Everest 2012: Australian Redo, Settling into EBC

Everest Base camp is alive! More teams arrived today including Himex and Adventure Consultants. The glacial outpost is full of yak bells, banging pots and pans, laughs, talks and 1000 yard stares.

The Sherpa Train

IMG reports having their Puja (more on this later) so their Sherpas are now headed higher to establish camps. They are sending 11 Sherpas to Camp 1 and another 33 to Camp 2! Think about those numbers. But more impressive is that they will make these trips is less than half the time of a fully acclimatized Westerner. Amazing people in so many ways.

Bandar, climbing with the IMG Hybrid team (they have a dedicated Western Guide) posted about their Icefall training and impending departure back to Lobuche Peak for acclimatization. I like his point about valuing rock adn ice climbing skills to be comfortable on  Everest:

After learning those techniques we headed out to the Khumbu Icefall to practice climbing steep slopes on fixed lines and rappelling. It was here that I really learned the value of my technical rock and ice climbing over the past few years. With the rope handling I do while climbing, most recently in chamonix while climbing the Arete Cosmiques and other ice and mixed climbs, I was very very comfortable doing what was necessary. I would recommend to anyone who wants to climb everest, become proficient with technical techniques first. They are invaluable.

Australian Redo

Australia’s premier climber, Andrew Lock, just announced he is back for a solo, no O’s North side attempt. Lock has summited all 14 of the 8000m mountains, except Everest, without O’s so he is back for a try sans gas. He last attempted this in 2011 but backed off in unsafe conditions. I climbed with Andrew on Shishapangma in 2006. He will be a joy to follow. A class act if there ever was one and a man of humility and humor as shown in this excerpt:

Yes, its back to Everest time. Talk about deja vu. Same city, same hotel, same mountain, same objective. I’d better finish it this time or I’ll run out of things to say.

Base Camp Life

The Blog of the Day is from Ian Ridley as he describes a day a EBC. It is short but descriptive. Click the link to read it all:

The sun hits my tent at about 7.45am and the temperature quickly rises within the tent from an overnight low of -14 to + 28 degrees c in little more than an hour. As well as the warmth waking you there is the drip drip sound of water falling onto your sleeping bag or worse still on to your face as the condensation that froze during the night quickly melts from off ceiling of the tent. During the night moisture from your breath has also frozen around the top of the sleeping bag like a giant frozen lion’s maine.

Everest continues!

Climb On!
Alan
Memories are everything