Tuesday, April 17, 2018

First round up the hill begins in 2 days

We are patiently resting in Chinese Basecamp or CBC and everyone is doing quite well.  Daily hikes, gear repacking and resting fill our days.  Here are a few items that you might find interesting or useful while you follow the climb.

  1. Sleeping at 5200m appears physiologically similar to my hypoxico tent simulated altitude.  My morning spo2 remains largely unchanged from the levels I recorded from my tent at home.  Pretty cool I would say.
  2. Communication method will change above CBC.  We believe WiFi will be spotty above this camp so my next blog post will be after the first round of climbing.  When I return to CBC, I will update my blog with the goings on above CBC. The best way to follow my progress is via Twitter (@pem725).  
  3. Brendan and I are both feeling great!  The training paid off so far and we both feel confident.  It feels fantastic to be with a good friend and wonderful climbing buddy.
  4. Our itinerary is slowly taking shape.  The yaks come to CBC tonight.  They will hang around our camp until the morning when they will be packed up with 30kg each and haul out gear up to ABC.  Meanwhile, we will sleep at CBC tonight and tomorrow night before departing for interim camp or IBC.  The walk to IBC should be between 4 and 6 hours.  Once there, we rest for two days before heading up to ABC.  Basically our climb starts in 2 days.  Today, we walk over to see the highest monastery in the world - the Rongbuk Monastery.  So the climb is taking shape.  
  5. Round 1 is now scheduled.  After we rest at ABC for a few days, we will walk over to the north col face, touch it and return to ABC.  The next day, we climb to camp 1 and sleep.  The next day I believe we climb to camp 2, turn around and descend to ABC.  That completes round 1.  I will post Twitter updates along with tracks so you can follow our progress.

That's it!  It is 5am at CBC on April 18th 2018 and I am comfortably snuggled in my sleeping bag.  Outside it is about -10C but toasty warm inside my tent.  Thanks for following along.  Will try to post right before we depart for IBC in 2 days.  Until then, have a wonderful few days.

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