Mt. Everest 2010 #23 - Global Warming

Gabcast! Mt. Everest 2010 #23



Namaste everybody from Everest Base camp. This is the report for April 15th.

Today was a rest day here, so that was kind of nice and relaxing change, especially after such a big day yesterday.

We had some pretty famous people here. In base camp, we have David Breashears, which most of you probably know he is quite a famous climber and also a cinematographer. So he's here and he put on a photo exhibit of the vanishing glaciers of the greater Himalayas.

What he has done is he showed some pictures that were taken, some almost a hundred years ago, of the glaciers and the mountains, and then taken pictures just a couple of years ago in 2008, and compared them. And he's noticed that the glaciers have decreased by ... descended by over 350 feet for some of them. So, the glaciers are vanishing which means that ... the glaciers actually provide a lot of the water for most of Asia. So, as they are receding, there is going to be less and less of them and that is going to be quite an impact for Asia. So, quite an interesting photo exhibit. And the other great part is that I got to meet him, and have coffee with him a couple of days ago, which was really nice.

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He was telling stories about doing some first ascents in the rockies and in the bugaboos, so that was great. And the other thing was, that today at the exhibit, a lot of famous mountaineers were there. So, people like David Hahn who has summited ten...eleven times now and is going for number 12 this year, a lot of other famous mountaineers. It was nice being in the same room with them, just hearing them chat with each other.

So, today was a really good day. It looks like there is some weather coming in, and it might mean quite a bit of snow for the next couple of days. Tomorrow, the plan is to go to Kala Pattar and allow the rest of the team to acclimatize. Since the team only made it about half way up the icefall yesterday, about two or three hundred meters, and that was the plan for them, and most of them reached that goal, so that was really good.

I've already acclimatized to over 6000 meters, so we'll see how I feel tomorrow, and what I feel like doing, and what Domhnall feels like doing. There's a possibility that we might go to a different place, that's a little bit higher, and do something a little bit different.

So, stay tuned for that tomorrow, we'll see how the weather is, and how we're all feeling.

Thanks to everyone who is listening, and following along, and I will talk to you tomorrow. Bye.