Alpine Ascents Cho Oyu Autumn 2006: Puja day at ABC

Puja day at ABC: Dear friends, family and loved ones,

The snow continued to fall throughout the night yet abated just in time for our Puja Ceremony. The Puja is the ritual blessing of a worthy undertaking. In our case the Sherpas, climbers and our food and equipment were prayed over and the mountain was ask that we all may return safely. Needless to say we all took it quite seriously at least until we powdered each others faces with Tsampa at the end of the formalities.

Soon after the festivities we headed up valley to test our acclimatization. Scrambling over many miles of moraine and up to 19,800 ft. was a great insight into how team members are coping with the thin air. Large towers of ice known as Ice Ships covered the glacier along side of us. Mustafa entertained us with some fantastic ballet as boulders rolled under his feet. I am please to report that everyone is moving well and enjoying the new mountain scenery.

Sweet Dreams, Vern

September 10th ABC: Greetings friends, family and loved ones,

We got to know the neighbors this morning by strolling around basecamp and socializing with all that we met. This encampment is quite international in nature. It was funny how many people our team knew. Kurt knew some of the Chinese from Antarctica. Laura ran into a friend from Aconcagua. Two Dogs Running met someone from Colorado College and Amy bumped into three Denali climbers. All told we have a couple dozen friends here. This afternoon we focused proper rigging and fix line technique. We were blessed to be able to practice in a full on blizzard, giving us life like conditions.

All of us are eating and sleeping well, which was our short term goal arriving here in ABC. We will focus on adapting to this altitude for the next few days.
And we are looking forward to our Puja ceremony tomorrow. Please join us.

Sweet dreams, Vern

Altitude pre-
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