Canadian Mt. Everest 2005 Expedition Dingboche: A day to rest and recuperate.

©EverestNews.com

The top news today is that Howard and I successfully managed to get access to our email accounts! The connection was brutal but we read a few emails out to the expedition party from well wishers back home and we sent over a few photographs. Next time I complain about the connection speed back in the office, I’ll remember what it was like here and be a little more patient. We’re still working on the video connection for our Base Camp interviews.

We have been resting today in Dingboche at 4,555m and have spent the day snoozing and cleaning. It takes time for the body to recuperate from the strain of the hiking and to acclimatise to the thin air at this altitude. Lisa spent time with a local sherpa family to get to know them and to understand their living conditions – it’s a pretty barren environment. The Ryerson University research team is working well and getting some good information together.

Tonight we ate yak stew and apple pie in a tea house. It was absolutely delicious but I hope it was not one of our yaks. Tonight, climbers and hikers from different expeditions have got together to share thoughts and dreams. There are climbing parties from Kathmandu, Scotland, Austria and Australia. It’s a real melting pot of nationalities, all sharing a common desire to conquer Mount Everest. Unfortunately someone in the Kathmandu party is quite ill from altitude sickness but Dr Burgess from our group has been helping them.

The weather has been changing extremely quickly over the last few days. Overnight it was so cold that the water in our water bottles froze inside our tents. Then, as the sun came up, it got so hot that you had to start peeling layers off, before the wind picked up, the skies grew overcast and the temperature dropped again. As long as you have multiple layers, it’s manageable.

We are being treated like kings and are all very well.

More later.

Terry

Background

On March 25th 2005, a party of Canadian climbers and hikers will set off on an assault on the world's highest mountain, Mount Everest.

The expedition will be led by Dr Sean Egan, an accomplished mountaineer and professor in the School of Human Kinetics at University of Ottawa, and Peter Luk, director, School of Business Management, Ryerson University .

Accompanying the climbing expedition for three weeks is a party of hikers that includes senior IT executives from private and public Canadian organizations and leaders from the Ryerson University Business School . They will trek through Nepal to the Everest Base Camp, starting from the exotic city of Kathmandu.

The expedition is sponsored by Kanatek Technologies, an independent storage systems integrator based in Ottawa , specializing in data availability, email archiving, and back up and recovery solutions. Kanatek has a long tradition of hosting innovative events and Kanatek president, Terry Kell says, “We want to put Canadian IT solutions on top of the world. We will be using the latest in communications technology to demonstrate data recovery in a hostile environment.”

The expedition is co-sponsored by ProCurve Networking by HP, a supplier of enterprise networking solutions, and SkyWave Mobile Communications, a world leader in satellite-based asset tracking, monitoring, and control.

Expedition leader, Dr Egan, says, “Two very well-respected Canadian universities are working together on this expedition to complete some vital research. If we can get to the summit it will be an added bonus.”

University of Ottawa and Ryerson University have prepared research plans on coping with hypoxia (an absence of oxygen reaching living tissues) , the relationships between fitness and ageing, and sport tourism in the context of extreme adventure.

This is Dr Egan's third trip to the mountain, and it will be his first summit attempt. If he his successful in his bid, he will be the oldest Canadian to summit Mount Everest . In preparation for his Everest expedition, Dr Egan is currently conditioning by climbing Mount Aconcagua in Argentina (22,841 feet). Mount Everest is 29,028 feet.

It is also planned to play a game of shinny hockey around the Khumbu glacier on Mount Everest, taking the game to new heights.

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