Today is our second rest day at Advanced Base Camp and it’s truly a great day cuz it’s one of the rare days where the skies are clear and blue, it is NOT snowing and the sun is out! =) We just completed our first acclimatization cycle, spending 2 nights at Camp 1 (6,400m) and we will be resting here at ABC for the next 2 days before moving up to Camp 1 on Mon, then Camp 2 on Tues, weather permitting.
On 5 Sept, we moved out from Camp 1 and our goal was to reach the base of the second ice cliff that was enroute to Camp 2. If you guys have read our dispatches on the website, it was well, tiring.
I remember waiting at the base of the vertical ice cliff, simply waiting for the others to clear it. By then, the weather had started to deteriorate, it started to snow and visibility was getting very poor. I was feeling very cold and I remembered I kept clapping my hands to keep the blood circulating. It was a very horrible feeling waiting, and not knowing what to expect.
I began to pray and Isaiah 40:31 came into my mind “…but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” The ice cliff was much tougher than I had expected, it was composed of completely blue ice and it required us to front point with our crampons all the way up the 25m length of fixed rope. Although it was ‘only’ 25m long, it certainly felt like it was forever and i had to take at least 5 super hard and deep breaths after every 2-3 kicking in. It was also quite scary knowing that our lives depended solely on the ‘teeth’ of our jumars (ascending devices to aid in our ascend) biting onto the rope.
At long last, we all made it through the ice cliff and by the time we all reached the top, it became a complete whiteout and it was nearly impossible to see beyond 50m. We then decided to turn around and descend back to Camp 1….the whole journey took us about 10 hours. Phew.
Advanced Base Camp is alot more crowded now with teams from USA, France, China, Australia, Japan, Korea, Spain etc…. it’s almost like some United Nations Conference! There are also apparently another 3 more all-women teams from Croatia, Norway and Korea. Cool.
Over here, meal time conversations usually center around food we miss and toilet habits. We can go on at length about how much we pee and shit, how often we do it, the colour and texture etc. I think it can definitely make a great thesis research topic. Talking about food, we had delicious BAK KUT TEH last night for dinner, courtersy of Dr Mok, our expedition doctor, who brought them all the way from S’pore. Although it was cooked with mutton instead of pork, it was the greatest dish i’ve tasted in a long long time. =)
Up in high camp, what we will eat are boring stuff like instant noodles and freeze dried food like spagetti with meat sauce (which definitely sounds nicer than it tastes, trust me). Life here is very simple, it all boils down to sleeping, piling on layers (when it turns cold), shredding off layers (when the sun is out), eating, talking and simply slumping around. The only mini traffic jam would be the toilet wait outside the toilet tent especially after meal times. Last night, we tried to watch our DVDs but alas they failed to play on our laptop due to some software incompatability =( .
Aye it has just started to snow heavily (again) and we’re all in the relative comfort of our mass dining tent, reading, listening to music, pretending to dance (some of my team mates have expressed a desire to go clubbing back in Kathmandu. imagine clubbing in our ungainly climbing outfits! horror of horrors!).
I’m about to finish reading the book “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” by Haruki Murakami and it’s a little sad. It’s supposed to be a story about a missing cat, but well turns out it’s not really about the cat. Just like in climbing, it’s NEVER only about climbing. It’s about so many other things – the relationships forged with your team mates and your climbing sherpas, developing patience, understanding the weather and environment, knowing yourself and taking pleasure in simply sitting around doing nothing. Ah, such life.
Thanks for all the emails, they all bring a great amount of encouragement and delight into my seemingly small little world (though when you’re climbing, everything seems huge and infinite)…. reading them made me realise how much I miss home! Sometimes it’s strange how I yearn to ‘escape’ from home, only to come here and realise how much I actually miss home and all things familiar.
I also particularly miss running, especially coming to office early, then running to East Coast Park and back to office, just in time to start work…..i miss being able to simply put on a dri fit t-shirt and running shorts, instead of piling on layers and layers feeling like a overbloated duck now 😛
But it’s been really great to be back in the mountains, a place that I’ve always held so close to my heart, a place where i feel that my heart and spirits can truly soar and finally, a place where even when it’s cold, it can feel warm and fuzzy (at times!) =)
Yihui’s first foray into the outdoors was climbing a snow-capped mountain during a Technical Mountaineering Course in New Zealand back in 2003. She has since developed a passion for hiking and climbing mountains in extreme places.