Mt. Everest 2005: Alpine Ascents Everest 2005 settling into our wonderful home here at 17,600 feet

Update: Everest Base Camp
    
Well, we are all settling into our wonderful home here at 17,600 feet (5,364 meters). As Jose Luis mentioned yesterday, with Vernon’s recovery from back spasms and arrival here yesterday, we are a complete team again. Ellie had stayed down in Pheriche a few extra days with Danielle until she was healthy enough to make base camp 2 days ago. The usual Asian stomach upsets and cold viruses have been making their rounds here as well. On any expedition of this scope and duration, often health problems plague all early on. Yours truly as well, as I too have been flat on my back for three days with lower back muscle spasms. I’m happy to report that everyone is now on the mend or doing well, even my back.

All are also now acclimatizing well. We have had several team meetings and discussions about how important it is to lay a proper acclimatization foundation now that we can build on as the expedition progresses. It is always with some amusements as well as sadness that we watch some expeditions rush up the mountain lacking this foundation, usually only to get in trouble or loose several members to altitude sickness. One group arrived in Base Camp only to head up on their first trip up the icefall the next day. In my experience, it is better to spend a few days in further acclimatization, training, and getting over the inevitable health problems before facing the great challenge of the Khumbu Icefall.

On the training front, all has been going well also. For the previous two days and for several more, we are training and polishing all the skills we will need when we leave base camp and move up for the first time. These include horizontal ladder crossings, cramponing, ice climbing, fixed rope ascender and safety clip techniques, rappelling, and crevasse rescue. All these skills are crucial to safety and the ability to advance with this challenge in front of us. I am constantly amazed that so many climbers come here physically prepared, but always seem to skip this technical training phase. It doesn’t matter how many times these skills have been used, after a few weeks or months not climbing, things get rusty, and rusty skills have a habit of failing when a stressful situation develops, as it always will sooner or later on a long expedition. This is of course why police agencies, fire departments, professional sports teams, and of course the military spend so much time training. If a stressful situation happens, you often need to react immediately and correctly to be safe, and this happens only through rigorous training.

More on some of our neighbors in this fascinating community we call Base Camp later.

Willi Prittie

Dispatches

Vern Tejas, Willi Prittie, Dave Morton, Jose Luis Peralvo, and Lakpa Rita Sherpa will lead the Alpine Ascent team on Everest this Spring. They will attempt the standard South East ridge route.

GUIDE STAFF (BIOS)
Lakpa Rita Sherpa Senior Guide & Sirdar	Vern Tejas Senior Guide	Willi Prittie Senior Guide
Dave Morton Senior Guide	Jose Luis Peralvo Senior Guide	Ellie Henke Base Camp Manager
CLIMBERS
Nigel Clark	Esther Colwill	Ron Farb
Kevin Grant	Cathy Groninger	Kent Groninger
Mostafa Mahmoud	Jeanne Stawiecki	Dianette Strange-Wells
Tony Van Marken	David Liano	Danielle Fisher

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