BC waiting

The waiting game begins.

Plans - not everyone is waiting

I just had lunch over at Russell Brice's camp, meeting friends. What a huge and comfortable setup, mostly necessary with several film groups there who are not all exactly climbers. Russell is down valley having a picnic but looking around other camps, most are empty - and some like Seven Summit Club left BC today, obviously heading up for a summit attempt.

What are our plans? These will not be written on the internet or even discussed in detail with the sherpas at the moment. However we are likely to be a BC for a while.

We have had a sound acclimatization plan from when we arrived in Lhasa, with a reasonably fast ascent to North Col over the weeks, and three nights sleeping there at 7000m. In general the first night is not always comfortable, if you are lucky the other nights are (our record was mixed). We all climbed above North Col on the second day there, everyone feeling good. Our performance was very good, with everyone moving well and really quite fast.

A number of other teams try to sleep higher, but unless this is only at 7500m, rather than 7800m, I feel (from experience) there could be more harm than good involved. Sleeping very high is very hard on your lungs, and is physically taxing, taking some real recovery. Even the sherpas prefer not to sleep that high, just carry loads from ABC or from North Col to 8300m and return back to ABC (or North Col) sleep.

So we are acclimatized and will wait at BC (5150m) where you can recover reasonably well, but don't lose too much weight and even more importantly don't lose condition. Essentially we are waiting on our sherpas to carry the last load of oxygen to 8300m which takes good weather, hoping that other teams will summit soon and be out of our way, and are constantly assessing our weather forecasts to see how everything will work out.

DCXP

Duncan's expedition team are coming down from North Col and will be at BC tomorrow, probably anyway. I am looking forward to catching up with Duncan and discussing plans.

11 May - today

Hazy cloud is sweeping across Everest, with the summit sometimes visible, sometimes blurry but always ugly. Down valley is grey-black, and has snowed; only BC is sunny, although the tent squeaks and shudders in the wind. The wind isn't as strong (yet) as in years past, but it is almost a constant. There is more and more new snow on Everest, it looks more wintry than when we arrived.

I (Jamie) have lots of emails to catch up on, and spend a fair amount of time at the computer. everyone else has at least a few hours walking during the day, with some relaxing (meaning a siesta!) and reading and chatting. We don't have a big screen TV or DVDs, and I don't think anyone particularly wants them either.

Thanks to everyone who sent text messages to our sat phone over the last week, Clive, Jules, Miri, Mark, Anna and more; Jayne is probably the most prolific.

10 May pictures

Below is the garbage being collected and before the five supervisors and two workers jokes begin, it is worth pointing out the waste is being collected every few days, a great system. IN years past it was allowed to build up because the Sherpas didn't want anything burned until after the expedition. Now it is disposed of along with other village waste an hours drive below.

BC waiting

Plans - not everyone is waiting

DCXP

11 May - today

10 May pictures

Marlon and Shehan - home run