for Camps 1 and 2. We also watched huge plumes of spindrift snow blowing off all the surrounding peaks. Ang Tshering at Camp 2 called in around 8:00 and told us it was cold and windy up there as well, so our Camp 2 staff was hunkered down in the tents trying to stay warm.

Today our climbing members are heading for Camp 1, where they will spend the night before continuing on to Camp 2 tomorrow. Their ultimate goal for this trip is to spend a night at Camp 3 at about 7,000 meters. When they head for the summit they will sleep on oxygen at Camp 3 and be on oxygen from there on up. But for this trip they will try to spend the night without supplemental oxygen to force their bodies to acclimatize to the altitude as much as possible. All in all it will be a miserable night but will help them later on.

Meanwhile, some of our sherpas will begin sleeping at Camp 2 to be in position to begin carrying loads up to the South Col. They will be taking tents, food, and bottles of oxygen up to Camp 4 in preparation for our future summit attempt.

Ellie Henke
Base Camp Manager