We’re back in the relative civilisation of Gorak Shep. We’ve got wifi and a bed.
Jonathan Guidry and I came down yesterday to spend the night and we decided to spend another after snoozing all morning in our beds.
The very idea of an afternoon and evening doing the same was too appealing to us. We aim to return to base camp tomorrow, just as we aimed to return today this time last night.
Earlier this week we returned to base camp from our second and final rotation up the mountain to prepare ourselves for the summit push.
On return we also found from expedition leader Tim that we’d be splitting the group into 2 for Everest and that Jonathan and I would be heading up on the first acceptable weather window. Hence our visit to Gorak Shep.
The rotation itself was not particularly eventful – on Saturday we left at 3am and went straight past camp 1 to sleep at camp 2. We took 8.5hrs with a few breaks and a heavy pack as we were bringing up supplies for our summit push.
We then had a rest day at camp 2 and unfortunately we aborted our attempt to get to camp3 at 7200m in strong winds. Our long acclimatisation schedule meant we were comfortable aborting this without needed to repeat before the summit attempt.
The Expedition Charity flag at Camp II, Billy’s shadow cast on the lower right. To support please visit virginmoneygiving.com/letsbuildschools – we’re getting close to funding the second school building in Makwanpur. Thanks to everyone who has supported thus far!
On the way down the icefall on Tuesday we encountered several collapses which slowed us down and maintained a high level of adrenaline – I’ll go into more detail in this week’s irish times article – out in print and online this Saturday (need to get that done this evening as soon as this is posted!)
In advance of our summit bid, we’ve done some training with our oxygen bottles and syringes and spent time with our personal medical kits – this even included giving a shot of Dex to an orange! In all seriousness, I do feel ready to get out that syringe even when wearing high altitude mitts, and to give a hypoxic climber with HACE a life saving shot in his thigh!
Given the last Irish Times article came out while we were up the hill, if you haven’t see please check out here:
Everest Diary: Crossing crevasses and frisbee golf in the snow
Part six: Enduring a hard night at Camp II and trying to acclimatise to the Khumbu Icefall
The next article will be out on Saturday in print and online. Check it out.
Getting exciting now! (Just mainting my position as highest commentator)