Valerio Massimo Everest Expedition 2009

Hello to all from a very wintry EBC.

 

Well, the waiting game is on, not just for us, but for all the teams at Base Camp.  When will the weather window open up?  When should we go?  What tactics will we use?

 

Today is the 13^th May, and it has been over a week since I returned from the freezing temperatures of Camp 3, at 7,400 meters on the Lhotse Face.  Since then the weather has closed in, and Base Camp has reverted to a winter scene.

 

Arriving on the 9^th April, we enjoyed over three weeks of unbroken good weather, with some of the team wearing T-shirts and shorts at Base Camp on the warmer days.  Since we got back from Camp 3, the weather has turned cold and stormy, with three days of unbroken blizzards.  Everyone has been in full down gear and the solar panels have been put away.  There was so much snow that our tents were buried and we spent one morning digging them out with shovels.

 

This has been a funny season – perfect summit weather while we were all acclimatising, and then the window slammed shut once teams were ready to go higher, trapping everyone at Base Camp.  There has only been a single summit day this season so far – the 5^th May – and that was a team of Sherpas (including three from Himex), who summitted after fixing ropes on the summit ridge.  After the 5^th May the weather closed in.  A few climbers tried for a possible narrow weather window on the 11^th May, but in the end they were trapped at the South Col in a storm.  They later descended, shattered, and won’t be able to go up again.  That’s what can happen if you try for a narrow summit window – you can exhaust yourself and never even try for the summit itself.  Getting to the South Col at 8,000 meters is exhausting, and staying there waiting for a break in the weather even more so.  Typically you only get one shot at going that high.  I am only glad that our team did not try a few days back.

 

Instead we have been trying to rest and recuperate at Base Camp.  I was going to drop down the valley to Pangboche at 3,900 meters to gain strength from the lower altitude, but the morning Alix and I were due to leave for the 6-hour trek down, the storm closed in.  So I stayed here to ride it out, and it only cleared for more than hour again this morning.

 

Base Camp is getting restless.  After the highs of the trip up the Lhotse Face, now we are stuck waiting.  Five of the team have now left the expedition, the last this morning due to an inability to acclimatise to the higher altitudes after persevering with a last attempt to reach Camp 3.  Those that remain will make up the eventual summit teams, but for some the waiting around is proving hard, particularly for those who have not been on a 8,000 meter peak expedition before – all this forced inactivity is new to them.  Spirits are generally good, the team strong and in the main recovered from illness, and people are still getting on – which is quite an achievement given we have all been thrown together to live at very close quarters, in less than perfectly comfortable circumstances, in what is undoubtedly a high stress environment, for almost seven weeks.  There have been no arguments or politics which are common on other expeditions of this size, so we are lucky.

 

We aren’t encouraged to go on massive hikes or mini-climbs as at this late stage, it exhausts the body more than it keeps it fit, given the altitude.  Many are worried about fitness ebbing away and muscles atrophying, yet the guides are not running around exercising – they are resting too.

 

I have not suffered from most of the common complaints so far (touch wood) – no AMS, no cold, no stomach issues, no frostbite – but the one thing I am struggling with, as I did on Cho Oyu in 2004, is loss of appetite and the resultant weight loss.  When I first arrived at Base Camp I was fine, but with each trip to altitude, I returned with a slightly weaker appetite.  At altitude muscle goes first rather than fat, the body consuming it no matter how much you eat.  I feel as if I have lost too much weight, but I am lucky to have Alix here, who has reminded me that a year in the gym made me put on a lot of bulk which was there to lose.  It is a constant battle; a mental as well as physical one.  Everyone is struggling with something – you never feel 100% at this stage of an expedition.  The trick is to keep mentally strong and just accept that no one who makes it this far in an expedition like this feels anywhere near full strength – it is simply an accepted part of high altitude mountaineering – by the time you are acclimatized and waiting for the right weather, the body will have taken a beating and be feeling sub-par.  It is something many finely tuned athletes (and no I do not count myself in that category…) find very hard to deal with up here.

 

Now come the tactics.  Unlike some blogs, I am not going to talk about precise timing here.  Russell doesn’t even necessarily tell us until the last minute, for fear that our summit timing will be revealed to other teams.  Russell’s access to proprietary weather reports from his personal weather expert in Switzerland is well known, but it is not just the data but the interpretation of the data which is proprietary and which many teams want to copy.  So unless we want ten other teams on our tail, all information about summit attempts is kept highly confidential. 

 

So the camp is rife with speculation.  Will Russell send a small, strong first team up to go for an early and narrower summit window on the basis that other teams won’t be strong enough to take advantage of it?  Will we wait for a longer and more stable summit window, and until other teams have tried and failed?  Will there be two summit teams or three?  An early, narrow window could see less people, but could end up with the team needing to break trail in the over knee-deep fresh snow and face strong winds and colder temperatures.  Is it worth it to go early, and with fewer other teams?  But then again all this assumes all teams have access to the same weather reports, which they don’t.  We could find ourselves going for a narrow weather window which others see as wide, making it crowded and the conditions adverse.  All we know is that there are lots of impatient people at Base Camp now, and some are in our team.  I don’t mind waiting, but the tactics are out of my hands.  There are merits to many approaches, and if anything is decided, it hasn’t been announced yet.

 

So we wait.  We may find out more tomorrow, but even if we do, I won’t be posting it here.  Depending on the tactics decided upon, the first post which says I have left for the summit attempt may well be posted by Alix when I am already on my way.

 

Over and out from a rather restless EBC.

 

PS I have included the final beard shot before we parted ways – one heading up the mountain, one down the drain.