Mount Everest

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…

Mount Everest 2013

Arabs with Altitude…

Mount Everest 2013

Arabs with Altitude…

Chilling at Base Camp

We have spent a few days at base camp now. Mostly training, reviewing mountaineering techniques, and staying healthy. We went up 1/3 of the Khumbu today for training and acclimatization and will head for our 1st rotation tomorrow. Most probably our rotation will be 2 nights at camp 1 and 2 nights at camp 2 and touch the bottom of the Lhotse face.

Puja & Resting

We did our Puja ceremony yesterday, it’s a ceremony the Sherpas do before hitting the ice fall, they will not otherwise.

Base camp is pretty much home now, we are settled in. Getting healthy, and should start our training in the next few days.

Phereche to Base Camp

After our second rest day at base camp we were all strong and headed to Leboche. The trek was steady for the first bit and then a huge incline to the memorial of the people who died while attempting Everest.

This time was different than 4 years ago, I felt different like those people were here to climb the same mountain, they all had plans, families, and things to go back to, unfortunately they didn’t. We could help it but be emotional there.

We spent the night at Leboche, nearly 5,000m good thing we all felt well to head to base camp today. We all made it, strong and healthy this will be our home for the next month or so. Sadly we had to say goodbye to 3 of our friends Ali, Ziad, and Nazim. They saw us off at base camp and headed back down, we will truly miss them.

For now it’s time to rest and organize our gear