Everest 2005...

May 31

Summit day. We get it! At 8:45a on May 31, I am officially the highest person on earth. It turns out to be a really tough, cold, windy day, but Rex and I climb strong, Da Sona supports us like the true champion he is, and we all battle to the top. I am particularly proud that Rex and I get the summit in good style on a difficult day in the midst of a horrible year. Releasing my dad’s ashes from the summit is one of the high points of my life. Here’s the blow by blow.

8a May 30. Rex and I strap on our oxygen bottles and leave Camp 3. Climbing with O’s is great, but these bottles sure are heavy. IMG uses a somewhat unconventional system, with larger, more reliable, heavier bottles as opposed to the classic orange Poisk bottles that one sees in all the pictures. The climb from C3 to C4 turns out to be a tough day for me as I struggle with the weight of the bottle in my pack. At one point as Rex and I are passing the Gibbon boys on the traverse to the Yellow Band I slip onto the fixed lines twice in five minutes. I look at the 3000 foot slide down the Lhotse face and shudder. Get it together, I think.

12p May 30. We’ve arrived at Camp 4. The South Col is a horrid, barren, rocky place, full of trash and ruined tents in addition to our camp. We hear on the radio that Dave and Doug made the summit just before 10a and we cheer! It turned out to be a great day today (the 30th) and the only delay was having to climb behind the fixing party. Something like 40 climbers make it to the top on the 30th. We are really psyched for our teammates and hope it bodes well for us tomorrow. Rex and I retire to our tents to rest, hydrate, and sleep until launch time at 9 or 10p.

2p May 30. The wind begins. It is insidious at first, just a gentle flapping of the tent, but by 4p or so it is blowing a gale outside, with gusts up to 40 mph. As our summit bid looks less and less likely, we begin to regret our decision not to go up on the 30th. I am torn up inside imagining a future where I look back on a moment when my boots were on for a try on a successful day and I took them off. Periodically I stick my head out the tent flap into the howling wind and scream in frustration.

6p May 30. I am hoping the setting sun will bring calmer winds but to no avail. Ang Pasang (the IMG climbing Sirdar) comes by our tent and explains the plan for the evening: at 8:30p we will get ready to launch. If the winds have calmed by then we will go. If not, we wait until 11:30p at the latest. If by then it is still too windy to go we will abort. Rex and I plan to negotiate to stay another night to go for it on the 1st of June, if tonight doesn’t go, but Ang Pasang is stoic. He is optimistic actually, that we can attempt it tonight. I begin to wonder about incentives. As it turns out, the quality of the IMG Sherpa is all across the board, and I can see in the eyes of some of the guys that they just want to go down. I am not sure whom to trust... are they encouraging us to go for it just so that the expedition will end or do they really think we can make it? Rex and I talk to Da Sona, whom I trust implicitly, and he basically says, maybe we can go, maybe not, we’ll see. Classic Da Sona: totally honest, extraordinarily competent. Tuck calls on the radio: the weather report has completely flip-flopped: now, the 31st is supposed to be windier than the 30th, the 1st worse, and the 2nd even worse. Lacking any other direction, I decide to go to sleep.

8:30p May 30. I’ve been sleeping for a couple of hours when Rex wakes me. Dude, it looks like we may be going... get ready. The tent is still flapping and shaking in the wind, but it looks like there are other parties that are heading up so I begin to pack.

10p May 30. Ang Pasang comes to the tent and starts screaming at Rex and me. “You must go! 25 people on the face! Hurry up!” Rex and I both almost punch him. We begin to discuss our options, knowing that this may be the only chance we have to go for it. This time we decide to make the bold decision and make the attempt. We know that with the weather deteriorating that this may be our only window, small and lousy though it is. We finish packing, and after a false start because I stupidly forget my ice axe and have to run back to the tent, we are under way a little before 11. It is really, really cold as we make our way toward the fixed lines on the triangular face. With the wind chill it is probably 40 below zero.

12a May 31. Somewhere on the triangular face. The wind has settled down to a pretty constant 20 or 30 mph. In addition to my down suit I am wearing my goggles, oxygen mask, balaclava, warm hat, hood, and headlamp. All this gear reduces the world to a small circle of rose colored light, which is about all I need as I focus on staying warm. By the time we leave there are probably 40 climbers ahead of us on the fixed lines on the face. We join the conga line and make our way towards the Balcony, slowly. The fixed lines are of varying quality and at times there are ten climbers hanging on a single 8mm line from a manky picket or screw above. Yikes.

3a May 31. We reach the Balcony, at about 8400 meters not quite half way up the route from the South Col. Here we are meant to switch to a full oxygen bottle. My memory of this section of the route is dominated by the extreme, bitter, grinding cold. The ambient temperature has dropped to 25 degrees below zero and it is blowing about 40 mph. In addition to the cold the hypoxia slows my brain to a crawl. As it turns out, lots of people have problems switching their bottles here, but Rex and I just sit down in an alcove and in about seven minutes Da Sona has swapped both our bottles and we are on our way toward the south summit. The only way to battle the cold is to keep moving, moving, so the speed switch-over is critical. It turns out our speed at the Balcony is one of the lucky breaks that makes our summit day. As I begin to despair of the cold (and contemplate turning back, I must admit) a little math makes its way through my clogged brain... only two hours until sunrise. I glance toward the East and I imagine I can see the sky brightening over Tibet already. I put my head down and resolve to climb up until I can see the sun. Many climbers have turned around here, so we have much of the ridge to ourselves.

5a May 31. The weather breaks somehow, in a subtle change that seems sudden for the anticipation. As the sun rises and the wind slows the temperature becomes almost bearable. My toes went really, really cold somewhere in the middle of the triangular face and I have been worried for hours about losing them. With the sun my toes stabilize at “really cold” and don’t move to “numb and dead,” so I again resolve to push on. The first glint of hope that we might get the summit creeps into my comatose mind and I hardly notice. We also take a moment to get on the radio and report our progress. My tongue feels about three sizes too large as I report that we are two-thirds of the way to the south summit and doing well. Tuck (the IMG base camp manager) says: “I just want you to know, you are talking really differently. Just make good decisions up there, okay?” He means well, but I think, sure, I’ll make good decisions. I’ll call you from the summit. I also force myself to eat a couple packets of Goo and drink some of the slurpee that my water/cytomax has become. My first sustenance since we left C4.

6a May 31. We reach the south summit and are climbing pretty well. Between the south summit and the true summit we must traverse the most exposed section of the route, including the Hilary Step, a short vertical section of rock that is notorious for creating bottlenecks of climbers. If it’s too windy on this section we’ll need to turn back, as climbers have literally gotten blown off the route here. Da Sona is climbing about 50 meters ahead of us with another Sherpa and I half expect him to turn back. My heart leaps as he disappears over the south summit and continues on. That glint of hope grows brighter and my resolve strengthens.

8a May 31. We are most of the way up the traverse and the wind isn’t too bad. We’re climbing well and reach the Hilary Step without a problem. Rex and I hop up the Step (which turns out to be a trivial section) and meet some climbers we know from base camp. One of them is Lindley, a fellow Stanford grad (go Card!), and we congratulate them as they descend past us. Once we’ve ascended the step we have moved past a certain point of no return: it’s a short, non-technical section to the summit. The glint of hope has grown to a firestorm.

8:45a May 31. We crest over the last of what has seemed like endless rises and we can see the summit cairn and a few climbers clustered around. Rex stops about three meters short of the summit and waits. Puzzled, I join him. He has this drunk half-smile on his face but his eyes are glowing brightly: “We summit together,” he says as he puts his arm around my shoulder. I smile and we walk the last bit together. We simultaneously place our hands on the summit ridge and scream, then I let the emotion of the moment wash over me, wave upon wave upon wave. It is bright and windy and a bit cloudy and we sit on the summit for a few minutes just enjoying the moment. We talk to Tuck and to Rex’s sister on the radio and promise to be careful on the way down. Soon we take the obligatory pictures and I film Rex with a few sponsor banners. “I have one more thing I need to do,” I say to Rex, as I walk over to the windward cornice facing Tibet. The entire expanse of the Himalaya stretches out before me and as I reach into my pocket for my dad’s ashes. I have a few pictures of him, one taken almost exactly a year ago at Wildflower and I pray a bit and talk to him. “Goodbye, dad. I really loved you. I still do.” I sequentially fling the pictures into the wind and they sail away. Finally, I bow my head, stand slowly, and as smoothly as possible fling the ashes from the small bag into the jet stream. The winds take the ashes and carry them East, toward the sun.

9:15a May 31. Time to go. Both Rex and I know that most mountaineering accidents occur on the descent and we resolve to move efficiently and carefully. Conditions have pretty much stabilized as we descend off the summit, across the traverse, and down toward the Balcony. All is well.

11a May 31. We are just shy of the Balcony and moving down well. I check in with Tuck on the radio. As it turns out they have been frantically awaiting our call, but in my hypoxic state I hardly notice. I report that Rex may have a bit of frostbite on his fingers, but otherwise we are doing great. After I get off the radio, Rex says to me, “Is it a whiteout?” Huh? Brilliant blue skies with just a hint of wind. “You might want to look after me,” he says, “I think I’m getting a bit snow blind.” I stick close by him for the rest of the way down, but there’s no need. Rex is one tough climber.

1:30p May 31. We stumble into camp, exhausted, just shy of 15 hours after we left. We report back to camp that we’re safe and collapse into our tent, crank up the oxygen, and begin to rest. After some consultation with the docs about my nagging cough and Rex’s fingers and eyes, we generally conclude that all is well. I am so tired and hypoxic that it hasn’t really sunk in that I just climbed the highest mountain in the world. I drift off into a half-sleep and allow my body to begin repairing itself.

12p June 1. We stumble into Camp 2, to the cheers of the gathered Sherpa. We’ve sucked oxygen all the way down and are nearly safe. Both of us are a bit worried about the icefall the next day and resolve not to let our guard down until the crampons come off. We get a radio call from Doug and Jim with congratulations.

11a June 2. The cwm and icefall are in reasonable shape and we descend without incident. As we crest over the last rise, we see Caroline waiting there with two cold beers. After a bit of filming and general congratulations I sit on a rock at the edge of base camp proper. A sip of what is undeniably the best beer ever. A prayer. Thank you for the summit. For safety. For letting me honor dad that way. After a short celebration we gather our stuff and walk the remaining few minutes to the IMG camp. “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” Indeed.

May 29

Camp 3. We are now en route. It’s basically a 60 hour push from when you leave Camp 2 until you are back safe in the South Col with a successful summit. There are a few moments of rest, in particular the first night sleeping on oxygen at Camp 3, but really it’s time to go for broke. I resolve that there is no pain today.

Our first real experience on oxygen, Rex and I sleep at C3 breathing a low flow. Wow, this stuff is great. My altitude head ache disappears instantly we are giddy like school kids.

All afternoon there is a lenticular cloud over the south summit of Everest above our camp indicating big winds up high. Our thoughts and prayers go with our comrades, who are launching for the summit tonight. As the sun sets the cloud disappears and it becomes perfectly still on the mountain. We silently send our strength with them as we drift off to oxygen induced sleep.

May 28

The fixing party left today for an ascent on the 30th. Dave, Doug, and Jim left with them for Camp 3. Rex and I decided to stay behind and go for it on the 31st. It was an agonizing decision; at one point we actually had our boots on to go up. We vacillated between the bold decision to go up and the analytical decision, which was to stay. In the end we felt like postponing a day was the right idea because 1) the weather is supposed to be marginally better on the 31st, with slightly lower winds and 2) we felt better about having the route fixed before we got on it so there was no chance we would get delayed behind the fixing party. All afternoon, of course, I regretted our decision and wished we’d been bold. There would come a time in a few days when I would really regret it, but of course I didn’t know it at the time.

May 27

Well, we were supposed to go up today for an ascent on the 29th. The route is fixed to the Balcony (about 40% of the way up the route) and we were going to follow the party of Sherpa who are fixing to the summit. This morning we had another game theory day... our whole party was going, but Rex and I balked, then Doug and Dave bailed, then the Gibbon boys, feeling lonely, came back to camp and postponed. Without the IMG team, the Western guide leading the fixing party didn’t want to go and the whole day fell apart. We remain here without a fixed route.

May 25

Mountains always have a powerful spiritual quality for me. Of course, the high country communion with the Divine is framed within my own Christian beliefs, but it seems to me regardless of one’s specific religion it is difficult to deny the evidence for a creator that a place life Everest provides (or Yosemite or Canyonlands or the White Mountains or the entire state of Alaska for that matter). This trip has been no different, and scale of Everest and the length of the expedition has the spiritual volume on 11. Perhaps randomly, or perhaps by design, the Psalms have spoken loudly and powerfully this trip. There is a delightful lack of theology in the Psalms... no talk of atonement or justification or exclusivism (okay, okay, save the emails from my divinity school friends). Just simple talk of the relationship between a loving God and his creation. Huge soaring mountains... God is God. The provision of a weather window or a secure axe placement or the close miss of a serac collapse... we should trust God. The realized triumph of the summit... God loves us. The camaraderie and teamwork of our partners... we should love others the way God loves us. Simple lessons from the mountains.

The irony of the 40th Psalm is not lost. It begins, “I waited patiently...”

May 24

Camp 2. We are still here. It looks like we may be here for a while longer; our weather window keeps getting pushed out and out. For there to be no summits this late in the year is virtually unheard of. But here we are. It looks like the 29th may be the day now.

I watched a North Face tent come down today from another camp with a certain melancholy as I realized the season was ending. Regardless of whether we get a shot at the summit and what the outcome is, this expedition will be over in a week. Some great Shakespeare from Julius Caesar:

“O, that a man might know
The end of this day's business ere it come.
But suffice it to say that the day will end,
And then the end is known...”

Any long expedition draws a veil over what lies beyond, sort of an inability to see what happens next, in all spheres of life: jobs, relationships, family, community... and climbing, of course. Perhaps this is part of what draws me to big climbs, a shield from worrying about what lies ahead. As I watched that tent come down the veil became, not clear, but perhaps translucent. Time, in a bit, to negotiate the crevasses of life, personal and professional. A few days later I would reflect to a fellow climber on the purity of the Everest existence and lament its end. Here, I realized, it was easy to know exactly what the purpose of a day was: to go up, to go down, or to rest. Such clarity is rare in the real world.

May 23

Camp 2. We made the slog up the icefall to Camp 2 again today. I’ve come to realize that I actually kindof hate that hike. The icefall is such a nightmare and the cwm is just a long boring slog. Even as I write this I realize how silly it is... the Western Cwm has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, bounded by Everest, Lhotse, and Nuptse; endless expanses of white and black, snow, glacier, and serac against rock and peak.

There was another avalanche in the cwm today. A huge serac let go and dumped a ton of snow, ice and debris into the cwm. I had gone through there about 20 minutes before and one of the guys on my team was about 5 minutes behind the slide. The lottery ticket that is mountaineering on Everest is getting to be a worse and worse bet.

May 22 (evening)

We are headed off tomorrow for good. As I look back on various posts I’ve said that twice before, so take our schedule with a grain of salt. It looks like the 27th or 28th will be the day. And here it is again. That same feeling that I described in the first post, that mix of fear, excitement, anxiety, determination, and second thoughts. Maybe more fear in this recipe than others, but as expected, the deep breath before the plunge.

May 22

There were a couple of teams that were going for the summit from this side that turned around yesterday. No one from any of the major teams on this side -- AAI, Madness, IMG, AC, Exploradus -- made the attempt. We heard a rumor that several people made the summit from the North Side, but that there was either miscommunication or trouble on the way down, and as of now a few climbers are still unaccounted for. Our prayers that they are safe and sound and not stuck up high.

Still no firm or obvious weather window for us to shoot for. It is getting late in the month and no one has really made a go at it this season from the South, which means the route isn’t even in -- i.e. no fixed lines above the balcony. The consensus seems to be to head up to C2 in the next couple of days to put oneself in position for a window sometime between the 28th and the end of the month. By the way, it looks like we were dead wrong about the conditions on the 21st/22nd. We were in a position to go for the summit on either of those days and we bailed because the temps were forecasted to be so cold. Turns out a bunch of people got up from the North side both yesterday and today. Doh!

May 20

Base Camp. This is turning out to be a really odd year. None of the climbers have been above the South Col yet and we are in the bottom third of May. The forecast continues to call for high winds, so I decided to head back to BC today after my acclimatization run. It turned out to be a really good day... I left C2 around 5:30, blasted up to 7K meters by 8, turned around and made it all the way down to BC by 1:30. My legs aren’t totally healed from my conversation with the crevasse, but they didn’t give me any trouble today, so I am optimistic that I’ll be at full strength when we finally do head for the summit.

The monsoon continues to delay its arrival, which accounts for much of the reason the jet stream is still on the summit and winds are so bad. Patience is the order of the day, as there eventually WILL be a window when the monsoon rolls in and pushes the jet out of the way. Who knows then that will be.

“Let’s go.”

“Okay.”

“Ah...”

The sketchy part of today was descending through the icefall. As the season wears on, and the temperatures consistently and predictably increase, the route through the icefall deteriorates. In particular, the “popcorn” section -- where the most unstable seracs are -- is getting more and more volatile. Today as I moved through the icefall alone I noticed several places were the glacier looked ready to collapse or shift imminently. Yikes.

May 18

Camp 2. So much for our summit bid on the 21st. While the forecasted winds do look more favorable than they have in the past, the temps for the 21st are supposed to be in the low minus 30s with 30-40 knot winds. That’s frostbite territory no matter how fast you are moving, so the fingers and toes will prevail over impatience this time and we are going to abandon our attempt. Rex is going to head down tomorrow and I am going to take a rest day here and then climb up the Lhotse face on the 20th for acclimatization. If it looks like the 25th/26th isn’t going to work either I will head back to the purgatory that passes for base camp on the 20th or 21st.

May 17

This will be the last dispatch before our summit bid. While we don’t have a firm weather window, I am going to head up to Camp 2 anyway. Rex is already up there and we are hearing rumors from other climbers that one or two weather services are predicting a summitable window on the 21st. Best case, Rex and Da Sona and I will be in position to take advantage of that window, which would mean C3 the 19th, C4 20th and summit 21st. If that looks dicey, or we get up there and it’s too windy, we’ll come down and chill out at Camp 2 for a few days and go for it sometime around or after the 25th. Of course, I won’t have email or blog access whilst I’m up high, so check the sites listed above for the most real time updates.

After all this preparation, training, and anticipation it is hard to process that it is finally upon us. Last night as I lay in my tent unable to sleep I tried to remember an endeavor for which so much narrowed into such a small space. I couldn’t. As with anything, all there is left now is to do it. I am not embarrassed to say that I am totally gripped. If you think about it, say a prayer or two for Rex, Da Sona and me sometime next week. All the best, everyone.

May 15

“I fell into a crevasse today.” He said somewhat melodramatically. Well, it wasn’t a real crevasse, really just a snow bridge over a glacial stream that collapsed under me as I was wandering around the lower icefall, but it still hurt like a mother fu-you-know-what. It was only five foot fall into the water below, but I banged my legs up pretty good... I was the pinball and the edges of the crevasse were the bumpers. Think really bad charley horse. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What a moron. I have been so concerned about making sure I didn’t get Caroline’s cough or Walter’s cold that I let my guard down. When I was on Aconcagua there was a Korean guy who died bouldering outside the first camp. He didn’t even get to Plaza Argentina. I remember thinking such a thing could never happen to me, one always has to respect the mountain in whatever form you are experiencing it. Hubris is an ugly thing.

In some ways perhaps the bad weather will work to my advantage for a few days now, giving my leg some time to heal. It looks like we won’t go for the summit until the 22nd or even later, which would mean we don’t leave until after the 18th, so I have at least a couple of days to stay off my leg. No more random wanderings for me.

May 14

Base Camp. The military was once described to me as “long periods of boredom punctuated by short periods of sheer terror.” Welcome to Everest climbing. As the days go by the forecast for our weather window gets pushed further and further out. As far as we know no one has reached the summit this year, or even attempted it, from either side. Does anyone know the latest earliest summit in the past decade? Last year, I think the first day was May 15th and the peak day (forgive the pun) was May 22nd. The earliest we could possibly attempt the summit now is May 20 and we would be close to the first wave, if not the absolute first. A Sherpa team of four is on its way up to fix ropes to the Balcony on the 16th. We shall see.

Another avalanche ripped through the Western Cwm near Camp 1 yesterday at about 3p. We were all milling around BC mostly doing nothing and pretty much saw the whole thing from roar to cloud. Of course, our initial worry was that we had a repeat of a week ago, but it turned out that none of the rubble from the slide got as far as C1 (although they definitely felt the blast).

Here’s a cool quote from Peter Croft, Yosemite hardman: “To me adventure is something that I can take an active part in but that I don’t have total control over.” That captures a lot of it for me too.

May 11

Well, that obviously wasn’t my last dispatch. Weather forecasts, and thus plans, change fast here. Yesterday afternoon there was surely a window on the 14th, yesterday evening we were crazy for thinking there was anything before the 20th. Go figure. Remember that game you played when you were little, where you held out your hand to shake and at the last minute withdrew it? “Psych!” We’d say. Well, that’s what the mountain did to us. Here’s the kind of thing we have to go on:

“The forecasts are ALL over the place in this time frame. Thus, not a lot of confidence in this right now. European forecast wants to put winds in the 10 to 20 knot range (5 to 10 m/s) come Saturday May 14 and I think that is still too low. I would put the summit winds at the 40 to 60 knot (20 to 30 m/s) range from May 14 through May 16. No clear forecast beyond May 16. My best forecast would put winds in this 50 knot range (25 m/s) through at least May 18 or so”

So we are going to sit here at BC for the foreseeable future now. We are probably looking at a 20th bid, plus or minus. But of course that could all change in a heartbeat.

There’s a really interesting multi-player game (from a game theory perspective) that goes on right about now, I am learning. Every team wants to be the *second* team up the route. The first team (or set of teams) contributes disproportionately to breaking trail and fixing lines, so it pays, oddly enough, to be number two. Starting in early May we all begin this dance to see who is going to lead and who is going to follow. Yesterday there was a meeting of the minds of all the expedition leaders in camp. Think 25 player chess game. Played every year by basically the same people (the guides) in the same way. Classic.

Memory is a funny thing. What causes these two neurons to fire next to each other such that a sound or a song is instantly linked with a person or a place? Why is it that I can’t hear “Somewhere over the Rainbow” without thinking of a particular girl? Or see a crossword puzzle in any form without also seeing the image of my father sitting at the end of the couch in our living room, with that crooked half smile on his face? And what is it about specific states of being, in particular newfound wakefulness, that somehow cause the mind to surf through linkages and to establish new ones?

Someone once said, “Experiences are the currency of a wealthy life” (see the quoteboard to find out exactly who). Somehow I think memories are linked to how we experience the passage of time. Not all memories are created equal, and my years seem to pass as the accumulation of real and meaningful experiences, adventures, close calls, passions, heartbreaks. Perhaps this is the secret to a long life, not so much long in years but full of experiences worthy of those linkages of memory. As I surfed the memories today I realized, for the moment, I was happier than I had been in a long, long time.

May 10

This may be my last dispatch before we go for our summit bid. There is a rumor floating around that there may be a summit window around the 13th/14th of May. The weather forecasts are all over the place, but there are at least one or two services who are forecasting a reduction in wind this Friday and Saturday. Rex and I are going stir crazy down here so we are thinking about heading up to Camp 2 tomorrow. In the best case, we’d be at C2 tomorrow, C3 the following day, the South Col the 13th and summit day the 14th. The Sherpa are potentially heading up to fix lines to the balcony on the 13th. It’s a small probability but we want to put ourselves in position to take advantage of the window if it opens. By being careful with our oxygen supply and watching the weather carefully we can preserve the opportunity for a second attempt later in the season (sometime around the 20th-ish). Since I obviously won’t be able to send updates from up high, check the IMG site for the blow by blow on our summit day. Best to everyone.

May 9

Base camp drudgery continues. Waiting is the worst part of climbing Everest. Every morning we get up, have a great breakfast, and check the weather, which dutifully reports that the jet stream is still sitting on top of Everest and will be for the next ten days or so. By this time it is all of 9a and we start counting the hours until dinner. The latest diversion is watching movies on the computer. Imagine ten smelly climbers huddled around a 12” computer screen peering intently at pirated videos bought in Katmandu or Kuala Lumpur or somewhere that work about 50% of the time. This is what passes as entertainment here in BC. Movies and slack-lining (which is climber-speak for tight-rope walking). I can manage about three steps before I fall off; fortunately it’s a six inch fall.

Yesterday and the day before we managed a Lord of the Rings marathon. I am truly a dork, I know, but I still love the exchange:

“I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”

“So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.”

Last night I slept for a while under the blanket of Himalayan stars. It was a warm night, maybe 20 degrees, and I lay on this rock somewhere in camp and stared at the sky, at the outlines of the mountains, at the blocky shadows of the Khumbu icefall. I realized at some point that it was exactly three years since my second trip to Peru and all that happened that summer. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and the experiences, both good and bad, of the intervening years whispered loudly as I lay in the dark.

May 7

Back at base camp. Bad Ju-ju. There is so much bad news on this post I don’t know where to start... two deaths, multiple injuries, Camp 1 destroyed by a 50 year avalanche, expedition members calling it quits. I guess the best thing to do is report things time-series. One note on reporting: in the case of the two recent deaths, I am going to refrain from commenting explicitly on who might have been at fault or where mistakes might have been made out of respect for the people involved and their families.

On my way back from Namche I decided to split the return journey into two legs: first to Pheriche, then on to base camp; it made for a much more sane two days of hiking and allowed me to conserve my strength for the climbing ahead. As I walked into the Pheriche Resort I saw two fellow IMG climbers having dinner. Pheriche is a popular location for climbers to descend to in order to recover from the effects of high altitude, so I wasn’t at all surprised to see Pete and Larry. I sat down, eager to hear the high country gossip. “Down on a rest day?” I said. Larry sort of looked away and reported that he was on his way down. He said he had had a fantastic experience... we will miss your spirit and poetry, Larry. Godspeed.

Larry also reported that we had our first death on Everest. Without going into details, one of the Canadian climbers he knew came down with severe symptoms of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) up at Camp 1 and had to be evacuated down to a lower altitude. He died on the trip out of unknown causes, probably directly caused by or related to the altitude. Our condolences to his family. Larry and Pete also reported that an American climber was stuck in a crevasse in the icefall. A rescue was ongoing.

The next day I arrived to a somber base camp. The rescue of the American climber had turned into a body recovery. We don’t have exact details, but what we do know is that somehow this climber fell into a crevasse high in the Khumbu icefall. The route is usually 100% fixed in this section, so we aren’t sure exactly how he fell. Initially, his injuries appeared to be limited, but as time progressed, he died of what were probably internal injuries. Again, our condolences to his family. It took several days of effort to retrieve the body, which was then evacuated by helicopter.

Camp seemed to have fallen apart while I was in Namche. For as many climbers there are here, the community is small, news travels fast, and usually there are multiple people and teams involved in any rescue attempt. The mood had gone from “jubilant mid-season” to “sad and tentative” in all of four days. I was down, and for some reason I had a really bad feeling about my climb the next day. It’s really important to listen to your gut up high, but in this instance I decided that I was just freaked out a bit by the two deaths and decided to do my rotation up to Camp 2 anyway. I headed to bed with a heavy heart.

The next morning dawned beautiful for climbing: bright, crisp, and clear. I felt strong and shook the psychological hangover of the previous night in the dawn air. I loaded up for a light and fast ascent to Camp 2, determined to move as quickly as I could through the icefall. By 5a I was on my way. At 5:20a I heard a roar and watched an avalanche rip through the cwm above the icefall. I was momentarily worried that the slide might have taken out my route, but there were Sherpa in front of me and they appeared unconcerned, so I continued up. It’s a telling commentary on the frequency of slides around base camp that this one didn’t make an impression out of the ordinary, save for its location in what appeared to be close proximity to our route. I shook it off a bad feeling the way I had the night before. The rest of the trip through the icefall went without incident, and in two short hours I was clear of harm’s way and quickly making my way up to Camp 1. Shortly, I came across a party of two with stricken looks on their faces. “Such a disaster. Camp 1 wiped out. Two people with bad injury” said one in broken English. What are you talking about? “Bad avalanche. We have no radio.” They disappeared. I got on the radio back to my base camp with the news and accelerated my pace to C1 to see what they meant.

Even after talking to these guys I was woefully unprepared me for the devastation that greeted me as I crested the last rise to C1. Our camp was wiped out. Not damaged, not partially buried, not blown around. GONE. DISAPPEARED. Nothing left in the spot where IMG Camp 1 once was but two small orange pieces of tent fabric poking out of the snow. It was about 7:45a and I was the first western climber to arrive on the scene. There were a number of Sherpa milling around, but no one seemed to have control of the situation. So I took it. My first step was to try to ascertain the extent of the injuries. As it happened we were extremely lucky, at the time of the slide C1 was virtually uninhabited, and only six climbers were involved. The first, a Polish guy whom we later learned was climbing without a permit, was bolting from camp to avoid the authorities. He looked like he’d gone 12 bad rounds in a prize fight, so I tried to get him to stay, without success. He disappeared. Of the remaining climbers, there were two accident “theaters”, directly across from one another. In the first theater a French Canadian guy and his Sherpa had gotten pretty banged up; the Sherpa was the most significantly injured of all involved. He had a bad back / spine injury and was holed up in his tent. I made sure that he was conscious and stable, reported the injury back to our base camp as best I could, and moved to the second theater. Three Americans from New York had camped right next to our old camp. They got “maytag-ed” in their tents for about 100 yards down slope, and all of them were pretty banged up and disoriented. Ja-won had a pretty serious injury to his back / spine; his partners had ankle and shoulder injuries respectively. I got them comfortable by rounding up a sleeping bag or two and gave them a bunch of water, then reported back to our base camp the full situation.

By this time Dave Hahn, part of our expedition and one of the most senior guides on the mountain, had begun to organize rescue resources. As it turned out, the Alpine Ascents team was headed down from Camp 2 with a full complement of Sherpa and two guides with medical training. The AAI team would form the core of the rescue effort, with assistance from a bunch of other teams, including a doctor from another team, Rob O’Brien (?). By 9:15a the AAI resources had arrived. Willie Pretti and Dave Morton (sorry if I misspelled your names, guys), both WFR trained guides, each took a “theater” and did a more significant and thorough medical assessment, which turned out to be virtually identical to mine. Once Rob arrived he took control of the medical assessments with radio assistance from the HRA docs based down in base camp, Fred and Ann. They largely confirmed what we anticipated: we would need to evac the Sherpa on a litter, and the other four injured would be able to walk down with significant assistance from the Sherpa staff. The folks from Mountain Madness sent down boots, crampons, and other gear from their C2 cache (since the injured, in particular the guys from NY, had lost most of their gear in the avalanche). By 11:30a the two rescue parties were moving down, one piloted by Willie and one by Dave. A bunch of experienced guides made their way up the mountain to meet them, including Dave, Mark Tucker (the IMG expedition leader), and Willie Bonegas (sp?). Both rescue parties were back in base camp, with the injured in full care of the HRA, before dark. It was an amazing effort of coordination across teams of Western climbers and Sherpa. Kudos to everyone involved, in particular Willie, Dave and the team from AAI. For more info on the injured check out the HRA site.

Once the rescue parties had headed down, I was another “cook in the kitchen,” so I continued up to our Camp 2 for a couple days of acclimatization before returning to base camp yesterday. Today the helicopter flew in to pick up five of the injured climbers. In retrospect, it could have been a lot worse. No one died, and, while their trips up the mountain are over, all six injured climbers will make a full recovery. If C1 had been more heavily populated there would surely have been casualties; in particular, the IMG camp would have been a horrible place to be. I slept there myself sometime in April. As the helicopter flew away today I thought, “but for the grace of God go I.”

May 3

Base camp. Well, the weather does not appear to be cooperating. All the forecasts since I got back to base camp have predicted that the jet stream will be sitting on top of Everest from the 7th through at least the 15th of May. In general, summiting in the jet is an extraordinarily bad idea... with winds as high as 100 mph climbers have been known to literally get blown off the mountain. So it looks like we will be resting here in base camp for a while. I am heading up for another mini-rotation (up to C2 and then maybe up on the Lhotse face). Let’s hope the weather holds.

April 30

Namche Bazar. Mother of all rest days part deux. In the spirit of 1) keeping up with email, 2) staying fit, 3) curing my high altitude Khumbu cough and 4) combating base camp boredom, I walked down valley to Namche again. I love this place, and have already started salivating for my Yak steak tonight. I know, it sounds rancid but it’s actually quite good. Think venison meets New York strip. One or two more rest days and I will be back at BC.

We are a bit ahead of schedule. The ropes are fixed to the South Col and the Sherpa should be in the process of moving our prodigious amounts of oxygen up to our high camp and stashing a bottle for each of us at the Balcony (about 1/3 of the way between high camp and the summit). What this means is that we could potentially be in the position to go for the summit in the next ten days or so, which would be super early. We have to get lucky with weather, of course, but all the chess pieces will be in place. This also means that we *may* have the chance to get a second summit attempt if the first one fails. I’ll try to get another post in before our summit bid, but we’ll see.

For some reason all this email makes me miss all of you. I hope everyone is well. Much love from Nepal.

April 27

I am craving Butterfinger candy bars. Normally, I like Butterfingers, but they are not exactly at the top of my personal food chain (where normally burritos reside, the great white shark of my diet). But for some reason I can’t get enough of them.

Has anyone read the Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus? Check it out; I’m sure a Google search will yield the text of the essay. It’s a quick read. I think the Sherpa’s who carry loads up and down Everest are the most perfect embodiment of Sisyphus. “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Indeed.

I think I am going to blast down to Namche again tomorrow or the next day. I want to post this, do an extensive email session, and see if I can get rid of this nasty cough that I seem to have picked up.

April 26

Base camp. The night at Camp 3 has to rate as one of the worst nights in my climbing career. It was freezing cold and the tents were really uncomfortable; I didn’t sleep a wink. When we woke this morning there was this hoar frost covering everything in the tent, it had been so cold. I made it my mission in life to get Down, with a capital “D”. We left C3 at about 5:45a. I zipped down the fixed lines, not bothering to rappel except for one pitch. By 7:15 I was back at C2. I made the quick decision that it would be safe enough to descend the icefall (as I could get through before noon for sure), packed up a bag with my down suit and other high camp items to leave at C2, and blasted down to base camp. By a little after 11a I was basking in the sun and planning a hot shower. I was tired after descending nearly 6K feet, but so glad to be back in base camp. After a shower and shave my Marmot bag called and I answered with a long, well deserved nap.

I returned to base camp to find our expedition one climber lighter. Nacho, I wish I could have said good-bye. Godspeed.

April 25

Camp 3. This place sucks. No really, this place sucks, Beavis. Imagine a 45 degree ice slope. Now cut platforms for tents, but don’t really make them flat. Now imagine that there are giant crevasses basically running throughout camp and seracs of various levels of stability hanging over camp. Make it well over 23K feet and really, really cold. Now make the tents so narrow that two burly climbers (say Rex and me, completely hypothetically, of course) can not lie shoulder to shoulder comfortably. Now make it windy... not dangerously so, but strongly and erratically enough that about half the time you open the tent door you get a blast of spindrift into the tent. Now imagine that the sleeping bags you have are so flimsy that you have to sleep in your down suit to stay warm. And you have MREs to eat that only get to about lukewarm. Bingo, Camp 3. Why do we do this again?

The trip up here was a big success, though, and I continue to feel really strong. Rex, Da Sona and I left camp at about 5:20a and managed to get ahead of the other climbers as well as the Sherpa headed up the face. This was an intentional strategy, as there have already been a couple of incidents of Sherpa getting clobbered by falling ice and rocks on the face. Without any climbers above us we felt a lot safer. I randomly found myself ahead of Rex and Da Sona and was able to move really fast and stay ahead of everyone for about two thirds of the morning, at which point a small team of Sherpa passed me. I arrived at C3 in just over four hours, great time... the rest of the team arrived between 45 minutes and three hours behind. I felt a bit altitude sick but still really strong with a lot of energy in the tank. By sleeping above 7K meters we’ve put ourselves in a position to potentially go for an early summit bid if we get unseasonably good weather. Last year the earliest summit day was May 15.

For a long time as I was climbing the face there was a Sherpa climbing behind me wearing this bright, shiny yellow suit. He was really strong and pushed me for quite a while, until finally he passed me. I felt really good and happy that I had basically kept pace with the Sherpa and had long since dropped the other Western climbers on the face. As this Sherpa passed me he smiled this warm, friendly, genuine smile that Sherpa often do. He was maybe twenty-three and had a shiny gold tooth. He said with a sort of intense sincerity, “you are very strong man.”

As many of you know, I am bringing some of my dad’s ashes to the summit with me. When he died this past summer we had an amazing service; he was an incredible man, and lots of people turned out to pay their respects. I think his eulogy is still online. Anyway, most of the service is a blur, but there were several people who touched me when they said, “you know, your father was very proud of you.” At the time the most I could manage was to nod numbly, but those comments stuck with me, and it was only after his death that I realized how very important that was. Right before I left for Everest I connected with a friend from a very long time ago, whom I hadn’t spoken to in probably ten years. As I told her the story of the trip and my dad she said that she knew he would be with me, and that I should listen closely for his presence. Spooky advice perhaps, but it has floated in the back of my mind ever since.

As the Sherpa in the shiny yellow suit climbed above me I heard the echoes of my father in his voice and the distinct twinkle in his eyes. It was as if my dad had, through some high altitude induced metaphysics, managed to tell me how proud he was of me. There was no one visible behind me and only this Sherpa above, and I hung there on my jumars staring at him for a long, long time. After a minute I realized I was shaking from crying so hard. I miss you dad.

April 24

Camp 2 rest day. Nothing much going on here of note save resting before the big day tomorrow. So two random thoughts, which I thought were blog appropriate.

Technology that fails at altitude:

1. Any internet connection via sat phone without spending a fortune

2. iPods (mine is completely dead, even when I return it to the lower altitude of Namche)

3. Thunderbird email client. Keep working, open source guys, t-bird drops repeatedly when the connection is this slow

4. Digital cameras with cold batteries

Technology that works at altitude:

1. Dell computers. Somewhat unhappily, Windows appears to be bomber as well.

2. Anything based on flash drives. I am kicking myself for not buying a Shuffle for this trip.

3. Down suits (not really technology, but my new suit really rocks).

4. Sony video cameras. I have become Rex’s de facto cameraman

Some more random quotes from various sources:

“Make each step count. There are no unimportant steps.”

David Breashears

Everest climber 1: “If a serac collapses on you, it’s better if you’re clipped in because they can find your body easier.”

Everest climber 2: “It’s not my garbage deposit, WTF do I care?”

“The peaceful pursuit of religion is one of the most important things in life.”

The Dali Lama

April 23

Okay, first of all apologies because this isn’t going to get posted for a quite a while. The Lhotse face is fixed to Camp 3 and we are going to head up there after a rest day tomorrow. We plan to spend one or two nights at Camp 3 acclimatizing and then head down here for one night and then back to base camp. C3 is supposed to be really horrendous, and people have been known, with not uncommon frequency, to die up there during the mundane act of going to the bathroom. You step outside your tent, drop trou, slip slightly and take the big ride all the way down the face. Message: wear your crampons to the bathroom.

April 22

Camp 2, ~21K feet. Huge day today getting from base camp all the way up to Camp 2. Basically, you blast up the icefall and walk up the Western Cwm (a long way) to a nice camp beside the glacier. As an aside, what exactly is a cwm (pronounced “coom”) anyway, and why aren’t there cwm’s elsewhere in the world? A cwm is basically a glacial valley, as far as I can tell. Why it gets a special name here I have no idea. Anyway, for some reason I decided that it would be a good idea to do the BC to C2 trip in a day with a 25kg load. Huh? Chalk up my bad decision making to severe hypoxia, perhaps, or just Ed’s inherent stupidity. By the time I make it past the C1 site and into the cwm it is smoking hot and I am totally blasted. The hike / climb reminded me of the approach to high camp on Aconcagua. It seemed to go on forever with Ed’s personal tank on empty.

This place is pretty luxurious, especially when you consider we are higher than anywhere in North America, and virtually than anywhere outside of the Himalaya. There’s a cooking tent and pretty good food prepared by our Sherpa cooking staff. Mac and cheese appears to be their favorite to prepare and certainly one of our favorites to eat. From here you can see most of the route up the Lhotse face almost all the way to the South Col. Our Sherpa climbing team is working on fixing ropes up the face so we may be able to go to Camp 3 on this rotation, basically combining this trip up and the next. In addition to being efficient, it is safer on the margin... every trip through the icefall is a lottery ticket. A lottery you don’t want to win (=lose!). More to come when we get our plan finalized.

April 20

First really bad weather day. A number of the guys headed up to C1 today but I opted for a final rest day before moving up tomorrow. Good decision, as a big storm rolled in late this morning and dumped about six inches of snow on the camp. It probably didn’t affect the climbers on our team since they were up at C1 by 10a or so, but I’m sure it made the cramped quarters up there a heck of a lot less pleasant. I am going to climb straight to C2 tomorrow so I’ll catch up with them then anyway. C2 is supposed to be a lot nicer than C1, so I’d prefer this strategy regardless of the weather.

The blanket of new snow is really beautiful, and it really amplifies the spiritual energy of this place. I’ve been meaning to write about the energy field here for a while but have been sort of distracted. I guess a bad weather day is as good a time as any. In addition to its altitude, history, and uniqueness, the cirque of base camp (formed by the Poumori ridge, the west ridge of Everest, and Nuptse) is ideal to capture the spiritual energy often found in the high mountains. Jack, you and I have talked at length about energy fields, and I think Everest has a unique field to it, and not surprisingly a very strong one. Here more than anywhere else I’ve been in the mountains, though, there is a counterpoint field being created by climbers which is negative and destructive. Never before have I encountered such hubris, ego, and selfishness among climbers (and guides!) as I have in the past month here. This place feels more like a secret surf break that everyone is trying to hoard for themselves than a beautiful mountain that we are all trying to be at one with enough to summit. Of course, I am exaggerating for effect and there are lots of wonderful people here, but there is definitely an energy to the climbing community here that works against the spirit of the mountain in a bad way. Why is this? The more I reflect and meet / encounter other teams, the more I realize that Everest is *not* full of people who would consider themselves “climbers”. Not having the experience to be here is the rule, not the exception, and by and large the profile of the Everest climber is someone at the beginning of their career or, more likely, on an expensive sidetrack from their real lives. The respect for the energy field of the mountains is part of the maturing process of one’s climbing career, and it should come as no great surprise that a group which by and large has no notion of having a climbing career should not be at one with such a spectacular place. Sigh.

April 19

Base camp. Nothing much to report. I blasted back from Namche on Sunday in about 11 1/2 hours. It was a tough but really pretty day... basically I got the entire base camp trek in one day. The plan is to rest here for a couple of days and then head straight up to Camp 2. Rex is still up high so I may be soloing or perhaps I can convince him to head back up on my schedule. I wouldn’t mind a solo trip through the icefall anyway.

There was also the first accident of the season in the icefall today. A Canadian climber named Ben broke his leg somewhere up there. We really don’t have details, and it’s probably better to leave them to him to explain anyway, but what we do know is that he was moving fast on his way down and something happened. He probably stepped in a hole and his momentum carried him forward, snapping his leg right above the boot line. Ouch.

April 16

Namche Bazaar. Mother of all rest days. Yesterday I blasted from base camp all the way down to Namche. The air down here is virtually soupy with oxygen… The descent from base camp at over 17K feet down to 11K took me eight hours of solid hiking but it was totally worth it. I feel so good down here. Of course, I am headed back up to base camp tomorrow so that I don’t lose any acclimatization, but it feels great. Namche is my little Huaraz, sans Bahia. I managed to buy a down suit today. I had been planning on doing the summit in this hodge podge of down jacket and synthetic pants plus all sorts of layers. It has been really cold up there and everyone has a suit, so I broke down. With a little negotiation I got this prime $800 suit for about $350. I bet I can sell it on eBay for that much when I get home. And it is sweet… maybe I’ll wear it to the next party at Retiro.

My planned itinerary for the next week or so looks like this: back to base camp tomorrow, two rest days at base camp, then up to Camp 2 for three or four days. Hopefully in addition to the acclimatization I can play around on the Lhotse face, maybe touch Camp 3 at 24Kish, which would be a personal altitude record.

April 14

Down from the first rotation. Day before yesterday we headed back through the icefall, this time all the way up to Camp 1. Rex and Da Sona and I were flying, we ended up at camp in about four hours and rested and hydrated the rest of the day. Yesterday we hiked up the Western Cwm to Camp 2, tagged it, and came back to C1 where we spent last night. Once you hook around the corner after C1 you get a fantastic view of the route up the Lhotse face to the Southwest ridge. Without hubris, I would say that in a weird way being confronted with Everest and the route somehow made it seem more doable. It was as if the challenge became concrete and therefore human, somehow. I dunno.

Even up high the Sherpa take pretty good care of us. Since I haven’t hired a personal Sherpa I am trying not to rely too much on their goodwill, but it’s hard to resist a hot cup of Sherpa tea in the morning while you are still in your bag. The experience is probably spoiling me for future trips. Robbie, you are on tap to make me Sherpa tea in the morning on our next trip to Peru, right?

Today we descended back through the icefall to base camp. If these constant trips through the icefall sound repetitive... they are. We had a pretty bad scare today, too. I was climbing with Rex and the Gibbon guys -- three clients and their guides, so there were a bunch of us. As we waited to cross a ladder in a particularly sketchy section of the route the top of a serac above us collapsed with a crash. Instantly climbers and Sherpa alike were dashing up the route, out of the way of the debris as it cascaded down our path. When the smoke cleared (literally) we realized that the collapse had occurred mostly into a crevasse on the *other* side of the serac. What we got pelted with was only minor debris associated with the slide, as most of the ice went into a crevasse well off our route. Thanks Lord.

I am feeling really strong. C2 is over 21K feet and I haven’t felt any meaningful altitude sickness (knock on wood). I’ve been climbing really well. I feel like I’ve aced the first section of the exam -- only worth 10% of the grade, though. The meat of the route still to come obviously. Tomorrow I am going to head down to Namche to sort out email and pick up a couple supplies. I should be able to send an email blast from there.

Base camp is getting really crowded. Most of the teams have moved in by now and all the attractive real estate on the moraine is taken; prayer flags are flying everywhere.

April 11

Forced rest day. Most of the team intended to head through the icefall and up to Camp 1 today, but the winds were ridiculously strong last night and this morning, so we all decided to take another rest day. This early in the climb it does not make much sense to force our way up in sub-optimal conditions. As it turns out, there was Singaporean team that went up yesterday and got completely pinned down up there today. The forecast called for 50 mph winds at 6K meters (about the altitude of Camp 1). We had an unoccupied tent blow down in base camp last night so it looks like a pretty good decision.

A couple funny interactions here yesterday. There are a bunch of research teams are up here looking to get various kinds of data from high altitude climbers. In particular there was a Canadian team doing research about the correlation between how entrepreneurs take risk and how high altitude climbers take risk. Please fill out this eight page survey at Camp 3. Huh? Can you say boondoggle? They also organized a hockey game which one of the guys on our team participated in. It sounded like fun, but not worth the risk of injury IMHO. Put that in your survey. There is also a team from Brown that is here every year. We asked them, why do research up here, outside of the fact that it is a pretty cool place to spend a couple of months? Because Everest climbers represent the most concentrated collection of individuals who are willingly putting themselves at risk for the dangerous levels of hypoxia that their research requires. That made me feel just super.

April 9

Second trip up into the icefall yesterday. Once the Puja was completed we were free to climb with our Sherpa guides into the icefall to sort of suss it out. I am one of two climbers on the team that has not hired a Sherpa or Western guide, but I felt like it was important to respect the Sherpa traditions regarding the icefall as best I could. I climbed with Rex again yesterday and with his Sherpa guide, Da Sona. Over the course of my climbing career I have been humbled by the skill and fitness of my partners -- Jack, Robbie, Spence-daddy, you have all virtually dropped me on climbs at various times. But for sheer alpine fitness I have never climbed with anyone as fit as Da Sona. Both Rex and I are in pretty good shape by Western standards, but we could not even come close to keeping up with him. We would stop, panting, trying to catch our breath at 19K+ feet, and Da Sona would look on with this wry smile, bemused.

We got about two thirds of the way to Camp 1 in about three and a half hours, which is great speed for our first trip up. Higher up the icefall itself wasn’t nearly as sketchy as I expected. It is still a scary place to be, with its own glacial sounds and language. But the classic ladder crossings, in particular, were pretty casual (knock on wood ;- ). For the uninitiated, the crevasse crossings up high are typically fixed with an aluminum ladder across the abyss. To cross, climbers simply clip into a safety rope and saunter across the ladder. As it turns out, crampons fit quite nicely between ladder rungs. Some crossings are rumored to be as many as five ladders long, but the longest we encountered was two. There are supposed to be longer ones higher up.

Today was a rest day. I took a good trail run down to Gorek Shep to buy a candy bar and get the heart rate up. The run took me less than half the time it should have; I felt really good and seem to be getting acclimatized. When we first hit base camp I had some trouble with a type of sleep apnea called the Chain Stokes, but that seems to be going away.

April 8

We had our Puja ceremony yesterday to bless the climb and our gear. What a great time! Think live performance of “Chant” meets tailgate party. When the Sherpa set up camp they created a marvelously well designed alter from all sizes of rocks found in and around camp. The alter is basically a 5x5x5 foot cube with a hole for a flagpole. The corners are immaculately square and precise. One wonders how much better the alter would have been with a Western construction crew at full tilt. My suspicion is not at all better.

A Lama from Pengboche presided over the ceremony. He prepared the alter by constructing a small “fireplace” for burning the traditional juniper and placing a ceremonial blanket at the foot of the alter. He adorned the alter with candles and pictures, the most prominent of which was one of the Lama with the Dali Lama, both grinning like Cheshire cats. Forgive the sacrilege, but for reasons which will become evident later I suspect they were both smashed. The final touch was hanging an emergency blanket (one of those shiny gold and silver types) across the front of the alter, giving the whole setup a decidedly Vegas feel.

The Puja started at about 8 in the morning. One of the Sherpa on our climbing team, Phinjo, spent several years in a monastery, so he assisted the Lama throughout. The ceremony began with the two of them lighting the juniper and reading prayers from a Buddhist prayer book. Given my own Christian beliefs it felt inauthentic to really participate, in a 2 Corinthians sort of way, so I mostly observed the religious part of the ceremony from afar. The chanting continued with a pleasant sort of melody and rhythm, interspersed occasionally by rice throwing and other ceremonial acts. I wish I had researched the ceremony beforehand, as I am sure it would have been a lot more meaningful to understand the significance of what was going on. If anyone has any insight, fire me an email. The chanting began to crescendo after about an hour, and came to some sort of climax which all the Sherpa understood. Several in the crowd leapt to action, as if on cue, and began the flag raising process. A large pole, perhaps 15 feet tall, with a row of traditional prayer flags as well as various flags from the expedition members (US, Oz, Singapore, Spain, etc.) attached was inserted into a preconfigured hole in the center of the alter. Then the Sherpa spread long rows of prayer flags radiating from the top of the pole, spider style, to various points throughout camp, creating a virtual covering of prayer flags for the entire IMG camp. If it were possible to view from above, it might look like a “*”, with the alter in the center and the lines of prayer flags forming the legs of the star. The act and symbolism were a touching example of faith and brotherhood here regardless of your religious beliefs.

Phinjo and the Lama continued chanting, but clearly for the participants the spiritual part of the ceremony ended and the party began. As if on cue the crowd descended on the prodigious quantities of San Miguel beer, Coke, candy and chang (Tibetan whiskey) that had been laid next to the alter and began wishing one another good luck with a salute and blessing. The frat boy in me considered it rude not to participate, and several beers later (recall we’re at almost 18K feet) I was saluting our extended climbing team as best I could. Two particular elements of the ceremony are worth noting in particular. First, the traditional “salute” involved marking the cheeks and chin of the blessee with a light brown powder (a mix of dark flour and something else). As the party and the drinking wore on the marking became more of a food fight. Second, we all tried a little bit of the traditional Tibetan whiskey called chang. Nasty stuff, and about as far from the scotch I am fond of as Scotland is from Tibet. The best I can describe it is oatmeal + (really) sour milk + grain alcohol. Yikes! I stuck to San Miguel. The ceremony dragged on and on, and I almost felt bad for Phinjo and the Lama who continued chanting. Finally, around 11:30, the party/ceremony ended and we all retired to our tents to nurse our hangovers.

There are several images that stick in my mind prominently. At one point the Lama, who participated in the beer/chang drinking with the best of us, and Phinjo seemed to get in an argument about how much beer the Lama should take away from the ceremony as a gift. Phinjo kept pushing a six pack of beer into the Lama’s hands and he, humbly, wouldn’t accept the gift. I forget what compromise they settled on. Shortly thereafter one of the Sherpa standing nearby observed that my drinking hands were empty. He looked at me with a devilish grin and said “you want beer?” I am convinced these were three of maybe ten English words he knew. I nodded and he retrieved a couple cans and pushed them into my hands. Nepali hazing, it appears, differs in no significant ways from US hazing. I took advantage of the exchange to get a picture of myself with part of the Sherpa team, all of us with drunken grins on our faces. There was also a point in the ceremony when several of the climbers on our team departed for an attempt on Island Peak, a 20K+ foot peak southeast of Everest. As I was saying a fond farewell to one of the gals on the trip the Sherpa assembled into a virtual peanut gallery, literally jockeying for better viewing position. Use your imagination. Kristy, you are missed :-). The Green Gibbon also got his blessing, perhaps aggressively, as one of our climbers, I forget who, dumped handfuls of powder over his head as he sat on the alter. The climbers on our team may not make it, but the Gibbon is sure to summit. Throughout the ceremony I had the chance to wish luck, perhaps a tad drunkenly, to each member of our team individually. The power of shared goals and risk amplified by this setting can not be denied. The Puja was one of the highlights of the trip thus far.

April 7

I just finished a great climbing book, called Blind Corners, by Geoff Tabin. Here are some quotes:

“Whatever you can do, or dream, you can begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

Goethe

“Climbing demands a total focus of the mind and body into the moment: you are a being stuck to a wall, where the entire universe boils down to reaching the next hold.”

Geoff Tabin

“The one who is having the most fun”

Alex Lowe

When asked to name the world’s best mountaineer

“The beauty of an expedition begins when things start to screw up”

Lou Reichardt

“Adventure is facing the unknown, and life must remain an adventure”

Geoff Tabin

“The people who succeed and do not push on to greater failure are the spiritual middle class. Their stopping at success is proof of their compromising insignificance. How petty their dreams must have been.”

Carlos Buhler

April 6

Base camp. First trip into the icefall today. One of the guys on the team is vying to be the youngest Australian to summit Everest. Rex is a super hard climber and I am looking forward to him dragging my butt up this thing. Rex and I wandered up into the icefall just to check out the route. We have to wait until after the Puja to ascend the full route, but we figured it was a good training day to blast up in there and play around. The icefall is a pretty incredible place... gigantic seracs and crevasses with a winding route that the Sherpa have set up through it all. And it is a living museum! We found lots of old gear, including the remains of a boot from the 50s sometime and the wreckage of a crashed helicopter.

The icefall is pretty scary, too. The whole area is prone to avalanches and it is quite disconcerting to say the least to hear these massive slides at night. There was a big one last night that thankfully was nowhere near our route. It sounded like a 747 going by, preceded by a distinctive “WHOOMP”. Scaaaary.

April 5

Base camp. There is much to report. We finished our trek to base camp in pretty good style. As reported from Dingboche, I ended up just feeling a little under the weather so I stayed down low for an extra day. It turned out to be a fantastic decision, as a warm(er) bed, some good drugs from the Himalayan Rescue Association in Pheriche and another day at a relatively low altitude turned the corner on my health. I am feeling really great, super