Tag Archives: Everest Base Camp

Let the games begin….and learn those lessons well.

Posted on by
Reply

I’m very happy to say that my blog is getting lots of new traffic recently, so thank you to you, whoever you are, for reading it. The course that I did in Arolla was great in so many ways, but one of them was that I got time to collect all of my thoughts, collate my pictures, and pull everything together before I got back. It helped massively that I took my iPad with me to put it all down on – I have had my iPad for about a year, and most of the times sits there as a big underused toy. It does however come into its own at certain things and that was certainly one of them.

So now having been back for two weeks I am in training, and serious about it too, for Island Peak. Whenever I go away, I always try if I can (though never consciously, as it were) to learn something, even if it is just a little thing, hopefully about me. On this trip I learned at least three things, which in no particular order of importance are as follows:

1. Listen to what people who know more than you tell you. Sounds bleedin’ obvious, doesn’t it? Well it should be, but I don’t always listen you see. Take as a case in point my camera. I own a very good Panasonic TZ7 digital camera. 12 megapixels, 15 x zoom, idiotproof, takes great pictures. I bought it just last year for Kilimanjaro and it continues to serve me well. I wanted better though. With Everest Base Camp and Island Peak looming, I thought ‘What if I had one of those fancy DSLR cameras – that’ll get the money shot, won’t it?’. So I researched until I was blue in the face.

Cut a long story short, I spent a month buying up every photography magazine youm have ever heard of, and some that most people haven’t. Joined a few photography forums too, asked around, that sort of thing. Went into Jessops about 18 times. In fact I went into three different branches of Jessops about 18 times each. Decided that the thing for me was a Canon 550D. Looks great, big long lens on it, takes great pictures apparently and that sort of thing. I bought it and took it back after two days. Why? Well a.) it was huge, like massive, and wouldn’t have even fitted in my suitcase let alone a rucksack, and b.) after I took a bunch of pictures with it, I compared them side by side with ones I took from my Panny point and shoot, and I couldn’t tell the difference.

So that should have been that, shouldn’t it? Well for most people it would have been, but I don’t apparently listen, even to myself. I therefore asked a few more questions on various forums, and the advice from everyone, bar none, having told them what I wanted, and was expecting, was to “keep your Panasonic”, and “don’t bother with cameras with manual adjustments, especially when you don’t know anything about them”. Perfect advice. So here is my new camera:

The Sony NEX-5 - great camera....

At the ‘bargain’ price of £600, I decided that I had to have this. It is the smallest camera with interchangeable lenses, has a DSLR type sensor, and well, takes photographs and video. Excellent! Trouble is, when you are a.) hanging off a mountain, and b.) trying to minimise weight, you don’t need a camera with interchangeable lenses, and you certainly don’t need one that weighs about 4lbs and which takes up half your rucksack. What is even more galling, is that having got it back from Switzerland, whilst the pictures it takes are fine, and the ‘panorama’ mode is all well and lovely, I honestly wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between it and any other camera. I don’t after all even print photographs – I just download them and they sit there on my laptop like everyone else does. The ultimate telling factor was that I took more pictures with my iPhone than I did with the Sony – it was just too cumbersome to get out of the rucksack, especially when you are dealing with ice-axes, ropes and the like.

So when I go to Everest Base Camp, I will take my trusty point and shoot, and happily pull it out whenever the mood takes me, and just enjoy the pictures afterwards. Lesson learned for sure. Anyone want to buy a camera?

To be continued……

Island Peak

Posted on by
Reply

So having decided to climb Island Peak (or Imja Tse, to give it it’s correct name), I thought I’d put some information up here for those who (like me as of a month back) haven’t heard of it before.

The mountain of Island Peak is 6,189m (or 20,305 feet) high. It is officially a spur, or ridge extension coming off part of Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain on earth (the other three being Everest, K2 and Kangchenjunga). It was apparently named in 1951 as it appears to look like an island in a sea of ice when viewed from Dingboche, a popular trekking stop en route to Everest Base Camp. It was first climbed by a British team as a preparation for the first successful Everest trip that same year. One Tenzing Norgay was part of the team, apparently.

Imja Tse......

It is classified as a PD+ climb. PD stands for Peu Difficile in Alpine terminology, and a list of Alpine and other terms are included in the link below:

http://www.mountaindays.net/articles/item/snow_ice_alpine_grades_explained/

There are apparently two ways to the top. There is a base camp at about 5,100m from where you can make a summit attempt, or a high camp at 5,600m, leading to a shorter summit day. As far as I understand it , where you start from depends upon the conditions at the time and also the group doing it (i.e the climbing sherpas will assess snow conditions etc. and the liklihood of the group being able to sleep at the higher altitude). When I did Kilimanjaro the highest we slept was at about 4,800m, which was a struggle, and so this will in either case be a step up for me. We will stay in tents whilst there. All being well we will be reasonably acclimatised as we will get there after having been to Kala Patthar (5,545m) at Everest a few days before.

After base camp there is a climb and a scramble to get onto the glacier, after which it is a crampon and ice-axe approach. The final 250m or so is on fixed ropes, involving jumars and harnesses. A climbing sherpa will fix the lines for us, and the slope is at about 55 degrees on ice. The final ridge up to the summit looks terrifying to me, I cannot describe it in any other way.

Here is a picture that someone took on the summit:

I so want to be stood where they are....

From the top, as long as the weather doesn’t hamper the view, there will be views of Makalu, Lhotse, Kangchenjunga (three of the five highest mountains on the planet). Everest itself will be hidden behind Lhotse, which at 8,500m or so, will still tower some 2.5km above us, even at the height we are at. Staggering!

The descent is an abseil down from the summit ridge over the headwall, and back over the glacier. Apparently there are potentially crevasses which may need the use of ladders to get over.

From there the trek back goes back over what is apparently a really fantastic ridge to a place called Phunki Tenga, and then eventually back to Namche Bazaar and the airport at Lukla. That will be day 20 of the trek, so there is a huge amount to get done in that time, including Everest Base Camp on the way.

If I told you here and now that I was excited about this, then it would be the biggest understatement that I may have ever made. I actually never thought after Kilimanjaro that I could ever rekindle the feelings that I had then. Little did I know that I would be doing this so soon afterwards, or that it would be as much of a thrill as it is to be heading out to the Himalayas.

So that’s Island Peak then. It is beyond my ability level, and will be way beyond my comfort zone when I am there, no matter what I do between here and then. I want to push myself though, as hard as I can, and this will not, I already know (or should I say I hope!), be my last trip to the Himalayas……….

Bring it on – I am already counting down the days.

I’ve only gone and booked it!

Posted on by
Reply

This is an extremely quick update, as well, I’m at work, and supposed to be doing other things. Except I’m not. I have just BOOKED IT!!

On the 19th October 2011, I shall be flying via Delhi to Kathmandu, and then on to Lukla for the start of the trip proper. Some time around the 31st October I will be at Everest Base Camp (I can’t believe I am actually writing this, I really can’t), and then around the 4th November I will (I pray!) be at 6,189m, or 20,300 feet on Island Peak. The trip is 22 days altogether.

I have so much to do, so much training to do, so many things to buy, so much blogging to do 😀

For now I will savour the moment (and get back to work, if I can concentrate at all, which is unlikely), of this:

Everest, here I come!!!

Decisions decisions……

Posted on by
Reply

It would appear that one of the things about Everest Base Camp (let’s call it, as most people seem to do, ‘EBC’ for short) that frustrates you from the very off, is just how to do it in the first place. There just appear to be some pretty large and complicated decisions to take. The two biggest issues, for me at any rate, are the time it takes, and then what to do alongside it, if anything. Let me explain further.

As regards time, a trip to most mountains, even Kilimanjaro, isn’t going to devour 90% or so of your annual holiday allowance. Everest on the other hand does – the shortest trip I can find anywhere at all takes 18 days, and so there is three weeks holiday gone right there. Some trips are longer. Kilimanjaro, even allowing for travelling each way to Africa, is just a 10 day jaunt. You could do say Mont Blanc in four. You could even do probably three or four of the other Seven Summits in no more than 10 days, and that includes summitting. With EBC you don’t even do that – you just trek a long way to a pretty desolate rocky campsite (OK, so just not any desolate rocky campsite :)), and with no view of Everest even from there. I think that is why it is to some people a little frustrating. More of the time factor later however.

Now as regards the “how” – take also two of my friends for example, one of whom has been there, and the other one who wants to go. The one who has been (whom I shan’t name) is delighted by the whole experience etc etc, but really wished he’d gone to Annapurna, for better trekking and better views. The other, whom I shall call Paul (which is his name after all :)), wants to go to EBC, but would find the thought of not being able to climb it (i.e. Everest itself) very frustrating indeed, and I empathise with that totally. That is, after all, what mountains are there for. He’d also like to see Annapurna (and who doesn’t!), and would prefer to combine the two. Trouble is that would take even more time (they are not exactly next door to each other even if they are both in Nepal), and so for me that means it is Everest and Everest only…..

Which brings me on to the second problem therefore, i.e, what to do ‘with’ it, by which I mean ‘alongside’. I feel like I have to be able to climb something (using the word ‘climb’ in it’s loosest sense of course given my abilities, or lack of them). And so when I looked at the various trekking companies who do Everest (and there are bunches of them), there are a few ‘add-ons’ that you can do. I therefore got to looking at two in particular, one being Island Peak, and the other Mera Peak. Island Peak, which sort of sounds to me a bit innocuous, turns out to be a bit (and that may be the understatement of all time) scary. See for example the video below which I found on Youtube. Look in particular at the section from about 2:40 – 3:40, and these people are lucky in that it appears to be a calm and clear day – imagine if the wind was blowing, and bear in mind also that this is at about 21,000 feet:

Now Mera Peak, which I have only heard of because there is a Berghaus jacket named after it :), is apparently the highest trekking peak in the Himalayas. It is, at 6,450m or so, higher than Island Peak (6,189m), but less of a technical climb to get there. Here is someone’s Youtube video from the summit – you still need crampons and ice-axes and the like, but no technical climbing as such. You also get to see 5 of the world’s 6 (or is it 7) highest mountains (Everest, Makalu, Lohtse, Cho Oyo, and Kangchenchunga) from the top. That has to be outrageously exciting:

So anyway, I could do Mera Peak probably, even though it is around 1,500 feet higher than Kilimanjaro. Island Peak, although a little lower, is a different ballgame for me. You need fixed line experience, and jumars, and ascenders, and cow’s tails, whatever they are. I haven’t got the skills it seems, and that means that they are probably going to make it impossible for me, unless…………….more in a later post on that one, I’m not being beaten yet!

And of course to do one of these two little sidebar jaunts adds another four days on to your trip. So instead of 18 days, it becomes 22 or 23 days. Does any of this put me off? Not on your Nelly!!

I have the bit between my teeth, I am the dog with the bone. I will do this. It has become bigger than even Kilimanjaro, and is not yet off the ground. I need to get it there, and will be concentrating all my efforts on it for the foreseeable future. It absolutely consumes me at that the moment, and that is a wonderful thing. I have so much that I need to learn, and I even bought another seven (yes really) books on Everest and trekking in Nepal off Amazon yesterday. Oh and yes a shiny new camera too 😀

More of these deliberations very soon, including an interim climbing (yes really) trip in the offing to Switzerland. I must be mad…….