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Namgyal in National Geographic!!!

This month, National Geographic has printed a special edition focusing on water problems seen all over the world. One of Namgyals stunning pictures taken from the summit of Mt Everest (overlooking all main glaciers in the Khumbu and beyond) has been chosen to support the text of one of their articles. The article titled ‘The Big Melt’ points at the fact glaciers in the Himalaya feed Asians greatest rivers, serving as freshwater lifelines for 2 billion of people. However, ice and snow started to decrease rapidly…

Would like to take a glance at the 3 page picture and/or read more…?

National Geographic

Special Issue: Water-Our Thirsty World

P60-63: ‘The Big Melt’

World’s highest dental clinic

In the meantime we went to the 'Highest Dental Clinic of the World', as they call it here. Every equipment is donated, from dental chairs, plastic gloves, to (almost expired) anesthetics. The charming wooden lodge-style clinic almost vanished away 2 months ago due to a huge fire at the neighbor's place, so they had to search for the still usable tools. Everything non-usable stuff in developed countries can be sent to here and you know what...? It's still really good; we are throwing too much away!
Anyway; good and bad news; Armand's problem was so severe that they actually didn't want to do more than providing antibiotics, which means that we will go up again to give it a try.

Since my teeth never give any problem (knock knock on oak wood; or do only the Dutch understand this habit ;-) ?), I didn't insure them, which means that I'm free as a bird where to do my check ups. So why not here?? For the first time in my life I heard enthusiastic Ohhhs and Ahhs, pretty nice ego lift (although it's something so uncontrollable as the hardness of your enamel :-) ) After some scratching, showing their own jaws (...) and my first polish treatment ever we went; me with a real Hollywood smile ;-)

Further spend a (Nepali) fortune on painkillers and several antibiotics to fight the viruses which happily nested in my lungs and nose and let the BC know they can expect us around May 7 or 8 again. We are pretty done with counting the raindrops here and have the feeling that the treatments have booked their first success!

So... next update from the BC!

First steps towards Everest BC

Stuck at the national airport for 30hours, we finally were able to fly to Lukla; the main start of expeditions and trekkings in the Khumbu/Everest region. Starting to feel very unlucky at that time, we now can say that we must have been very happy to actually have been able to fly, finally! All our possible flights were cancelled, some of them while boarding (how demotivating…) because of too much wind, cloudy weather, a nonfunctioning radar system and a broken antenna. Not a good thing if you ask me… ;-) !

 Anyway during a window of less wind, 4 of our team were able to jump into the plane and feel sick for the entire 30min. Gosh, what a wind indeed… Only after landing we could finally uncross our fingers; a terrifying crash of 2 years back at Lukla still fresh in our memory. While writing, I learned that it would have taken another 24h before any other flight would have reached Lukla (this time because of a strike)!

 

Two of our team are staying behind in Lukla to collect the first 1000kg of equipment and materials for the Clean up Expedition (http://extremeeverestexpedition.blogspot.com ), which will be sent somewhere these days from Kathmandu, as well as to  arrange porters or yaks for this horrible load…

Armand and I will already go further up, to get properly acclimatized before reaching the BC in 2 weeks. Not really a good predisposition to be born below sea level when you are interested in these kinds of trips ;-) , although it’s everything but a burden to have to be around here, mandatory! Besides learning to breath again, these weeks will be used to spread the word for the activities of the Climbing for Water Foundation (www.climbingforwater.org / http://climbingforwater.blogspot.com ).

Walking and talking; actually the best publicity!  

Some numbers for this Spring climbing season!

So far, 60 expeditions have applied to climb different mountains in Nepal during this Spring season and 49 of them have already been issued permits.

In total 547 persons (480 men and 67 women) have received permits to attempt 21 peaks above 5647m.

Among them:

224(!) persons will climb Mt Everest (Nepal side),

58 persons Makalu I

49 persons Lhotse

35 persons Annapurna I

23 persons Manaslu

20 persons Dhaulagiri

19 persons Ama Dablam

12 persons Nuptse

- Adopted from the Kathmandu Post, April 8th 2010

First Sherpa team summited!

The first Sherpa team summited Mount Everest yesterday, 22 May 2010. Among the summiters was Namgyal Sherpa, project leader of the clean up expedition, setting his total at 8 times.

The second Sherpa team is heading to the summit today, after which both teams will go up again to retrieve an enormous quanitity of oxygen bottles and old ropes.

More details to come soon!

Bodies & garbage below 8000m

Climbing Mount Everest is a physical and mental game. Even when you’re able to cope with the daily physical challenges of climbing at extreme altitudes, you’re still depending on uncontrollable aspects as ‘weather’. As you might know, the summit of Mount Everest lies within the infamous Jet Stream, which is a constant hurricane wind force of around 118 Miles per hour at 4 - 6 miles above the earth. When the Jet Stream is blowing on Mount Everest’s summit, a long stream of ice crystals forms the characteristic white plume from the tip of the mountain. If you really wish to stand on the summit, you have to choose your moment very carefully, until the monsoon pushes the jet stream away. Lucky for us all, the weather window has existed on Everest with great consistently for many years. The length of this opportunity can vary, though. In some cases the duration is a about 2-4 days while in others years it can last a much preferred two weeks from mid to the end of May.

Now back to the expedition!

Weather forecasts have been predicting the weather window to open, which in fact was true, although it just lasted for two days somewhere around the 10th of May. A few ‘lucky’ or very wise climbers went for the summit and actually succeeded. In the mean time the Sherpas where still preparing camps up to the south col. They also made preparations to bring down some dead bodies. Well, especially this caused some very mixed feelings within expedition outfitters and members in the base camp. As the expedition organizers repeatedly put in the media that they planned to bring down the bodies of famous climbers like Scott Fisher and Rob Hall, even without agreement of the relatives, some people got a bit frustrated and nervous. Tension in base camp! In the end, the Sherpas only made preparations to bring down the Swiss climber Gianni Goltz who died on the mountain in 2009. In the mean time, the Russion climber Serguey Duganov died May, 7 2010 at 7800m during his descent of Lhotse. Again, the Sherpas were requested to bring down this body, which they did after negotiating with the expedition outfitter and the insurance company. As you can guess, it’s a risky and costly operation, which almost made some new victims during the operation. Finally, both bodies where brought down by a team of 8 and 10 Sherpas to camp 2, from where a special Fishtail helicopter is to pickup the bodies and bring them further down. A third body that was found near base camp was identified as a missing Sherpa who died in 2009. His remains have been brought down to Gorak Shep for his delayed funeral.

Besides bringing down the bodies, the team has also decided to collect garbage below 8000m. About 600-800kg has been brought down to display in the base camp. Although this was not the goal of this expedition, it’s just incredible to see how much garbage has been left in the base camp and especially around camp 2. There’s enough garbage for cleaning expeditions for the coming 50 years!!! It’s just a big mess of old ropes, broken tents, tins, ladders, clothes, shoes, old food, wrappings, sun creams, gas cylinders, stoves, pans, human waste, etc, etc. Most of the garbage has been thrown in crevasses to get them out of sight, however, as more snow and ice is melting, the garbage simply appears again, creating a very sad sight of our expedition history.

Then what is happening right now?

Up till now, the weather has just not been good enough to climb to the summit and to bring down the garbage above 8000m. In fact there have been some fierce, short storms, destroying tents in base camp, camp 2 and camp 3, leaving some teams with even more work.

It seems that May 17 might offer a small and difficult opportunity, but it’s likely that most expeditions will wait for a longer window to open from 21th of May up to 26th of May. As a result, so many climbers at the same time may cause problems below and above the Hillary Step. Even more when old ropes have to be cut and brought down. Let’s see what happens...

The love of a (wo)man goes through…

e past 2 weeks Armand and I scheduled a ‘boot camp’; crossing fully packed 3 valleys linked by high passes. The route was beautiful and the result was there: we reached Gorakshep (the last village before Everest Base Camp, EBC) completely fit, strong and hungry (Yes! Good sign on altitude).

Therefore it was quite easy to find our camp April 25^th (at that time not more than 1 kitchen tent, toilet tent and 3 sleeping tents): we just followed our rumbling stomachs (maybe echoed by an avalanche at the background J ) towards the damps of the best dhal bhat in ‘EBC town’. Although lots of expeditions proclaim to have the best cook, I want to claim the title this year…

Our kitchen is like a restaurant, especially since we still were with the 6 of us at that time (in 5 days the team would be extended with 20 more persons; goodbye very luxury!!). There is all kinds of food and hot drinks on order, tasting like in heaven (I suppose…) and volumes that do hurt your stomach. What a transformation after a period where you had to pay Rs1750 (ca 20 euro) for a pot of black coffee! Who did say Rome is expensive?!

Just to give you an impression how our kitchen looks like (internet connections on the way are SOOOOO slow that the window has already expired before you can actually upload some text, let’s not mention pictures…);

The house-shaped tent (with cozy plastic windows) is completely stuffed with boxes of food items (750-1000kg in total), including 300kg of rice, 350L of gas/kerosene, 60kg onions, 60kg of sugar, 2 sqm of eggs and … a tower of canned beer. What?? Yes; ‘to offer to the Gods’. Right… At least they (the Gods/Goddesses) won’t have any occasion to get grumpy to us; it must going to be a jolly scene up there I suppose ;-)