by Fergus White
I do a quick gauge of my health compared to this stage on the Pumori trip. Back then I’d a headache that would have flattened an elephant. I remember trying to pitch my tent. I’d been dazed and nauseous, incapable of binding the poles and clips together. I’d to ask Ang Nama to help me. I’d popped into the toilet tent, was walloped by the odour, stumbled out, and threw up. The lads watching had been doubled over in laughter. I’d been a sight: holding a towel in front of my manly bits in a hopeless attempt to preserve some dignity. It had been presumed the puking was from food poisoning in Lobuche, but I suspect it was just altitude sickness. That memory bares no relationship to my current state.
I recognise some of the Sherpas from Pumori; although, their names stretch beyond my reach. They fill the air with chatter. They’ll have a chance to show off their skills over the next six weeks. We chat as I take on water.
“You can put your tent where you like,” one says. “No person here.”
I stroll around and settle on a location. Rocks to the rear and right protect it from wind. A ridge twenty metres from the front will also offer some shelter. It’s not too close to the latrines; they’re sure to have visitors at all hours of the night. A level path leads back to the mess. That’ll minimise tripping or slipping on ice after the sun sets. This will do nicely. The view down the Khumbu Valley isn’t too shabby either.
“The duffle bags are here.” A Sherpa points to a plastic covered pile.
I rummage underneath it.
“This one’s mine.” I pull it out of the heap. “And here’s the other. Great stuff, no problems with the yaks I see.”
“Two? I carry one.” He takes it out of my hand, and lugs it to my chosen site.
No sooner have I exposed the tent’s stuff-sack, than three Sherpas take it from me. It’s a Mountain Hardware Trango, standard fare up here. Their speed at this altitude amazes me.
“I’ve a ground sheet. Give me a second.” I haul it from my bag and spread it out.
I could pitch the tent myself, but I’d be messing about for twenty minutes getting everything just so. These lads have it up in five. We secure it to rocks, and it’s ready to go. I crawl inside.
It feels good to be here again, like revisiting a holiday house. This will be my residence for several weeks, best get it sorted out. I drag in stuff from the duffel bags and backpack, and set up my home from home. I shove the bits and pieces I’ll need into the little pockets along the inside of the tent: toiletries, medicine, tiny MP3 and earphones, penknife, sun block, head torch, chocolate bars for the next five days, and so on. I stick my shades and hat into the pouch on the ceiling. Underneath me, I’ve placed a dense foam mattress which one of the Sherpas carried from the storage tent. It’s comfy and will provide great insulation. Beside the mattress I position the clothes I’ll wear for the next few days. I place my large, red -20C sleeping bag on top of it. I pack everything else, such as climbing gear we won’t require till we venture above Base Camp, back into the duffel bags. I carry them over to the storage tent.
I wriggle back into the tent, lie down on the snug pad, and relax.
In dribs and drabs the rest of the team arrive. I hear Greg’s voice outside.
“Hey buddy. You got yourself set-up?” I stick my head out into the sunshine.
“Those last two hours were the toughest this week,” Greg says. “But we’re here. Well done.”
“Thanks, and yourself. We’ve a few rest days ahead, plenty of time to acclimatise and recover.”
“Great,” Greg says. “So that’s preseason over.”
“Over indeed, I didn’t expect to arrive here in such good shape,” I say. “Thanks for the help.”
“Not at all. Now get yourself ready for the season proper.”
♦ ♦ ♦
A dinner of roasted chicken legs comes and goes. I opt for seconds of the white meat. But the carbohydrate-packing rice has me beaten. Most have retired before 9pm.
I’ve been looking forward to crashing out in my tent. But after a near perfect trip up the valley, sleep now deserts me. It’s crucial to performance. It’s a vital part of the recovery and acclimatisation process, but it will not be rushed or forced. The hours pass. At least I’m not cold; the bag and sleeping mat are protecting me from the glacier underneath.
I expected a deep slumber, but by 2am it hasn’t happened. Altitude plays havoc on sleep and, ironically, just at a time when the body needs it more than ever. My heart races to get oxygen to where it’s needed. My mind plays out the coming weeks in minute detail. In the small hours of the morning, I have to recognise that the mountain is the master here.
April 9 – April 12
Settling into Base Camp
I’ve settled into camp life. The main activities are breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Outside of that, we’re free to do whatever we want.
The large mess tent sits about twenty at a squeeze. In the evenings we wear insulated pants, down jackets, and hats for dinner. We fire up a gas heater about 5pm when the temperature drops. The last person out of the tent at night, around 10pm, switches it off. Ted has a second heater in reserve. It’ll be moved in once the trekkers and Island Peak climbers have left Base Camp and there’s space.
Beside the mess stands the large kitchen tent, where the cook prepares meals and the Sherpas hang out. They also eat their dinners there rather than with us. I don’t know why this is. While we’re already crammed around our table, and I hear they favour a different diet, I think perhaps they prefer it this way. Not all of them speak English. Excitable, fast Nepalese flows from their shelter. I can’t say for certain if they appreciate our presence or view us as a necessary evil. Many of the foreigners on this glacier live to climb. They’ve honed mountain skills over decades. But plenty of us might be viewed as inept individuals, who’ve confused the value of hard-earned experience with the ease of fast-won cash. Our tourist dollars may inject life into the economy, but that doesn’t mean the locals have to like it.
A small storage tent contains equipment. A provisions tent, adjacent to the kitchen, bulges with enough food to feed forty odd people for the next seven weeks. Two buckets with taps sit outside the mess. One is always filled with drinking water. The other, with the bar of soap beside it, allows us wash our hands before eating. My rudimentary cleanse is nothing compared to Surgeon Greg’s meticulous five minute scrub. I’m surprised there’s any skin left on his hands. Having observed him, I’ve expanded my simplistic rub into something more thorough.
Three toilet tents tolerate the necessities, each of which is a metre square and two and a half metres high. Beneath each lurks a bucket. The Sherpas followed a clever stonework design to ensure reasonable ventilation, but I shudder on entering. A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. Even still, I’d swap my kingdom for a flushable loo.
Lastly, there’s the shower tent, about two metres square. A wash is best taken around noon when the weather’s warmest. To arrange one, we ask the chef in the kitchen for hot water. He fills a three gallon plastic bladder, which has a nozzle on its underside. We hang the bladder from a hook inside the shower tent, and gravity does the rest. The flow of water is feeble, but under the circumstances it’s splendid.
Our personal tents sit around these team fixtures. We have sixteen for the mountaineers, three for the guides, tents for the Sherpas, and a few temporary ones for the trekkers and Island Peak climbers. A similar scene will repeat itself for every squad stretched out for a kilometre behind us along the rock-covered glacier.
Over twenty camps are being constructed. Some two hundred and fifty climbers will call this home. All are aiming for the favourable weather window in May, when the high altitude winds abate for a few days each year. With each afternoon, more coloured tents hide grey rock. I’ve heard that Himex, one of the largest and best known commercial teams, has brought three hundred tents with them. It seems a huge number. But adding up what will be needed at Base Camp, up on the mountain, and back at their Lobuche acclimatisation sit
e, then perhaps there’s truth in the rumour.
Our own camp is still taking shape. We’re fashioning modifications and improvements in these early days. Ted and Matthew, a tall Australian who trained with Ted two years ago, have bound multiple solar panels of varying models together. I watched them channel the resulting power into car-style batteries. They spliced cables with ease and synchronised currents and amps to solve problems I never knew existed. Matthew must have been an electrician in a previous life, or perhaps electronics was part of his training in the Australian Special Forces.
Greg pitched his green tent just to the left of mine. In front sit the tents of the two Turks. To the right, Roger lives in a circular style tent with lots of space inside. That’s the model I’d go for in future. He has ample freedom to sit upright and get dressed into bulky, climbing equipment. A little further in front and to the right is where Ade, Martin and Doug sleep. They look like a mini-team with their matching orange homes in a neat row.
Sitting on a rock in the morning sun, either brushing my teeth or shaving, there’s usually another doing likewise or organising gear. Testing my harness one afternoon, Doug joined me, and we discussed various configurations that might come in useful. Being a fireman, he knows a thing or two about ropes. I explained how I’ve set up my kit for the mountain. He demonstrated some knots that’ll come in handy if my abseiling gear was to become damaged up high. I’ve studied and practiced knots over and over; although as yet, I’ve used few in a real life situation. Doug and I did as much fooling around and laughing as we did learning. Pete, a tall American, who’d been listening from his tent, came out to join us. He was impressed by what he’d heard and commented that I knew my stuff. If only he knew that most of my knot-work is limited to practicing on the leg of a table in the TV room back home. If anyone needs help to lower a TV through the Icefall later this month, I’m your man.
I’m still getting a feel for how colossal the Icefall might be. Anyone who heads for the summit from Nepal on this southern side, as we are, has to fight their way up through it and back again. There’s no skipping around it. From here it looks like a pile of popcorn. The white, irregular shaped glacier funnels upwards, with the West Shoulder to its left and flanked by Nuptse on its right. It’s hard to tell how far away the top is or how large these white lumps are. No doubt, those heading up the North Face from Tibet will confront their own set of hurdles.
View of the Icefall from Base Camp
1: Personal sleeping tents, 2: The shower tent
3: The next camp
4: The Icefall rises up 600 metres (Empire State Building is 380 metres)
5: The West Shoulder (this hides the summit of Everest)
6: Nuptse,
7: The peak of Lhotse in the distance, more than three kilometres above this point.
This morning I received an eye-opener. While we chatted outside the tents, someone spotted two Sherpas in the Icefall and pointed them out. I squinted and strained but couldn’t see them. It took over a minute, following an outstretched finger and instructions, to see the Sherpas. These guys were in the lower third of the Icefall, nowhere near the top. From here they were two black specs in a sea of white. Towering, apartment-sized blocks of ice and snow surrounded them. That put matters into perspective; this vertical glacier is enormous. Witnessing it justifies all the stories I’ve heard about it. Many have turned back in there. I can only hope my climb does not bomb out at the first hurdle after Base Camp.
The ice doctors began exploring routes through the Icefall two weeks ago. Only the most experienced Sherpas gain entry to that squad. I think there are about ten of them in their team. The Everest National Park employs them. A tiny portion of our ten thousand US dollar climbing permit each covers their wages. On this moving glacier, they’re tasked with creating a new passage through the danger and up to Camp 1 each year. As crevasses widen and ice boulders tumble down, they must then maintain and re-route the track until May 31. After that date, this southern route becomes impassable.
Last week they anchored the first of the ropes and ladders along their chosen path. On all but the flattest sections from here to the summit, a series of ropes known as the “fixed rope” will be laid along the trail. In the event of a slip, it’ll prevent a connected climber falling to their death. On April 9th the doctors declared the channel through the Icefall to Camp 1 open. They secured over thirty ladders into the glacier with metal ice-screws to make our passage safer and easier. They would have hauled those aluminium ladders up there on their backs.
We, however, cannot venture in until a traditional ceremony has taken place for our team. This ritual, known as a Puja, is scheduled for April 12th. The climbers, Sherpas, and their equipment will be blessed. The Sherpas will not budge until it has taken place. So we sit and wait until the 13th. But that’s fine, it’s all part of the acclimatisation process. Our bodies need a few days to settle into this new altitude. The only disappointment is that headaches now trouble me, particularly in the mornings.
To pass time waiting for Puja, I’ve picked up a Swedish thriller from Ted’s small library in the mess. I’ve taken to reading the book, by Stieg Larsson, late into the night by the light of a head torch in my tent. The watch thermometer beside me drops to -7C after nightfall, never higher, never lower. TC, a Canadian woman on our team who reached Camp 2 a few years back, has a thermometer attached to the outside of her tent. It falls to -15C in the small hours. The extreme glacial conditions, however, will only commence once we start the daunting climb out of Base Camp.
The trekkers departed on April 9th. It’s unlikely I’ll see any of them again. The following day, Des and the remnants of the Island Peak team exited camp to start their adventure proper. Blake could not complete the second half of the Chuckle Brothers. He had to descend to Namche Bazaar a few days ago to recover. His heart rate was still dangerously elevated. Whereas his climb is over, it’s now very much back on for our guide Hugo. He ascended the remainder of the valley and is back to form. He has pitched his tent close by, between Roger and Pete.
View down the Valley from Base Camp
These tents are pitched on the moraine covered glacier, just in front of my tent.
1: Roger’s tent 2: Hugo’s tent 3: Pete’s tent
4: Martin’s tent 5: Ade’s tent 6: Doug’s tent
7: Another camp, 8: Nuptse
♦ ♦ ♦
This morning we had Puja. It lasted an hour and a half. A Buddhist monk led chanting and burned fragrant twigs. He’d also performed the rite at Pumori Base Camp. He had looked like one of the oldest people in the world back then. He’s not any younger now. This is no place for old men. I was told this’ll be his last year presiding at the ritual. I was upset to watch the fall he took this morning, but thankfully he wasn’t injured.
His chants requested good fortune from the gods and apologised for what we’re about to inflict upon nature. All things being equal, I’m certain the mountain will be the clear winner. Long after we’re dead and buried, it will still be here. The Sherpas rubbed white flour on our faces in the hope we’d live long enough to be wise men with silver beards. If magic hair tonic is available, then I’d rather someone rub black flour on my receding top. Upon its conclusion, the Sherpas broke out in spontaneous song.
This afternoon we exercised with ropes and harnesses for a couple of hours within the confines of Base Camp. Ted set up several metres of line and we simulated steep terrain ascents and descents.
Basic Rope Practice in Base Camp
The mountain is now open. Tomorrow we’ll don crampons and walk to the edge of the Icefall. We’ll practice more rope work and climbing techniques but this time on snow and ice. The danger nears.
April 13
Beyond Base Camp
Late morning we push out of Base Camp into the lower reaches of the Icefall. Today is only practice; we’ll blow away the cobwebs and tune our equipment. It’s the first time this year I’ve donned my double layered mountaineering boots.
“OK, put your crampons on here,” Ted says. “That’s the end of the rocks.”
“Did you ever think you’d see the day?” Greg drops his crampons onto the snow.
“There was a lot that could have prevented it.” I drop down on one knee.
I clip the crampons onto my boots and then pull the straps tight. They’ll give me a firm grip on snow and ice. With four sharp inch long spikes on the heel, eight on the sole, and two jutting out the front, I could in theory climb up a frozen waterfall. Safe I might be, but with just over a kilogram on each of my feet, I’m far from mobile. I’d forgotten just how cumbersome the boots and crampons are.
We walk out onto the set of a science fiction film. Ridge after ridge of ice rises up five to fifteen metres. I look behind me after five minutes and cannot remember how to get out. I’m not sure how these shapes formed. The glacier pushes down the valley about a metre a day. Millions of tons of ice above us press into this flat section. I presume these creases are forced upwards with the pressure. In a month’s time, these folds will have travelled thirty metres further from the mountain. For now they’re close to Nuptse and hopefully out of the track of avalanches. Our group thrusts in deeper.
The Team Pushes beyond Base Camp into the Icefall
There are several of these ridges just after Base Camp.
“What’s this rubbish?” Doug points at something in the snow. “Is it metal?”
“That’s the remains of a helicopter,” Ted says. “There’ve been several crashes over the years.”
Helicopters strain at altitude. But whatever about flying in thin air, landing and taking off risks disaster every time. Base Camp is close to the upper limit for a chopper to touch ground. The manoeuvre requires a highly skilled pilot. We’ve heard that a new generation of choppers have been seen in the region and that in an emergency they could land at Camp 2. I’m not sure how often, if ever, this has been performed.