Mt. Everest 2005: Czech Expedition to attempt the Hornbein Couloir: Updates

Like many expeditions they are using a Regional BGAN to send updates with a laptop

Update: Tuesday 04.19: We start the day with our ritual. Breakfast, a bit of hygiene (hands, teeth, face) and we make the plan for our next couple of days. After coming to agreement (voting over breakfast), we are changing time to Nepalese time, since the Chinese is stupidly going against what appears to be natural. When sun shines on the base camp, Chinese time is 10 am. That is why we get up at 8 am based on Nepalese time and not at 10am based on Chinese time. Based on the Chinese time, one has the feeling of that the day is short and we have slept to long and there is not enough time left in the day. Kasang is back from the Chinese BC, who left a day ago to buy the items somebody stole from us in the yellow bag. In the afternoon we build and check the elevation tents, prepare the ropes and gas burners. After dinner we check our email, and from web sites contributed to Everest we get Everest weather info. The weather is not really favorable and the high humidity points to snow fall. We are watching on our computer our first DVD movie American classic "Easy Rider". Film is great, but the night is very cold. In the end nobody stays in our "cinema" and even though it is in the middle of the movie, we are running for our down sleeping bags.

Wednesday 04.20: We get up a bit after 8 am. Our breakfast is ready for 8:30. After breakfast we pack our bags and leave for the mountain face. Everybody goes, just Pepino stays, he is still fighting a cold. Everybody is carrying their personal gear( boots, crampons, ice-axe, helmet...). Unfortunately the weather forecast was right and it begins to snow. The route is leading over stony rubble, and we mark the way with stones and colored flags. After 3 hours of walking we get to the ridge of the ChangCe Mountain, where we build camp - 2 tents. We will call this camp BBC (since the real BC is called ABC). We connect on the radio with Pepino and we are surprised that our patient is actually ? hour behind us with 2 porters and load of ropes and tents. Pepino used the opportunity that 2 Tibetans arrived to the camp and offered themselves as porters, so he loaded them with anything he could. We were happy to see that our gear is moving from ABC toward the mountain face. We placed the gear in the tents and returned. Of course it was snowing and it was pretty slippery. We are back in BC around 6 pm and we are tired. Kumar is great - he already has a super dinner for us. We are not in the mood for any socializing, it is really cold, so we go to our sleeping bags.

Thursday 04.21: Today is leisure day; even breakfast has no time frame. After breakfast everyone is washing and doing their laundry. We prepare the gear and food for the elevation camps. Kumar made a very strong Tibetan soup. In the afternoon we continue packing, but it starts to snow again, so we all go to the common tent. We go over the next days plans...And then it is time for more food. We have a super pasta for dinner - a Nepalese specialty. It looks like donuts with sweet sauce. It's real delicious. We play chess in the evening and even play the Czech card game "marias" Tomorrow, we get back to work.

Dispatches

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