On top of the world! 05/27/2010
 Everest Summit – summary written on May 27, 2010 Since the summit day (May 24th), we have been on the move every day – descending from Camp 4 (C4) to Camp 2 (C2), then C2 to Everest Base Camp (EBC). Then packing and moving out of EBC, and now I’m on my way hiking out of Khumbu Valley. While busy walking or climbing every day, I have kept on thinking again and again what happened during the past few days, but didn’t have much time to sit down writing. This is by no means a detailed report; rather I just want to give everyone a general idea of what our summit day on Everest was like. Thunder in the heavens First of all, it’s very important to clarify the actual condition of the summit day, or more accurately, the summit night. The weather forecast was “less wind, but higher probability of precipitation”. There’s no way to know how much “higher” probability and how much precipitation. So we had to go with our gut and hope for the best. The snow and wind started in the afternoon and soon became blowing snow, heavy storm conditions by the time we were ready to ascend. Camp 2 radioed down, “Hey, we are snowing at Camp 2 here. How is the condition sown there?” Justin humorously responded “Yah, we see snow coming up from the ground here”. We started the summit push around 8pm on May 23rd despite the blowing snow and limited visibility. Alpine Ascents also stuck to original summit plan, as we did, in the hopes of conditions improving later. But Rainier Mountaineering (RMI) postponed their summit push to the next day. I started out by fully covering my face with the combination of goggle, balaclava, buff and oxygen mask. Slowly, my goggle started to fog up, but I dared not to take it off because I have heard of several stories of frozen cornea on summit day and that would be the end of it all! The few times I briefly removed my goggle to clean it, the wind and snow would blind me instantly. I could feel it was very cold out there, but I was keeping myself very warm with a good climbing rhythm until we hit Balcony. For a short period, there was even thunder and lightning around us. I was a little concerned, but obviously, there was nowhere to escape to and there were not many objects higher than us. Since lightning strike on Everest is rare and the thunder storm did not look like a severe one, our guide decided we would continue. Balcony - a brief panic My first scary moment came at Balcony (8,400 m, 27,600 ft), where we would change to a new oxygen bottle. I had been climbing at a good pace and did a good a job keeping myself warm. After taking me off from my current bottle, my Sherpa Da Tenji found my new bottle leaking. This is considered to be the text-book reason for accidents on Everest! Any problems with an oxygen bottle not only would cost the summit, but more importantly, could easily cost a life. While he was busy fixing it, I started to get cold fast. There was blowing snow all around us, blinding from all directions. No matter how I turned, it was impossible to find a safe place to drink or eat. As this dragged on for several minutes, too long in my mind, I started to find myself struggle for air, maybe out of panic. It felt like a long time, though I think it might just be psychological, but it was scary! During those long minutes, my mind kept imagining the worst. Things that could go wrong... While we were fumbling around with the bottle, many climbers have passed us and moved on. When I finally got going again, I soon found myself joined at end of a line of climbers that were going nowhere. A veritable traffic jam on Everest! Another classic situation for accidents! I couldn't see what’s going on ahead. It was dark and visibility was low, I could not make out was around us, left or right. It looked like a narrow ridge, which would be very dangerous trying to get around other people. I was wondering if to the right side of us is China. My guide, Justin, came up from behind and jumped on the snow bank in order to bypass the line to see what’s going on ahead. After quite a while, Justin returned with one of our team members and told the team to.."move slowly, wait for the sun! Hopefully the weather will improve!” (Later I learned the implication of that instruction was that Justin was planning to turn the whole team back at South Summit if the weather did not improve by the time we reach there. Looking back, we were lucky that the line moved so slow! Otherwise, my summit would have been called off!) The line started to move but still at a snail pace. I don’t know how long I spent standing still, it felt like hours. My body didn't heat up much yet, and now my feet and hands were starting to feel frozen. The traffic jam could also waste oxygen, which was limited amount on each bottle. We would have to give up on the summit if we wasted too much time going nowhere. I have felt pretty confident about my physical condition before the summit push, but I have no control of all these kinds of unknown situations. I told myself, I love rock climbing and I want to continue to climb after this, so I can’t lose one toe or one finger! I kept on dancing on my feet and wiggling all toes and fingers. When I finally came close to the spot, it was a rock spur on the South Summit that had slowed down progress (there was also some slow or tired climber causing the slow down earlier, but that have been solved by Justin). It was a long series of imposing rock steps that was very challenging for big boots and crampons. Also, if you stepped to the east into waist deep snow, you could run into serious avalanche hazard. As a rock climber, I’m really embarrassed at my clumsy move to struggle through the difficult spots. At that moment, I didn’t know the name of the section. I was wondering if this was Hillary Step and how many steps did he take? If it was not, how was I going to handle any steps even more difficult than this? Floating in the clouds By the time I was near the top of the rock spur, I could see sun rising through the clouds. Yes, “some clouds”, but they were everywhere. We were completely wrapped in thick clouds! It was a relief to see the sun! I know I don’t need to worry about frostbite anymore. Wind had also calmed down and the South Summit was just ahead of me! When I stepped onto the South summit, my sherpa, Da Tenji checked my bottle. I was little bit nervous. Was my bottle leaking? Did I waste too much air while standing in line? “ok, you have enough left to go to summit” What a relief! Then he pointed forward at the col below the south summit, “that’s the Hillary step”. Oh, those rock spurs I just struggled over was nothing? Hillary step was a little bit awkward, but at least it was only a few steps! After that, just some snow slopes. Life is much easier from there on! Not too long, through the heavy fog/cloud, I saw piles of people hugging around at the end of the summit ridge. The feeling of standing on top of the world was a little bit strange because we can’t see anything other than the little pole wrapped by numerous prayer flags. Nevertheless, everyone was very happy to finally stand at this spot even though we couldn't take a panorama photograph of the world. Anyway, half of my seven summits had the same view (clouds), so I was almost getting used to it (So, this explains the lack of photos I could share with you all. I guess I need to come back again one day to make up for those photos!) After taking enough pictures (how many can you take in heavy clouds?), I know the more serious job is to descend safely. More accidents happened on descent in mountaineering, especially we have those ice/snow covered rock steps all over the mountain here. More challenging for Everest, descending to C4 does not mean that we had finished. With each day working at full capacity to climb or descend, each day gets more challenging. From C4 to C2 was a relentless steep downhill. Then, after you felt like that your leg muscle have been depleted, you needed to stay alert to navigate through ice fall. Only when you returned to EBC could you relax. The last descent through the ice fall was what concerned me even more than the summit. It was like a stream of mini-summits that you had to focus your energy and work so hard when you are already at end of your rope. ........................................... It has been a few days since the summit, but I’m still trying to digest the fact that I just climbed Everest. Was it hard? It depends. If you have read the previous blog of “Why Everest is hard” and after two month of suffering through pain, you are still healthy/strong, determined and positive, then maybe Everest is not that hard for you. When I set the goal to climb Everest a few years ago, I saw it as a goal reachable by anyone. After training hard, and had finally achieved my goal! Now it feels surreal that I had just climbed Everest! So, what does it takes to climb Everest? My thoughts...
    18 Comments Thoughts before the Everest summit 05/17/2010
Waiting time was taxing. You are not sure how long the waiting time will be and how to plan your schedule; You worry if the summit window will come before Monsoon arrives; You worry if the ice fall will still be safe to pass when we finish the climb; You are worried about getting weaker while waiting (don’t forget our base camp here is as high as high camp on most high mountains on other continents, if not higher than its summit), you worried about getting sick from any random factors, you worry about getting injured … Now it finally is time to go up, and you can stop worry about a lot of things that kept you awake. Yet, you know how reliable the weather forecast is for days more than a week away in the city, not to say on a mountain like Everest! One day, the forecast was “confident” about summit window in mid May 20s; the next day, it said the “forecast model is jumping around”. Everest is a big mountain, the summit push takes 5-7 days. You just can’t wait until you see a clear forecast to start going up or you would risk missing that precious window. It’s hard gambling game here! Thinking of Ed Viester’s “No Shortcut to Summit”. It’s so true on Everest! Every step is so hard! No shortcut! I’m little nervous, so many things to finish, and I need to pack and rest! Like a soldier training for war having got bored waiting for the big time. Now all of a sudden, we are moving and I am scrambling around and barely have time to finish off the list of to-dos. While waiting, we worried about getting weaker by sitting around, so we tried to do some exercise every day. Now time to move, we worry about not resting enough, and realize that we have been so spoiled for so many days – sleeping till day break every day, no torture moving in mid night frigid temperature or baked under brutal sunshine in mid of day. Time to get used to not sleeping well in the night; time to get used to plan every visit to toilet, day or night; time to get used to going to sleep in the clothes that you would wake and walk in; time to nervously calculate when sun will cast its brutal heat on the glacier slope… More this time, need to learn to calculate how many hours do I have left on that bottle of oxygen … Everest - Rotation 2 05/10/2010
 May 4 – 8, 2010 My second rotation May 4: EBC – C1 (6000m) May 5: C1 – C2 (6500m) May 6: C2 – C3 (7200m), personal altitude record! May 7: C3 – C2 (6500m) May 8: C2 – EBC (5300m) This rotation is much more challenging than the first one but I’m feeling stronger and enjoyed it much better. Good health makes a big difference! Not does only it make me stronger and more energetic, but more importantly, it makes me focus on acclimatization instead of fighting the painful cough. Though I was still very tired when I arrived at camp 1 and camp 2, I was not as exhausted as I had felt in last rotation. My appetite was good during the whole rotation, often eat no less than the biggest guy on the team. Kitchen stuff often took me being full as the indicator that everyone else had enough food. I realized how fast I could lose weight at high altitude and I know I can’t afford to keep losing muscle mass at such a rapid rate. Otherwise, I would have no strength left climbing the summit? So I kept on feeding myself protein-based food as much as I could throughout the day. I slept well and I was surprised that at my personal best elevation – camp 3 (7200m, 24000ft), I was still able to eat and sleep relatively normal (compared to the lower camps). Until people started mentioning it, I totally forgot about panic breathing during sleep – feeling suffocated while sleeping and panicking while trying to catch your breath. Although, I had the bad habit of burying myself completely inside my sleeping bag at night... no wonder there didn't seem to be enough air inside my sleeping bag! Five days in a row, we got up in the middle of the night to start climbing before the sun heats up the glacier to an unbearable 100F by mid-morning. Though we finish our climb early in the day, that doesn’t mean you can go back to sleep for the rest of the day. Inside the tent, it’s boiling to sleep during the day. You have to wait until the late afternoon, when sun goes behind the mountain, which makes you instantly need to crawl back into your warm sleeping bag! Every day is a hard day, and the hardest day was the day when we climbed on Lhotse face, moving from camp 2 to camp 3. Lhotse Face Ideally, I would have liked to rest a day in camp 2 before tackling the demanding climb at Lhotse Face. But the weather forecast was predicting high winds moving in after tomorrow (May 6). We had to climb it tomorrow or we might have to give up. Another question was - what to wear in the climb on Lhotse Face? It will be very cold in the night that requires us to be fully equipped in our summit suit. But once the sun comes up, you had to strip down to your T-shirt. It’s a steep slope, which means there isn't a safe spot to take off or put on a summit suit. It’s a long climb, and entirely under the hot sun. Every one of us decided to climb in our summit suit, and planned to strip it off at the top and tie it around our waist once the sun came up. The night was warmer than I expected. Once I started walking, I immediately had to unzip my suit, just to cool down! The slope is steep all the way, and there are several long sections of hard ice bulges that make it a very demanding climb. To be safe, we kept the jumar on the fixed rope all the way. Once we started climbing on the steep slope, I faced another dilemma. If I covered my face with buff or balaclava, I protected myself from Khumbu cough or sun burn; but I couldn't get enough air to breathe when the climb demanded it. Air or comfort? A hard choice! Luckily, the sun was not too cruel today. There was some cloud cover, which significantly reduced the sun’s heat. There’s actually two camp sites. A lower camp 3 and a higher camp 3. Unfortunately, the IMG site is the furthest spot on the highest spot at the higher camp! While you're on a steep slope, you can see very far. But looks can be deceiving! Anything that looks close is actually hours away! From lower camp 3, it's an hours climb to get to the higher camp using a fixed line branching out to the right from the main climbing route. And yes, you need a fixed line to go to the campsite! The whole campsite rests on a steep slope. There’s not much “flat” ground. Each tent platform has been dug with hard work! There’s not much room between tents even to the edge of the platform. So I had to be very careful in moving between tents! We don’t want to risk damaging our tents with crampons, so the advice is to take ice axe if you want to walk to the “toilet” just in case you miss a step. On the way down, I was really looking forward to be back at home – my sweet tent home in EBC, and the feeling I look forward to most was touching my face with the warm wet towel that would be served at dinner or breakfast time. That’s the only time I clean my face with something other than the freezing cold baby wipe! Our Sherpa guides are also looking forward to be back at home too, but their real home. The moment we touched down at EBC, most of them took off immediately to spend a few days with their family in Portse (most of our climbing Sherpas came from Portse, a village between Namche and Pheriche). Only then I realized that I have been on the road for more than 50 days already. Time flies by so fast! Yet, the game is still far from over!      Everest - Why is it so tough? 05/06/2010
 Apr 29 1:30pm It’s only a few hours since I sent away Tasia, sitting in the sun room writing. Kuran, the lodge service boy came up: “Your friend is here”. I walked into dining room and was shocked to see Jeff, one of my teammates, sitting there! “I’m going home.” Everyone had a tough time at camp 2. Other than going through the same physical pain, Jeff is also torn emotionally. With a sweet wife and two lovely kids at home, Jeff decided it’s more than he can bear anymore. It felt like a joke to me that I’m just sitting here in Pheriche sending away one teammate after another. It’s sad to see another teammate leaving. In some sense, the serious climb haven’t even started yet (we haven’t even touched Lhotse face yet), but we (and every team) have been quickly loosing climbers to various reasons. Some has said that going through Khumbu ice fall is the ultimate Russian Roulettes game for mountaineers. But here we see a different Russian Roulettes game before we even start climbing. Everest has been so trivialized by various movies, but here I intimately feel it’s a survivor’s game on a daily basis. Everest tests us from all dimensions. We often say, “one step at a time”. Here, each step is hard. There’s a voice trying to tell you “quit” at each step. We need to be resilient in many dimensions, but it’s also a balance between many forces. Some of them you can’t fight against. Why is Everest so hard? There are many challenges other than the simple high altitude AMS threat:
It’s important to focus on positive thinking. Yes, there are many forces against you. You need to be resilient! Climbing Everest is 90% mental. True that there are certain forces you can fight against, but don’t give up too easily! Make your best effort, consider all possible alternatives, think thoroughly of your decision. It’s a balance of all forces!            Everest - Life is Beautiful.. 05/02/2010
 Apr 27 – 30, 2010 Sitting here in the Himalaya Lodge dinning room. Light music in the background, quiet, warm, despite could and wind outside. Fog is rising in the valley, most of sky is covered by clouds. I just sit here, enjoy my ginger tea, and just finished Sherpa stew, re-reading the description of the trekking route I have been through, trying to figure out the plan once I recover from the bad cough – hope the strong dose of antibiotics would do its magic. No worry of putting on all-weather/all-temperature outfit to travel between tents or rush to pee bottle to save the 5-minute hike to toilet. Life is luxurious for me for the next few days. Just rest, eat, drink. My normal appetite is back, and I can order whatever I eat, according to my taste, not the general American group taste, and not limited by the stock in the high mountains. Food won’t get cold before I finish it. Instead, I can slowly savor it while reading or writing without worrying it getting cold. It’s warm and windless inside here, with music in the background. This won’t be forever. Hope I will get over the bad cough and get back to EBC soon. It’s windy outside. What’s the weather in EBC like? What are my teammates doing? Are they practicing using oxygen bottle? Oh, it’s lunch time. They are just exchanging stories in the dining tent. It’s interesting to have this peaceful time all alone here on such a trip, sitting here with only my own mind to feel. Almost forgot this is in Nepal. Tourists from all over the world come and go, except the lodge owner and the diligent service boys. The stock in the bar is amazing. Maybe that’s why I almost forgot this is in the Khumbu valley.... Evening It’s snowing so hard outside, like Xmas. Inside, dry flower and long candle decorate each dining table, just like Xmas. Some people drink beer; one party is celebrating birthday with a cake. Fire place in the center of the dining room kept the room so warm and cozy that the window is all covered with steam. No need to know if it’s cold or windy outside. Walking down the hall way to my room, there’s even lights along the ceiling every few yards. No need to worry about forgot headlights, no need to worry if the trail is slippery because of the snow. Open the door to my room, it’s cold. But at least there’s a switch to turn on the light, and toilet is down the hall way, also with a light inside. It’s five star hotel life comparing to that in EBC, but I need to go back soon. What’s happening on the mountain? While we are snowing here, weather is not great on Everest. The consortium of all teams just had a meeting that each team is contributing a few Sherpa to fix the route between camp 3 and camp 4, but it is going slow because of the weather. Route between camp 2 and camp 3 (Lhotse face) is slowly kicking in. The first few teams (some team with strong competitive mentality is eager to climb early before the route get into better shape) on that route would have to kick the step much harder. It’s the steep face of hard ice! IMG is still digging (literally! It’s hard ice slope!) camp platform for camp 3. Camp 2 to camp 3 is not only a hard climbing route, but also hard camping site. Everest- Camp 1 rest 05/01/2010
Apr 23 My cough is clearly picking up at the same time while my appetite is subdued at 6000m, though I’m happy that I don’t have any altitude symptom not even headache. From what I’m hearing from everyone, this is normal for Khumbu Cough, the cough triggered by the cold dry air at altitude. Woke up by cough many times last night, I decided take more rest today, only went for a short walk near the camp. Looking at distance, the setting of camp 1 is one of the most beautiful places. The rock wall of Everest rises above it so close! Can’t believe it’s only less than 3000m from here, yet is still weeks away for us to reach! Faraway, Pumori, Lingtren and Khumbutse paint a beautiful background to the west, while Lhotse face is straight to the east. Apr 24: Camp 1 to Camp 2, 6500m The route to camp 2 appear to be very straight forward on that giant gentle snow slope, but it’s still a lot zigzag across the maze of crevasse. At one point, the top of the ladder barely touched the lip of the crevasse. It’s a game of gamble before the lip would melt away one of the days. But sometimes you just have to take the chance and move on. The most agonizing part is from the time you see the campsite of camp 2 to the point you finally arrive at your camp site. It’s still hours’ of uphill trip and exhausting! I was surprised that camp 2 is almost as big as EBC in some sense because this is ABC, the Advanced Base Camp, every team built a permanent (for the season) camp site here including sleeping tents, standing cooking, dinning tents and toilet tents. IMG camp site is high up on the hill, yet you are not sure where. So it’s like keep climbing over one false summit after another, you can’t let yourself relax the moment you stepped into the general camp site. You have to keep on putting in extra effort to make another step up the hill till you really reach your own camp site. This would be the highest point I would have slept at till date. AMS symptom normally starts after you wake up from your first nap. Under the advice of our guide, I spent the afternoon sat around chatting and drinking, being passive active to avoid AMS. I’m happy that I’m mostly headache-free at 6500m. But nothing is easy here. To walk up and down the small hill between tents is already big challenge! First, it’s a “big” decision to put on the big boots and put on all layers of clothes, especially when it’s windy and cold outside; second, it takes several deep breath before you finally summon enough strength to crawl out the little hole of the tent on the creepy hill; then every step up and down the hill at 6500m is not trivial! Yet, we haven’t started the hard part of the climb yet – Lhotse face! This is not an easy mountain, and every step is an achievement itself. It’s not only just puffing puffing to fight against the thin air, it’s also fighting against your own pain, from cough, from wind, from heat, and from your own doubt. Every step is a hard physical effort, but also extremely hard mental effort! Everyone is tired to reach this point. You may not be the strongest one on the team, but that doesn’t mean you should give up. You have to keep faith to yourself all the time despite the external hardship and internal weakness. Fight against the physical weakness with your mental strength. I was hungry at dinner, but we were only allocated one small slice of SPAM per person other than some spaghetti. It’s not easy to bring up enough nutritious food at this high. Apr 25: Camp 2 Rest The first half of last night I practiced sleeping with my full suit on inside my sleeping bag since that will be how we sleep once we move up Lhotse wall. It was so uncomfortable that I could not fall asleep. But the second half of the night after I threw away the full suit was only slightly better. My cough kept interrupting my sleep; and while not coughing, the extreme dry air irritated my throat that can’t be quenched by cough drop or hot drink. I probably got no more than a couple hours’ poor sleep in the end. Apr 26: Camp 2 to EBC The second night at camp 2 was one of the longest and the most torturing nights I have had in the mountains. Despite my effort to control my cough with medicine, every few minutes, my violent cough would throw my body into air; often times I had to cough till the point near throw up to find a little relief. I don’t have any AMS headache, but each shake from cough cause a lot of pain to my head. In the short peaceful minutes between bouts of cough, the unbearable dry air irritates my throat to the level that I would rather bear the painful freezing night to get up to drink hot water. But neither hot water nor cough drop could provide even a short moment’s temporary relief. I was painfully aware of every minute passing by and never looked forward to the daylight break so much! The first time I saw the mucus came out from my cough, I was horrified. I never expected such thing to come out of a live human! It was so dense like a piece of dead meat! The greenish color make it appear to come from an alien’s body. I had no idea if this what people calls Khumbu cough? I guess the whole camp site heard my all-night cough. When we finally got up to pack up to head down the mountain. Guide Greg asked me if I was sick. I still didn’t understand the difference between cough and sick, and replied “just cough”. Everyone is coughing. Until we started walking down the hill, I realized how much I have weakened during the two days at camp 2 or by my violent cough. When trying to get up the first fixed line, I was shocked to realize that I can’t trust my hand belay without jumar anymore. I also felt loss of muscle strength in my legs too! I was feeling quite weak by the time we walked into camp 1. My body wanted to spend more time rest here, but I understand we’d better get down ice fall early in the morning, and getting lower will help my health/strength. Walking up the hill to leave camp 1 was hard. Though it’s 500m below camp 2 already, I still haven’t found much benefit of the altitude drop yet. Until further lower into the ice fall, I gained some strength back in climbing the fixed rope up and down the icebergs on hand belay. But my cough is not getting much better. I would burst into violent cough almost after gaining each little hill. I could only do short shallow frequent breaths instead of well-rhythmic deep breath or I would end up coughing and stopping to gasp for air. After spending nights at 6500m, I should have flied up hills at lower altitude. I was sad to find that was not the case for me. Lower altitude didn’t relieve my violent cough pattern. Shortly into the ice fall, I also completely lost my voice. After we finally reached EBC. I went straight to HRA. It took no guess for the doctor to tell me that it was not Khumbu cough that I’m having. Good news is that it’s not HAPE or Pneumonia neither, which I feared about. It’s that remnant cold virus I had before gained super power when high altitude weakened the immune system. He gave me some strong antibiotics and suggested that I may benefit from further lower altitude. So after discussing with IMG guides, I decided to descend to Pheriche (4200m) the next morning. Everest - Every step is hard! 04/29/2010
Apr 22: EBC – Camp 1, 6000m Today is the start of our first rotation up on Mt Everest. To climb a mountain so high as Mt Everest, we need to gradually expose our body to higher altitude instead of going up in one shot, which a normal person would sure won’t survive. To achieve that purpose, we are planning several rotations, each time sleep at higher altitude, then return to EBC to recover before going through the next rotation. A few days ago, we climbed Lobuche peak, which is as high as camp 1, so as to save us one rotation through the dangerous Khumbu ice fall. The goal of this first rotation is to adapt our body to altitude of 6500m where camp 2 is at. (Note to readers: As Sherpa guided climb, each climber is on his/her own schedule. So when a “group” goes up the mountain, it does not mean everyone on the team is going on the same schedule. Actually, only half of my team is going on this rotation on this date; other members choose to go up on a later date because of health or strength reasons. So if you are trying to follow a specific climber, please do not assume/predict his/her whereabouts based on general group progress) To avoid spending too much time during heated hours in the ice fall, we started early before 4am. A Sherpa started the Puja fire before our departure. Led by my Sherpa, we passed from the left, grabbed some rice and threw them into air three times, bow and made a pray for our safe climb, then started our walk towards the ice fall. Most of the camps along the trail are still sleeping, though from far away, can see lines of headlights in icefall already. The beginning part of the ice fall was some up and down trekking through the maze of endless rising hills of ice of various shapes. Some part is steep and is safer to grab the fixed rope just in case. Most of the time I found it ok just hand-belay myself up instead of bothering with the jumar. Soon, we hit the first ladder and then endless ladders over all sorts of monster icebergs. Daylight starts to break, and I can clearly see the crevasse below the ladders. I would say, it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s joked that if you fell through those crevasse, you get a direct flight to America. But fortunately for me, I didn’t have a problem with the exposure, so I always looked into the crevasse to be aware of my environment. It’s an impressive mass of endless icebergs and it’s more impressive that ice doctors can find a safe path through this maze! My cough just started picking up two days ago after that short exercise into ice fall and I coughed a lot last night. I must have coughed quite loud, because several team members asked me “Lei, are you sick?” when they passed me on the trail. “No, just cough. No problem.”. But my cough was getting worse, I can tell. Often times I had to stop to gasp for air after a bout of bad cough, and it’s happening more frequently, which tired me out and slowed me down more and more. Just as we finally topped out ice fall near camp 1, we suddenly heard a loud noise above us. Looking up, rain of rocks and ice/snow is flying down from the west shoulder of Everest along the big wall next to us. Luckily, it was not a huge one and it was losing strength as it came down the mountain, and there is a little bit of distance between us and the wall. We were still clipped to the rope as we just crossed one crevasse. Following my shepra, I got low to the ground and tucked head to knee. At the same time, our radio fired up with incoming inquiries from base camp and camp 1. We only got some dust from the avalanche and immediately replied safe message to the radio. Looking from far away, the camp 1 is built on a giant gentle snow slope. But look closely, it’s laced with crevasse everywhere. We kept on making big zigzags for the safe pass, which made the trip much longer than the direct distance between us the destination that appeared to be so close to our eyes. I can say I crossed my lifetime worth of crevasse today from the beginning of the ice fall to the camp 1 and I know I will cross them several more times again on this trip! After climbing up the final steep hill, I finally arrived at camp 1 around mid day, very tired needless to say. I found myself first time on this trip loosing appetite and I know it’s not good. The first day at camp 1, I think the total I eat was less than what I would eat at one meal at EBC. Everest - Recovering in Pheriche (4200m) 04/28/2010
Dear all, We just finished the rotation up to camp 2 (6500m), spent two nights there. The trip through Khumbu ice fall is safe, the acclimatization went well. Just my cough got very bad at camp 2 that kept me from sleeping in the night. We came down to EBC two days ago. Doctor made me take strong antibiotics, and I decided to descend to Pheriche (4200m) to speed up my recovery. I got here yesterday, and had a good night sleep last night. My cough already quieted down a lot. Hopefully I will fully recover in a couple days and go back to EBC in the next few days. Thank you with warm thoughts, Lei Lobuche Training Climb 04/18/2010
 Apr 14-16, 2010 Things are happening fast here. Only three days ago (Apr 14th) we left EBC after an epic stormy night (all night thunder, lightening, snow and wind; so many avalanche that morning following the wind and snow loading; woke up to 20F cold morning), now we have just climbed Lobuche, a 6000m-ish peak and are getting ready to head home (EBC). The climb schedule was definitely a fast-paced one. The first day (Apr 14th) we hiked 5 hours from EBC to arrive at basecamp (~4800m); the next day (Apr 15th) we moved to high camp (~5100m) after lunch. After an early dinner and a few hours’ rest, we got up at 3am this morning and went for the summit! Then we are back to base camp this afternoon already! Though 6000m peak is everywhere in Himalaya, this climb is still a serious climb by any standard. For the ~1000m ascent on summit day, two-thirds of the climb requires ascending on fixed rope, with half of that on rock and the top half on snow and ice. If this is in any other region, this climb itself would call a trip already. But here, this is only our first training climb and just gave us a taste of how demanding the Everest climb would be. We are heading back to EBC tomorrow to rest a few days (yah, need to recover fast!) before we get ready for more training climbs on Mt Everest itself, and each of them would involve climb through Khumbu Ice Fall. Let it cough, let it cough! I think the team is mostly clean of the cold virus by now, but almost everyone has started coughing of various severity. I’m still trying to figure out how to tell apart different kind of cough, but I guess what most people have here are the so-called Khumbu cough, which is resulted from long exposure to cold dry air at altitude. From what I overheard from guide’s radio this morning, some other teams are already requesting help on medicine (z-pak) supply! I’m sleeping with cough drop in throat as my nightly routine now.     Finally arrive at Everest Base Camp! 04/16/2010
 Apr 12, 2010 Arrive at EBC The approach to base camp is certainly longer than I was prepared for, though everything is going on just according to our plan. Almost 3 weeks after I left home in Boston, finally I’m in EBC! On one side, climber team took a more conservative pace to ensure best acclimatization; on the other side, located at 5300m (17700ft), EBC is higher than any mountains in the lower 48 states. The trek is not just a hike in your backyard! Impatient trekkers can easily run into altitude sickness problems. We already saw EBC and Khumbu Glacier two days ago from Lobuche and yesterday from GorekShep. So today, the trek is basically is a walk towards ice fall! There is only one word to describe ice fall – Wow! The closer you get, the more you “wow!” I saw similar glacier before in Alaska from high up in the air or to a less degree at end of our Denali climb when the glacier became so corrupted from heat, but this time we have to navigate such a maze of ice falls ourselves! During the day, we could hear the thunder-loud noise of avalanche here and there from time to time, and we are getting used to it fast! To be safe, our camp site is located quite far away from the ice fall. The only group further away is Russell Brice’s team. Another surprise is that there is no flat ground for base camp! The whole terrain is on a super ragged glacier moraine. It took a lot of work to pile up rocks just to build a little platform for each tent. Once step out of your tent, watch for “stairs”! The biggest challenge is to go to bathroom. Bathroom itself is actually sheltered inside a tent and is as comfortable as you can expect in a mountain. But to safeguard our water source for cooking, the bathroom is located at the far end of our camp site. It takes 5-10 minutes careful hike (consider hiking poles and crampons if there’s snow) from our tents to the bathroom! Plan your emergency well in advance and good luck not getting lost in the night! Puja We arrived at EBC shortly after 10am, and 11am is the time for Puja ceremony! The date for Puja ceremony is determined by Buddha calendar. We each brought our climbing hardware such as harness, ascenders, crampons, ice axe and etc to lay by the center podium for blessing. It was a 1.5 hour long ceremony started with prayer chanting led by Lama. Later drink (milk tea, butter beer, regular beer, soda) and various service food were distributed while the pray and chanting continued. Long strings of pray flags were unwound from the center pole and sent across the camp side by Sherpa to be attached to remote high points across the glacier moraine in all directions, decorating the whole base camp with sacred and beautiful prayer flags. People put butter power on each other face for good luck, and my Sherpe Da Tenji put another yellow string on my neck. The ceremony ended with festive line dancing and singing. Everyone is so happy and excited about the beginning of a new season! Apr 13, 2010 Busy Life Once we are at EBC, life gets busy! There’s an agenda for everyday. Yesterday, after the Puja ceremony in the morning, we spent part of the afternoon going over our gear, making sure everyone is properly rigged up for ascending, rappelling and self rescue in case of falling into crevasse. The rest of the day (the day is defined by sun rise and sun set, and portioned by three meals and other agenda) is spent organizing our own tent. While on the trek, we pack and unpack almost every day. Life is always on the move. Now finally at base camp, it took a while to reorganize our new home. It has been almost three weeks since I saw my big duffle bags! Remember how much care I took to pack each bag before the trip. Now it takes no less effort trying to dig out where I hide each little thing inside other bigger things. It is also a serious internal design work to make my tent as comfy as possible while still be able to find every little item! But just as I was barely unpacked; it’s time to pack again! We are leaving tomorrow for a training climb on Lobuche, a 6000m peak, for 4 or 5 days. Once we are back, we will get ready to tackle ice fall! Last night, we went to bed under a full sky of amazing stars. Evening was not too cold, the temperature inside my tent was about 20F. This morning, we woke up to find the whole EBC covered in fresh snow! What a beautiful day! We spent the morning practice climbing fixed rope. I have been dreaming about shower and washing clothes for several days before we arrived at EBC. But finding personal time is not easy with our busy agenda, and there is only short window warm enough for shower and washing clothes – when sun is shining on our campsite between 10am and 3pm. I finally managed to get a shower (don’t ask me if it’s comparable to the heavenly bath! But you would enjoy it if you have been wiping yourself with baby wipes for a week or more) after lunch, then the wind picked up, and I have to postpone washing clothes indefinitely. Still a few hours of day light left, time to get ready for Lobuche!     | CategoriesAll      |
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