Everest 2006: British West Ridge Expedition: More news from the Everest teams.

Jude Humphries

More news from the Everest teams. The Junior left the UK on Saturday and have just sent their first blog. Please see below for an update.

London Heathrow 1/04/06

The Airport was incredibly busy on Saturday evening. It was the start of the Easter school break and everyone was off on holiday. Whilst they were all chasing the sun, we were all off to the chilly Himalayas to climb Island Peak.

Everyone was really excited and full of energy. Graham Carter, our leader, seemed amazingly calm in the chaos that surrounded him; making sure everyone had checked in and we had our tickets. There were only a couple of moments when things did not go completely to plan, like the Qatar airways desk not being open to issue our tickets and the late arrival of one member due to the traffic. Nice try! However, we got through to passport control in plenty of time to grab some food and a bit of last minute shopping.

The general air of excitement was added to by the film crew who’ll be travelling with us every step of the way.  For just two cameramen, they sure had a lot of equipment with them. We had been strictly told not to go over our baggage allowance of 30kgs, but I have a feeling the film crew were well over this! We’ll let them off though as they’re going to make us famous!

Most of us have never travelled as far as Kathmandu. In fact, one member of our team had never flown on a commercial flight before, having only ever been in a Hercules. He was actually more concerned with exchanging his money and going through passort control.

We were all a little apprehensive about the mysteries that awaited us at the other end of the flight. A different culture would be our first really big challenge. None of us have ever really experienced this before. It’s all very exciting. We have two days in Kathmandu to explore before setting off on another flight to Lukla where we will begin the trek to Island Peak on Tuesday.

Now everybody has been on an eight-hour flight. I am sure this will be easier. Although we have been told it’s a much much smaller plane and so maybe be a bit bumpier and not so comfortable

There was a lot of hanging around at Heathrow airport getting bags weighed in and issuing tickets etc so we distracted ourselves from the flight ahead by listening to each other’s iPods. There’s some pretty lame tunes coming out to Nepal with us but whatever keeps you going up the mountain I suppose!

We are now in Kathmandu and are really excited about the next few weeks in Nepal. We’ve only seen it from the bus from the airport so far but can’t wait to go exploring.

Everest 2006: The British Army West Ridge Expedition Dispatches

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