Oxygen Vacation

Oxygen Vacation

Here on our Oxygen Vacation, in Nammche Bazaar 3,400m our appetite exploded, our coughs disappeared, cuts curried, and we are ready to head back to our mission. Beiing at a lower elevation, makes us think sharper, healthier but at the same time we are on our nerves especially when we hear other climbers summiting the mountain.

Our guides tamed us since day one not have our expectations high, and look for the end of May for a possible summit day. We spent a good few days here at Namche, first we had the chance to finally blend with the main Alpine Acsents team. As we were on different rotations, we nearly met on base camp. Such an amazing and dynamic group, I enjoyed their company at Namche. They headed off 2 days ago, and went off for their summit push the very next day. I wish them all my very best, and come back with all their fingers and toes. Summiting the mountain is not the most important thing, but to come back to our families is. They have a summit day of the 18th or 19th., I am following them closely as most of them are my friends especially the guides.

We have been spending time here in the Panorama Lodge in Namche, chilling with the team watching a lot of movies and tv series. We also found this amazing bakery owned by Sushila Sherpany who used to live in NYC. She has the most amazing freshly baked brownies, and we couldn’t stop having the cheese burgers or the starbucks coffee she serves. God I’m bona miss this in a few days.

I also met Kancha Sherpa, who is the only living Climbing Sherpa of the 1953 First Accent expedition to the top of the world. He is the cousin of Sherap Sherpa who owns the Panaroma Lodge where we are staying.

Whats next, next we fly tomorrow morning at 8am back to Everest Basecap. We will probably spend 2 days there before heading for our Summit Push. We will skip Camp 1 and head directly to Camp2. Have a rest day there, then go to Camp 3 to Camp 4 and a rest day at Camp 4 before the final push to the Summit. We are now looking at a summit day between 21-23. That is very tentative and might change anytime.

During my summit push, Adam Sobel will be updating regularly from basecamp especially on the final push. I on the other hand will do my very best to call in using the satellite phone to give a regular update.

Camp 3 to the Drawback

Our day started off with a 2:30am wakeup call by shaking our tent and the frozen ice particles falling on me. I wore my down suit for the first time, had breakfast, geared up in the freezing cold and left Camp 2. We started off with the same route to the Lhotse face that we went on our 1st rotation, however we took a right to take a different route that the lines were not all fixed. We had 2 choices, either go with the fixed line route, where there is a high risk or rock fall, and falling objects like gas tanks, water bottles which is deadly when falling from 300m. The second choice was to the right of the Lhotse face, close to the route taken in 2012 and then collides with the original route for the last few 100m where there is a risk of crevasses and icefall. Our lead guide Michael Horst decided to go with the second option. He went the day before with Kami Rita (Tapke) our Serdar, a guide from IMG, and an IMG Sherpa went on and fixed the new line most of the way. We had to rope up to walk across crevasses. Where some of the team slipped half way into them, luckily they were fine. After hours of crossing crevasses, we joined the main line to Camp 3. We went on the main line for about 2.5hrs before reaching Camp 3 or Downtown camp 3 as they call it here. By that time I was exhausted for some reason I crashed there, maybe for being at 7,000m has something to do with it. We spent some time there eating, drinking, and resting then headed back down to Camp 2. It was quick going down from the Lhotse face, an arm wrap and off we went. It was a 12hr day, at camp I was tired after such a long day, we had a snack (tuna pizza) and I drack at least a liter of juice to have some sugar in my system. We burnt more than 10,000 calories that day so we needed to have as much food as we can and also hydrate. Dinner was at 5:30pm because we had to leave for basecamp the next day. We left Camp 2 an hour late 6am instead of 5am, for some reason everyone was tired an took that extra hour, even the cook had it slow that day. I guess we all deserved that few minutes in our sleeping bags.

The way down was straightforward; we were racing down not only scared of the Kumbu icefall but for the hot showers waiting at basecamp. Home what I call it now, was great to reach home. We had a welcoming basket of delicious fruits, muffins and chocolates waiting for us. Quickly after jumping into all of them I heard my favorite 3 words “Hot Shower Ready” by one of the base camp Sherpas. Running to my tent to grab some clean clothes and taking the amazing shower.

Rest of the evening at basecamp was spent, resting after the second rotation. We had to gain some of the energy lost during the second rotation. The best way to do that is a draw back.

We decided to take a chopper to Namche where the air is so much thicker at 3,400m. So the whole team flew in 3 helicopters to Namche, where we will spend here 3 nights or so of eating, resting, and concentrating of our summit push. Here our appetite just goes BOOM!!! We are also looking at weather reports to find a good weather window for our summit.

So what’s next, now we wait, we are all well acclimatized and ready for the summit. All we are waiting for is the summit window. It will take us 6 days from basecamp to the summit. We go from Basecamp-Camp 2 skipping camp 1, take a rest a day in Camp 2. We will then head to Camp 3 for a night, before heading to Camp 4. Then take a rest day at Camp 4 this rest day is depending on weather, if the weather was bad in the forecast we will go ahead and head for the Summit that evening.

Let me know if there is something you would like to know, or show you from basecamp. I am more than happy to share part of my life here in the Himalayas.

Note: all pictures taken by Elia Saikaly

Update from Camp 2

The 2nd rotation is going well. I’m currently in Camp 2 with the rest of the team. We’re going to attempt to climb the Lhotse face to Camp 3 today, and we’ll head back to base camp tomorrow.

I’ll have a longer update for all of you when I’m back in base camp. For now, I hope you enjoy these images from the Khumbu Icefall, Camp 1, and Camp 2. More to come soon!

Mount Everest 2013

Arabs with Altitude…

Mount Everest 2013

Arabs with Altitude…

Heading to Our 2nd Rotation

The time has come for our 2nd rotation, wake up at 3:00am tomorrow morning for an early breakfast, gear up, and head up the Khumbu icefall. We leave very early in the morning when it is safest to cross the icefall. The Icefall is one of the most dangerous places on the mountain, where we cross crevasse and pass by huge dangling ice sculptures over our heads. Last rotation we made it in 9.5hrs, I hope to cross it much faster this time as we are much more acclimatized. I will spend one night at Camp1, then cross the hot and sunny Western Cwm to reach Camp2 where we will have a rest day and then head up Lhotse face up to Camp3 where we will “Chill” there for a bit, and maybe have a quick lunch before heading down to Camp 2. The next day we will head back here to Base Camp, for a well-deserved rest and lots of O2.

Here at base camp, we are having a blast watching a lot of TV series and training in the icefall. Ali (Alexandra) our Chef here at base camp is doing a really great job, she has been making us feel at home with all her amazing meals. We had a Middle Eastern lunch where she made Fatoush, Mahshi, Moulukhia, and us. Let me tell you it is not easy pulling it off at base camp, but she did.

We are set and ready to go up, I will be updating my blog via audio blog as there is no data higher up on the mountain.

Life At Base Camp

I spent the last few days, resting and acclimatizing at base camp. Went to a hike to the “dry land” off the glacier for a day and two days of training on the glacier. Polishing our techniques on glacier travel, belay, ice climbing, going down Sherpa style, etc…
Here at base camp its getting really busy, from the Japanese camp mumbling at 5am and our other neighbors blasting music thru the night making it harder for us to rest, but we manage to deal with the disturbance and try to get as must sleep as possible.

I must admit our Chef Ali (Alexandra) is doing an extraordinary job in keeping us healthy, with amazing meals thru out the day. She is very creative, and for that moment we forget we are at 5,400m stuck on a glacier. If she keeps it up there is a chance we won’t be loosing much weight on this mountain breaking all records. We are also digging in our home made sweets and snacks thanks to Suzanne Al Houby (1st Arab Woman to Summit Everest)

Today will be our last training day before we head of on our second rotation. We will be leaving base camp around 4am to camp 1 where we will spent the night. Then head off to camp2 for 3 nights where we will also go up the Lhotse face and touch camp 3 before heading back down again to base camp.

1 Rotation Down, 2 To Go

We just finished our first rotation. We spent 2 nights at camp 1 and 3 nights at camp 2. We acclimatized pretty well, especially we hiked up to the bottom of the Lotshe face.

It took us about 5hrs from camp 2 to base camp. Feels amazing to finally have a well deserved shower and lots and lots of O2.

We will relax here for a few days, regaining our power and energy before heading of to the 2nd rotation.

Mount Everest 2013

Arabs with Altitude…

Mount Everest 2013

Arabs with Altitude…