Packing gear for a trip to Everest is not a trivial matter. In fact, it is a huge undertaking and much more complicated than any of my previous trips.  I first downloaded the gear list from the guiding company into a spreadsheet. Then slowly the one sheet list grew into a workbook, with separate list for clothes, climbing gear, medicine, food, personal care, books & digital equipment.

Because of the extreme altitude and conditions, I had to acquire quite some new gear. Some are quite expensive and hard to find for my small size, such as boots and insulation suits. Luckily, Wild Things Gear generously sponsored most of my clothes with custom-designed primaloft suits and custom-tailored shell/softshell layers. 

It was a blessing to have the support of Marie Meunier, the owner of Wild Things Gear, who took care of me like a mom! She helped me organize my equipment, how to coordinate my clothes layers with other accessories such as helmet, gloves, boots, goggle, and worked with me in making the suits just for my specific needs.  Trying the new suits reminded me of my childhood experience of putting on new clothes that Mom made for me on Chinese New Year, which was a special moment because we were too poor to afford buying new clothes, and donning home-made new clothes on Chinese New Year was our ritual.

To better protect my toes, I bought a pair of La Sportiva Olumpus Mono boots. Very few brands make extreme altitude boots for women, so I had to get a men's pair at the smallest size which was 39. Unfortunately, the break in process extremely painful and stressful. 

Despite having a lot room in the toes area, my ankles and lower calves were being crushed and badly bruised during the first few weeks. I got my friend Paul Cormier from IME and Dan&Stan ski shop in North Conway to custom-adjust the boots a couple times, but I am still not confident how it would perform on the mountains because I can’t keep on trying to break in the new boots here with my already well-bruised ankles. So I decided to pack in my old Koldflach Arctic Expd boots as well.

Another complicated project is medicine. Even a super healthy climber who never needs to visit doctors in normal situation can ran into many unexpected problems at extreme altitude, such as  severe cough due to altitude, life-threatening pulmonary edema or cerebral edema and even diarrhea from bad foods and infections.  Being away from modern healthcare for two months, I have to be prepared for any situation. My friends, Dr. David Coleman and         Dr. Steve West, helped me obtain enough medicine to supply a personal pharmacy and patiently educated me on how to use them. David even wrote me a detail step-by-step instruction that I can follow to treat myself under different conditions and taught me the efficient way to organize medicines for expeditions.

Though the guiding company is preparing all meals, I decided to bring a lot of snacks to supplement my nutrition on the mountain. Based on my previous experience, meals in these expeditions are normally heavy on carb and fat, but relatively low on protein and fiber. Because of my training regime during the past few months, my body has got used to a diet that is high in protein. So I brought a lot of protein bars, powders and nuts to provide extra protein, and to supply for two months.

Packing for this trip was complicated. On the start of this trip, I will be trekking in relatively mild conditions for 14 days to base camp. This means different boots and clothes for trek. Once in base camp, I have to prepare train and climb on such a big mountain - requiring us to establish two base camps to reduce the amount of equipment we have to carry up and down the mountain. 

Because high altitude training is done over a few months, I have to travel between main base camp and the advanced base camp. The main base camp is located at 17700 ft, which will be our main home, and an advanced base camp at Camp2 at 21300 ft, which will be a training base. Each camp will have duplicate equipment and gear, as I'll be travelling between them, getting used to the high altitude.  

Now you start to get a picture of what I am putting into my three big duffel bags!