A Hard Place to Live

[Click on the pictures to see larger versions with captions.]

Climbers, guides, Sherpas and film crew are all now at advance base camp (ABC) at 21,000 feet (6,400 meters). During the two-day hike, Everest was nearly always in view, its summit adorned with a jet stream blast of cloud flowing from the southwest.

We shared the trail with hundreds of yaks. The valley echoed with the jangle of their bells and the coos and songs the Tibetan yak drivers sing to their docile beasts of burden. Russell figures that 2,500 yaks are involved in the business of shuttling expeditions up and down this glacier.

While the 9-mile hike isn't very steep, the altitude gain can be punishing. It's common to arrive, spend a night, and succumb to sleeplessness, headaches, lethargy and puking nausea. The best cure for altitude sickness is descent back to base camp, and a few members of this group have already had to go down to rest up.

In fact, I haven't felt so great since I got here. The last couple of days I've been dreamy and wooden-headed, but now that I've drunk enough water to fend off altitude-induced dehydration I'm much more alert. Consider that at ABC we're camping higher than any point in North America, Africa or Europe.

ABC is situated in a dead end of the East Rongbuk Glacier on a narrow strip of glacier occupied by many expeditions. We all sleep on a constantly moving ice river that cracks and pops beneath us. Everest's long Northeast Ridge rises left of the camp and the North Col (location of Camp 1) is a wall of ice and snow at the end of the valley. Right now I can see 60 people threading their way up the slope that leads to Camp 1. From my tent they look like a line of ants crossing a sugar bowl.

The mountain is a beehive of activity. Russell's crew of Sherpas has been busy carrying masses of supplies, including oxygen, which will be used from 26,000 feet (7,900 meters) on up. The plan is to pave the North Ridge with enough rope to allow the hundreds of this year's Everest contenders to reach the summit.

The first summiters will likely be Russell's well-trained Sherpa crew, who believe they'll summit by the end of April. Because Russell's team has been fixing ropes on Everest for so many years, most of the expeditions are content to let his crew do the hard work and set the lines in place. In return, they pay a minimal fee ($100 per person) to cover the enormous manpower, oxygen and rope that the job entails; those expeditions who don't wish to pay use the fixed ropes anyway.

Meanwhile, the climbers in this group are getting their personal gear in order and training on the ice cliffs beside camp before making the move onto the mountain. The next destination will be the North Col at around 23,000 feet (7,000 meters). The gnarly thing about climbing high peaks is that as soon as you adapt to one altitude, you have to move up and suffer at a higher altitude.

In the next few dispatches I'll be writing about the superhuman Sherpas who are the backbone of this expedition, as well as the ongoing adventures of the individuals who've signed up for Russell Brice's Everest expedition.

Signing off,
Greg Child

Comments

[new yorker]

i love reading your blog, greg. thanks for writing despite the wooden-headness. everest fascinates and scares me.

[rat and goat]

been raining here almost every day. you're not missing much. what do the yaks get fed? america and goat want to know.

rat and goat

[calanthe]

Just a quick comment from a lowly Ohio housewife - I enjoy your blog so very much. It's hard to imagine the Everest views compared to what I'm looking at out my window -bare cornfields, but we all have dreams and aspirations. I enjoy your prose and photos every morning. Wishing all safe passage, and special applaud for the superhuman, awe-inspiring Sherpas, who make my day look like the invariable walk in the park that it is.

[matt hardy]

hey greg congrats to you and the team for making it to abc sorry to those who had to go back to bc due to illness couldnt wait to read this blog and it wasnt a let done fantatsic pictures and scenary hope you the best off luck climbing the 1,000 foot ice ciffs to the north col i think i remember you saying that you will be based there for the rest of the expedition

[jj]

keep it up! can't wait to see you on the show in the fall. We all admire you that you allow us to see such beauty thru your eyes. take care.. a R.N. in sc usa.

[Warren Scott]

Hey Greg. Greetings from Castle Valley. Beautiful weather here after awful dusty windstorms and finally lots of rain - quite balmy actually compared to what you're in. Sent you pics of the little ones...prepare to be homesick. Awesome job your doing!
Best to you and your crew,
Warren

[Jon Huelskamp]

Hi Greg,
Betsy Huelskamp is my sister. By know you probably know what a great spirit and person she is. The only updates we have recieved on her is through you. Thank you for your strength and determination with the difficult job ahead. I never thought that when she was watching the Everest series at my house over Christmas that just a few months later she would be vacuuming at base camp. It's just one of hundreds of amazing stories she can add to her already impressive adventure resume. Thanks again for your updates and photos. Please be safe and if you see my big sister, please tell her her family loves her and can't wait to hear from her.
Jon from Minnesota

[martin]

The only thing that i don't understand is people that embark on an expedition to everest without any knowlodge of using ascenders.....

Imagine those people at the hilary step with 1/3 of the oxygen left to breathe and the extrem effort you need to do to just climb....

How can an expedition leader accept such kind of inexperience climber's.....

Is the money driving all the commercial expedition beyond the safety of the people....