“The People With the Boat, They Coming With the Fish”. Tonight Ben, Bertrand, Allan and I were treated to some fine French Cuisine at Denis’ camp. It was wonderful. Our camp has the finest Nepali food in town,...
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“The train is coming tomorrow…”. The weather reports we are getting are dismal. The thing is, you can’t just keep waiting and waiting for good weather. It’s time to put up or shut up. Tomorrow, Ben...
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It’s All About Communication. I don’t know when the team is going to be able to resume the climb again, or even if their gear has been blown off the mountain. This storm is still raging and it feels like...
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Everest Is Boring. It turns out that Everest can be as much about sitting around on your duff as it is about climbing. Why are we here, again? You mean we didn’t come up here to sit around drinking tea and surf the...
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This Is The Turning Point. It’s become obvious that Everest is trying to separate the wheat from the chaff up here. The wind is non-stop and it’s starting to affect more than our morale. Not long ago, Lhawang spoke...
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Mountain Man. Wow is it windy these days. We’re experiencing some of the worst weather events in recent memory up here! It wouldn’t be so bad if you could just be outside a little bit. I don’t think anyone...
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My Meat Foot. Ok, Ok, Ok, so maybe I shouldn’t have gone all the way to ABC at 21,000 feet. The funny thing is that the altitude wasn’t a problem. Only in the morning. I’d wake up and would have my vision be...
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Give It a Rest. Even here at ABC, I still can’t believe I’m here at Everest! This is one of the problems with being a photographer: sometimes you need to put the camera down and experience things for real. It’s...
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A Personal Altitude Record. I awoke on this first morning at Everest’s North Side ABC with the most beautiful sight. No, it wasn’t the world’s highest peak, but the intricate lace of frost that had formed on...
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Seeing Spots. I might not be a mountaineer, but it’s time for me to climb Everest. Well, up to ABC anyway. The altitude up high is making my vision and balance a little funny. We left BC a couple of days ago and headed up...
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Do You Want Fries With That? A few days ago the final 4 members of our Everest expedition arrived at BC. Two Frenchmen, a Belgian and a Sherpa drove up from Tingri. Kind of sounds like the opening to a bad joke, but I have no...
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“Pretty Mellow”. A climb of Mount Everest truly begins at ABC. Advanced Base Camp is the first major camp past BC, and where many climbers spend most of their time. It is about 22km from this gravel pit we call Base...
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O Generator, Where Art Thou? Everest Base Camp might be in the wilderness, but there’s more technology here than in some small countries. Luckily, our little generator has arrived from Kathmandu. When you’re shooting...
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Time To Climb! Finally, the Everest climb has begun in earnest. Today, the team consisting of Lhawang, Ben, Lhakpa, Boca Lama and Pasang started up the trail to Advanced Base Camp. Well, the five of them and 40-50 yaks and their...
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Yak Yak Yak. Yesterday everything we own here was weighed to discover how many yaks will be needed for the trip up to ABC. Today, it’s time to pack up and ship out! All of our yaks and their herders are on scene this...
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Things Are Getting Heavy. Climbing Everest is not like a typical backpacking trip. We have so much gear and food that you can almost hear the mountain groan under our weight. This is pretty much par for the course. Imagine...
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Party Over Here. With our Everest puja concluded, we finished things off with a party the likes of which I’d never seen before. Really, I’m no stranger to the occasional rager, but we really kicked it Tibetan style...
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Asking Everest’s Permission. This afternoon we had our Puja ceremony to try and get the mountain’s blessing before beginning the climb. A couple of monks arrived from the Rongbuk Monastery down the valley to conduct...
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Can You Hear Me Now? Ben has brought a satellite phone with him to Everest, and we were able to call Karma back in Kathmandu to get a status report on Major. Apparently Major’s doing fine, but it was difficult for me to...
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Heavy Lifting. Well, Major left Everest Base Camp yesterday and we have no idea how he’s doing. In the meantime, we’ve begun building a stupa for our camp. This alter will be used in our blessing ceremony, or Puja,...
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