Everest 2007 Expedition Blog

Team Leader: Everyday one person is selected to take charge of the team for the day. Responsibilities include providing a personal wake up call to each member; hurrying everyone up so that we leave as close to departure time as possible; leading the trail to set the pace; collecting monies to pay any bills acquired during the day and overall team motivation and wellness.

Saturday 31 March 2007:
With Greg as the nominated team leader he started his responsibilities early providing a 5:45 wake up call (much to Biral’s disgust) and the anticipation of a big day ahead was high. At breakfast, Biral petitioned the early rise with an election campaign show including variations of ‘If you Grumpy and you know it…clap your hands’ and slogan cards claiming ‘Late starts are us’ and ‘Biral for Team Leader’. We were on the road early heading for our 4040m destination called Dole.

Omar woke up feeling under the weather and after much climber discussion, the decision was made that he and Ahmed would stay in Namche for an additional day or two for some recovery time. He will then take a shorter, more direct route to Base Camp and we will be meeting up with them in Dzongla, just\after Cho-Lo.

Greg quickly claimed relative terms of endearment such as ‘sir’, ‘sergeant’ and ‘master’ through his strict schedule and plan adherence but there was always time for a joke, a laugh and a trickster prank (which mostly included sneaky snowballs).
The morning was filled with the inevitable melodic sounds of camp and hiking songs (although between all of us, we didn’t manage to get through one entire song due to word forgetfulness). Once the rest of us tired, Biral kept up the entertainment by converting every song that popped into his head into a trekking/yak/Everest theme song – a feat in itself.

The most striking and memorable thing of the day has to be the unbelievably breathtaking views – we were told that they would only get better but one can hardly imagine that they could considering how magnificent they already are.

We experienced our first injury today as Sophie went to ‘spend a penny’ and got more than she bargained for when one of the floor boards broke under foot. Luckily her quick reflexes and great sense of balance saved her from what could have been a most unpleasant landing.

Its now starting to get cold and even John is considering wearing long trousers tomorrow and some of us have already taken the beanies and gloves out.

Up to now the lodge facilities have been outstanding (in relative trekking terms) and a great measurement is the bathroom facilities (watch out for Sophie’s upcoming Loo blog). Previous night’s luxuries have included indoor bathrooms, running cold water and luke warm showers.

As we move higher up things will become more primitive, which is completely understandable as everything that is up here, comes up on the back of a porter or a yak.

Aside from the odd headache or two, spirits are high as another successful day comes to a close.

Under Ahmed’s leadership we left the lodge at 0800 hours (well close to it) to climb Shamboje (an ascent of 445 metres).

The spectacular views improved with every step and the clear mountain air cleared further. As we crossed the snowline, the very predictable (and necessary) snowball fight quickly broke out; and just as quickly ended as the local fighters (actually our lead guides for the day – two boys around twelve years old) displayed their accuracy, knowledge of terrain, appropriate camouflage and above all the ability to breath!

We passed by a local airstrip at 3,700metres although it looked more like a muddy football pitch (sans lines) with a few white rags showing the way. I wonder if they light them at night (did they ever watch ‘Die Hard’?).

After helping to put up some prayer flags we reached the aptly named Everest View Hotel. We gazed up at the magnificent peaks of Everest Lhotse and Ama Dablam in awe – this place has a serious WOW factor.

Following a quick team photo shoot we were on our way again; finding appropriate steps for a quick cultural dance exchange (the Nepalese picked up on the ‘can-can’ very quickly). For a dancing holiday we’ve been doing a lot of walking.

With the help of our friend gravity we wandered down the hill enjoying the fandooby-tastic views and the refreshingly thickening air. Our Nepalese friends ran ahead to draw up a hopscotch (our recently discovered team sport) grid, the needed to catch our score (6 v 4), but super sub Greg (for Fiona) went ahead (9 v 6).

Sophie’s yoga classes are going down a treat (Ben is the newest recruit) and following some lunch we hope to limbo.

A very cool day.

0-0-tigger

p.s. hello mum

The team flew from Kathmandu to Lukla on the 28th. The flight was in a small 16-seater plane, lasted 35 minutes and went through some of the most breathtaking scenery on the way. Everyone enjoyed the flight but little didn’t get their adrenaline pumping on landing. Lukla airstrip is about 100m long afterwhich there is a high concrete wall. The plane stops and turns with only seconds to spare!

The same day we walked to Monjo at around 2800m after a 6 hour walk that was quite undulating. The trail took us through dusty, shruby terrain and over lots of suspension bridges. We passed various tiny villages along the way. We took it slow, stopping several times on the way. Everyone seemed to be in great shape. Only some felt tired for not getting any sleep the night before… no one to blame there! Except a pigeon which miraculously got into someone’s room and left feathers and insects flying around all night, stopping them from getting any sleep.

We arrived to Namche today at 2pm. The trail today was infinetly prettier than yesterday, with snow capped peaks visible and nice uphill steps. We climbed about 700 vertical meters today. Everyone again is in good shape and the pace was considerably better than the day before. We still continued to walk slow though to get the best out of our acclimatization process. Namche is a beautful bubbly town in the middle of the Himalayas. It is perched at 3440m in the middle of mostly green surroundings with impressive rock faces look down on us. The best moment came in the middle of the walk when we got our first view of Everest. A few km far and more walking distance, it looked evenly sized with the neighbouring mountains but it was an exciting moment nonetheless. We later saw it again with Lhotse (5th highest mountain in the world) to its right.

Tonight we will buy some essentials over here and get some rest. This is the last place with access to communication of any sort. After that we will need to rely on our satellite equipment and hence the solar panels. Tomorrow we sleep at Namche again and we spend the day doing a trek to get up another 400m or so to prepare us for the next step of the expedition. More on that later!

The four of us climbers and six trekkers all arrived in Kathmandu on Monday having taken various flights and routes to get here. It was such a relief to have got all our kit onto the flight at Heathrow and picked it all up at this end. For the trekkers the time in Kathmandu was a chance to do some sightseeing, but for the team we had to spend these valuable two days testing communications equipment, checking that our kit had arrived from Manchester and sorting out our nutritional supplements.

The welcome here was as friendly as ever and I have already seen some of the people that I shared a Base Camp with on Cho Oyu last year and who will also be coming to Everest with us. We fly to Lukla in the morning and I can’t wait to start our slow and gradual ascent to Everest Base Camp. We hope to reach Base Camp by 10th April and will bring you updates along the way.

To everyone that came along to our farewell party

Thanks for such a great send off last night. We are all really appreciative of your support and it was really nice to see so many friends.

Tori, Ben, Greg & Omar

It’s just days before we leave. Greg has flown over to London from South Africa and almost all our kit and equipment has arrived. In the last 24 hours we’ve received crampons from DMM, nutritional supplements from Biocare, a ruggedized laptop from Terradat, satellite equipment from London Satellite Exchange, loads of gear from Cotswold Outdoor, beer from Cobra (not for the mountain but for the farewell party!), fleeces from Mountain Hardwear, a Welsh flag signed by the whole of the Welsh team after their triumphant victory last Saturday and of course those all important patches for our new sponsors Investec Asset Management and find.co.uk.

So………….I think………we’re ready!

I hope you will all enjoy following our progress as we attempt to reach the summit of the highest mountain in the world. We’ll be blogging as often as possible and we’re hoping to bring you both audio and video footage from the field. Don’t forget that if you’d like to receive updates directly to your email, please join our Base Camp Club with a minimum donation of £10 .You’ll also be entered into a prize draw to win a fabulous Mountain Hardwear Softshell Jacket. Click here to join http://www.everest2007.net/sponsorship/individual.php

Tori, Ben, Greg & Omar