25-04-2012 – Everest Base Camp – Rest Day

Altitude: 5300m

Atmospheric Pressure: 558mbar

Trek: 5km / 2Hrs

We woke up to the sound of the heli at 7am, coming to pick up Chimu and take him on his way home.

The sun was a little late coming out, and the tent was still covered by frozen condensation, as every morning. If you touch anything, you get covered in snow, and when the sun warms up the tent, it starts to rain. That’s why everybody has developed the routine of getting the sleeping bag out to dry before they go for breakfast.

It felt bizarre this morning, the atmosphere was electric.

Rumors of other people leaving, group separation and mainly start date for the next rotation.

After breakfast, Russell gathered us all outside in the sun.

His first point was that the weather was still very windy, up at Camp 2 and Camp3. This meant that it would take the sherpas at least a further 2 days to fix the “double” ropes on the Lhotsee face and dig platforms for the tents at Camp 3. There’s been very little snow, so the sherpas will have to cut the platforms in hard, blue ice. Sounds like very hard work.

Russell also pointed out that the slope there is so steep that any objects dropped can become lethal and injure people lower down. He asked us to be aware of who and what was above us as well as asking us to have nothing strapped to the outside of our packs. Stories of oxygen bottles, water bottles, ice axes plummeting down the slope were mentioned.

Then he moved on to say that the icefall doctors couldn’t think of a better route through the ice fall, despite Russell going to see them 3 times in one day, what we had was the best they could do. Russell said the 3 big commercial companies at Base Cap thought about terminating the expeditions and going home due to the risk of seracs falling on the route, but decided against it. Instead, it’s down to us to make the decision and review the risk. It will take us 40mins to cross the high risk area, with the brief that if anything was to come down, to hide behind the house size ice blocks. Also, we will need to keep moving through that area, never stop………. This should be fun!! Lucky we only have to do this twice!!

Finally, groups and timing for the next rotation were announced / discussed. The soldiers are sticking together, with their 2 cameramen and Mark, leaving space for a couple of “civies”. Sergey and I will be joining them, although for this rotation, our group will go last, which Sergey is not best pleased about. I think it’s best to have a tentmate you get on with, especially for the next rotation which will be 5 nights in a tent.

So, we’ll be leaving on the 28^th at 2am to cross the icefall, directly for Camp 2 at 6400m.

- 29^th, rest day at Camp 2

- 30^th, short walk above Camp 2

- 1^st, rest day

- 2nd, move to Camp 3 for the night at 7400m, same altitude as the very highest camp on Manaslu (not much sleeping took place if I remember right!)

- 3^rd, back to Camp 2, rest day

- 4^th, 5am start, down to Base Camp.

- 5^th, rest day at Base camp, we’re now acclimatised and waiting to recover and for the right weather!!

After that, I went for a short walk along the glacier and got some nice shots of nature’s best work in ice sculptures, what a treat!

After lunch, Harry the guide, offered to take a walk in the icefall. It took us 30minutes to get to the bottom of the icefall, at our crampon points, then we walked up for 40minutes, amongst the ice rubble. It’s certainly not boring and makes the going very pleasing, going up and down ice slopes, fixed or no fixed ropes, plenty of fun.

However, as we were standing there at 2pm, we witness an avalanche from the dreaded seracs above the upper section of the route. After the snow cloud settled, we could also see people in that same area. Hopefully nobody got hurt….. time will tell.

So another 2 days to recover and get ready for the “real thing”.

I keep promising myself that I’ll go through the pictures and walk down to Gorek Shep (1 hour away) to add them to the blog as this is a much cheaper way to do this rather than pay €4 per picture from Base Camp, I’ll see what I can do.