An easy day for the climbing team at Basecamp... Those without coughs went on big hikes, those with coughs went on lesser walks. By contrast, our Sherpa team went for a much more significant and ambitious journey. Tshering, Gylgen and Kaji carried loads from ABC all the way to the South Col, establishing high camp at close to 26,000 ft. They then returned to ABC, and now, in late afternoon, along with Lam Babu and Yubaraj, they are descending to Basecamp. That is what we call a big day in the Himalaya.
Unfortunately, there is a somber feeling once again around the mountain. Another tragic fall occurred yesterday, killing a climber on the Lhotse Face. It isn't our place to divulge details and I don't wish to try to sensationalize Everest climbing by exploiting such sadness, but I'll mention the incident in order to give proper credit to those who worked hard to make a bad situation better. Lam Babu was one of those who rushed up to the scene to render aid and who helped with the difficult job of retrieving the victim's body which they then transported to ABC. Today, a helicopter pilot finished the job with another daring high altitude retrieval from 21,300 ft... making what was once phenomenal seem sadly routine, but in the process saving many climbers from the very difficult and dangerous task of carrying the victim down through the Khumbu Icefall.
Tonight, our entire team will be together and safe in Basecamp.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
We are currently sitting in Namche Bazaar high in the Khumbu sipping on milk tea at the Nirvana Home Lodge. Happy to be here after a good day of crossing high bouncing suspension bridges and climbing up the Namche hill to arrive here at 11,200 feet. Everyone in the team is doing so well and climbing strong. Halfway up our hill climb for the day, the clouds parted and we got a view of Everest way up valley. Namche was the primary trading village for hundreds of years between the salt traders of Tibet and the spice traders from India. Now Namche is still a major hub for goods and people coming and going.
Tomorrow well take a rest day with a nice morning hike to stretch the legs and the afternoon to appreciate this town. Our lodge sits high on the edge of town with the best view of all the goings on. When the clouds clear the giant peak, Thamserku, towers above everything just out our windows.
Now off to eat some momos!
RMI Guide Christina Dale
Its not just about climbing mountains. Mountain adventures, especially international adventures, provide an opportunity to experience the whole enchilada. Seeing that we are in Mexico...no pun intended. And speaking of enchiladas and Mexico...today the team spent the day enjoying the local culture of Puebla.
Everyone made the summit of Ixta yesterday. And everyone deserved a great day of rest, which mainly included enjoying the authentic cuisine of Puebla. I always said, "you've never eaten Mexican food, until you've eaten in Puebla".
For breakfast we enjoyed scrambled eggs covered in mole sauce. For lunch we devoured tacos pastor. And now, we are preparing for dinner at one of Puebla's famous restaurants, where we will sample all of the mole sauces that have made this region famous.
No, it's not all about climbing. However, tomorrow the team is looking forward to our next mountaineering objective... Pico de Orizaba.
Stay tuned...
RMI Guide JJ Justman
A hot shower... Cotton clothes... Chairs with backs... An appetite... Easy temperatures... Brain temporarily free of Icefall fixation...
Must be rest day #1. Still decompressing from the last week on high and not yet laser-focused on the coming week, which will be higher still. I am tempted to call the past week a good one, since we each came down healthy and with some clarity and confidence as to what will be next, but to be honest, it was a tough week in several ways.
While things went as planned for Sara, in that she got stronger and more acclimated with each day of the past rotation, that wasn't the case for her Dad. Bill, although strong and fit, was hitting some sort of personal limit in living at Advanced Basecamp and venturing to around 22,000 ft. Ultimately, we chose to get Sara the experience she needed on the Lhotse Face while her Dad stayed below. We knew eventually that we'd need to reformulate a plan for going ahead with the expedition.
Sara did climb well and strong with me to 23,000 ft a few days back. She didn't seem particularly fazed by the massive exposure and steep angles. She did a good job dealing with the distraction of other climbers (mostly Sherpas going fast up or fast down) needing to pass on the fixed ropes and a single set of steps chiseled in the ice. She didn't seem any more bothered than I was by the novelty of two helicopters hovering a few hundred meters away on some rumored film project. Sara kept concentrating on clipping her safety gear past anchors and on setting her crampons securely and on breathing steadily with each new step even though she knew a medical emergency had taken a man's life just the day before on these same ropes and in these same footsteps. Many of the Sherpas and guides we met and spoke with had some involvement in trying to mitigate the sad circumstances of the day before and it was impossible to be so high on the world's fourth highest mountain without dealing with some heavy and sad thoughts on mortality. This was balanced by the incredible beauty and expanding horizons we were granted as we climbed higher... Everest, our next door neighbor for now, just kept getting more magnificent... Until it developed a bad case of snowclouds, as did Lhotse. Although we were in view of the first tents of Camp 3, which would have made a fine goal for the day, it seemed best to turn and get a little experience descending the steep face with a little less snowfall and associated sluffs streaming down the face. At our highpoint, I pulled my GPS from a pocket and we established that Sara had just crushed her previous altitude record from her climb of Aconcagua several years back. We "arm rappelled" back down the face and tiptoed on crampon points to get across the steep bergschrund at it's base. Then on easy angled glacier again, we made excellent time down to where Bill and Linden had come out to meet us above ABC.
Yesterday morning we dodged a few more snow squalls and dodgy snow bridges and we even spied a spectacular avalanche off the side of Nuptse during our journey from ABC to Everest Base Camp. It all seemed eventful and a little crazy and excessive, to be honest. Lam Babu and Uberaj joined us for the walk to Base Camp and Kaji and Dawa went all the way up to ABC with heavy loads and still caught us before we exited the Khumbu Ice fall on the way down. Tcherring and Tuck were in camp to greet us with smiles and handshakes and... even better, Kumar greeted us with lunch. We were tired but quite happy to be down.
Today, we sat together and developed that new game plan for the coming weeks. Bill won't climb up with us on these next rounds... he won't go for the summit and Sara will. It isn't what we wanted going into this expedition, but it seems like the smart plan under the circumstances. Bill will write of his thoughts on the matter in coming days.
Best,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Bill, Sara and team, This is the verse that popped out at me when thinking of you and your team. Ephesians 2:10 We are his creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them. What an amazing walk you are having. What a comfort to know all was planned, and who better to walk with? Praying for you, and enjoying reading and seeing all that you are doing. Janet Kresser
Posted by: Janet Kresser on 5/5/2011 at 7:37 am
We are a class of 5th graders in Taos that have been following the blogs as part of a social studies project. This new development made a really big impact on them when it was decided that Sara would go for the summit if possible, but that Bill would not.
Here are some thoughts that the students wanted me to try to share with Sara (their new hero) and Bill, and of course, Dave. As usual, the teacher disavows any knowledge of what might come out of her students’ mouths at any given moment…
- It’s good that he’s staying down because if he got hurt it could jeopardize everyone.
- It’s pretty brave of Sara to keep going without her dad. I hope they make it!
- I think that Sara is really strong and is doing her best. She’s always smiling in her pictures!
- It’s good that he’s not going, so now Sara doesn’t have to worry about her dad getting hurt.
- It isn’t worth the risk if he isn’t feeling up to it.
- Sara needs her dad on AND off the mountain. I am glad he’s staying safe.
- Even if he doesn’t go, I’m glad Sara’s going to try.
- Sara’s the awesomest climber in the world (except for Dave Hahn and a bunch of other old(er) people)!
- I think Bill is the bravest dad I have ever heard of. First of all, he’s up on Everest, which not a lotta people do. Then, he trusts his daughter and is there supporting her even if he can’t go himself. I think that’s very brave and I hope my dad would do the same for me to help me accomplish something I wanted to do.
Bottom line: Sara, you have a pint-sized fan club here in Taos cheering for you; Bill, I think they are ready to give you a “coolest dad on the planet” medal, and Dave, all of us send love and best wishes from home.
Lam Babu and our all-star Sherpa team were walking out of Basecamp by 4 this morning, bound for Advanced Basecamp (ABC). Their plan is to use the days ahead to establish Camp III on the Lhotse Face and to begin carries to the South Col. It is a good plan and works well with the climbing team intention to head up for a last "practice" rotation on the hill, sleeping as high as Camp III.
We were going for that last difficult push starting tomorrow, but have now reconsidered. A cough has taken precedence, as coughs sometimes do in the month of May on Mount Everest. We've worked with this particular cough for weeks already and have no fondness for it. The judgement call has come down to: sleep at 24,000 ft, gaining valuable experience in a tough environment while coming down in time for a last rest before the summit bid... Or get healthy and banish the cough before trying for the top.
Get Healthy won out.
We'll stay down while the Sherpa team is up this time (they'll be back to BC in a few days). We'll put a priority on getting the climbing team strong and we'll contend with a longer-than-expected rest while carefully examining weather reports... On the lookout for a suitable "window" between the Jetstream and the Monsoon.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Dress Rehearsal Day. We were up at 4 AM, breakfasting by 4:15 and throwing on our packs about an hour later. By the time we were getting our crampons on, it was just lit enough that we no longer needed the headlights. The goal today was a "practice run" up to the midway point of the Khumbu Icefall route. We were lucky in that there was very little traffic on the route this morning. Blame that on the New Year's observances, I suppose, but it all worked well for us. We moved up through the "first ladders" area and then up the steep and airy "popcorn" section. The word last week was that the route had initially been established with only one ladder... but without a doubt we went up and over at least fifteen ladders to the halfway mark. The glacier is on the move, with the route consequently changing a little every day. We had a quick snack in the morning shadows at the "Dum" short for the "gear dump" which used to be a halfway camp and or gear staging area in the mid point of the Icefall. Then it was down... carefully, since every cramponed boot needed to be placed exactly to avoid drop offs and crevasses. We did quick arm rappels down one little ice wall after another until we were able to get down below the first ladders and out of the zone where we were endangered by ice over our heads and voids under our feet. Life got better then. We were back to Basecamp for lunch and afternoon naps.
In the afternoon, the sky clouded up and it appeared to be snowing on the upper halves of all the big peaks. At three I went to the first meeting of team leaders. It was something of a reunion since everybody there was an Everest repeat offender. We tried to hammer out a few details about radio frequencies and placements for rescue gear, among other things.
It turned into a good afternoon for hiding in tents, but that was fine. We did good outside work in the morning.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Hello there Mark Tucker here calling from the Carstensz Pyramid Expedition. Here in Ugimba spending quality time with Moni tribesmen. A Great welcome. This is where our lead local guide is from and it is pretty amazing as you can imagine. We were treated to quite a festival and a very formal traditional dance. This is the real deal, just like the pictures you would see in National Geographic. This is it, this is pure in the purest form. It has been one heck-of-a day, we are just smoked, the whole team is already bedded down and it is still pretty early.
We’ve probably got another 2 or 3 power days in the jungle where every step takes full concentration team is doing fantastic. I'm so impressed with efforts in there. They are adjusting to all of the incredibly challenging root climbs, there were a couple of small cliffs and moving the rivers having to build little bridges wading in rubber boots almost over the top, as a matter of fact, somebody may have actually had a full submersion. We are all doing pretty well, and WOW this place is amazing. It didn't really rain until about 4 o'clock, and then they turn on the spigot and it's full blast. We are happy where we are at.
I can't wait to show some pictures because this is just an incredible experience, and we hope to continue enjoying it. Big day tomorrow and we'll do our best to keep checking in. So for now it's called “Amakane” (ah-mah-kah-neh) it just keeps people smiling and it's the greatest greeting.
We will keep checking in, Amakane!
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
It's been a great day for viewing big cats in Ngorongoro Crater. This huge caldera is home to thousands of animals and usually the cats will rest in the heat of the day. But today the weather is cool enough for the cats to be mobile. We had a young male lion walk right in front of our cars as soon a we pulled into the crater this morning. We've also seen a cheetah and caught a rare sighting of a serval, a smaller, spotted cat that hunts in the grassy plains.
Tonight we are staying at the Plantation Lodge again before heading to Tarangire National Park tomorrow.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall & the Safari Crew
We did not have so far to go today, so we took it easy getting started at Karanga Camp. We got walking at 9 AM in the perfect morning weather we’ve become accustomed to. The team practiced the “rest step” and some “pressure breathing” on the gradual but steady ascent to 15,200 ft. We took two rest breaks along the way and made the move in less than three hours. Our amazing support team had camp well established at Barafu and that made it quite easy for us to just roll in and rest up. We sat down for lunch together and then lingered for a comprehensive talk about our summit bid. Things had clouded up a little, as we’ve found to be normal in midday, but less sun just made it a little easier to lounge in the tents for the afternoon. Early dinner was in order, because we’ve got big plans for the night. Just when the team thought the day was done, our fabulous chefs and waiters surprised Rob with a birthday cake (brought specially and secretly by runner from Arusha yesterday) and a round of singing and dancing. The entire team will remember Rob’s high altitude birthday for a long time. It is 7:30 PM now and all are in bed. We’ll wake at 11 PM and walk at midnight. We’ve got mountains to climb.
Woohoo!! Looking strong everyone! Can’t wait for tomorrow’s post! Good luck!
Posted by: Alisha Palmef on 8/20/2022 at 11:00 pm
Hi to John and Jeanne!
Been thinking of you two! You and the team are getting there! If I read the report right you have reached 15,200! Can’t wait to hear about this trip and see pictures! Wishing you both well!
Gav and I miss you John! The animals too! All is well though!
It has to feel amazing to FINALLY be on this trip!!! You both keep enjoying the climb!!
Greetings from Talkeetna AK!
Our team made it in last night/early this morning with all gear accounted for and we enjoyed a good night's rest in Talkeetna. This morning it was business as usual, big breakfasts at the Roadhouse, a NPS orientation and a lot of sorting gear in the K2 hangar. Now we are checking tents, stoves and group gear before a big feast tonight. With any luck we will fly out tomorrow morning.
Til then,
RMI Guide Jake Beren
Ciao Eric, Thinking of you and praying for good weather and a safe trip. We are very proud of you and all the hard work it took to get you where you are today. Can’t wait to see you to share stories. Amore from Mom and Dad
Posted by: Tom and Kathy Schafer on 6/16/2012 at 11:15 pm
Wow- thats impressive progress. Also - potluck? I thought this was supposed to be hard! You should be relaying stories of extreme hardship and grit!
You guys are awesome.
All the best.
K - Uma came back Malaysia and we had a hurricane at home…till the home was in order and to her spec. :-)
Hey Dan -
We’re following youur team’s accomplishments and thinking of you every day. All the best for great success these next few weeks.
Posted by: Bill & Suellen on 5/9/2013 at 10:46 am
Dan. Please be well and be safe. Thinking of you. Lots of Love, Lauralea
Posted by: Lauralea on 5/9/2013 at 10:29 am
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