Mt. Everest 2010 #31 - Base Camp - and "logistics"

Gabcast! Mt. Everest 2010 #31



Namaste everybody, from Base Camp. This is the report for April 22nd.

This was another rest day for me, and I'll have a couple more rest days, and the plan is for the whole group to go up on the 25th., the morning of the 25th. Weather dependant, and depends on how everybody else is doing but that is the plan for now.

Domhnall, on the other hand, is up at Camp 1, he did a carry this morning, so he left fairly early, ended up at Camp 1, just a little bit after 10:00. And so he's up there, he brought some equipment, I think a bit of food, and two oxygen bottles. The plan for him is to go to Camp 2 tomorrow and do that load carry to Camp 2, and possibly go a little bit further. It all depends on how he is feeling, and what the weather is like. I think he is planning to be coming down on the morning of the 24th. So we'll see how things go with him. He's doing good, I just got a radio call from him, he's feeling good, no headaches, he's hydrating, and everything is going well up there.

So, I know nobody asked this question, but we are the green team on.... at Base Camp here and on the mountain. Peak Freaks has been well known for that. And so, what that means is that we don't use anything powered like a generator which makes noise pollution as well as other pollution, but the other thing is that we bring down all our solid human waste (poop) down off the mountain, so all our waste, all our garbage, everything comes down including human waste. We are all issued some biodegradable bags, and all the solid waste goes in there, and of course it goes into a ziplock bag, usually two ziplock bags. And my goal the other day, when I was coming down, was to make it down before it thawed out. So I had put it in the snow, made sure it was nice and frozen, and I achieved my goal, so that was really nice.

While we are down here at Base Camp, we have like a little tent (outhouse) and then there's a barrel underneath with some flat rocks over top. You put your feet on either side of the rocks, and only the solids go into the barrel and the liquids go outside the barrel, which is a little bit tricky with the aiming, but we're all kind of getting the hang of it. And then all that solid waste goes down the valley, and gets recycled...not recycled, it gets processed down there.

So that's some of life at Base Camp. What we do here on rest days is we get up, we eat, go back to our tents, sometimes cleanup, do a little bit of laundry, rest, and then we eat some more, do some more resting, then there's always an afternoon snack. So they usually put out some popcorn for us, and some cookies and crackers, that sort of stuff, and then we rest a little bit more, then it's suppertime, and after that it is usually cold enough that we go to bed.

Some people do watch the movies, there's some movies that are here, and then the rest of us, we kind of just go back to out tents and read and sleep. So that's kind of the gist of a rest day, and that's what I have been doing for a couple of days now, and a few more days to come, and then I will be back on the mountain.

So, everyone take care, and I'll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye.