Discovery Channel - Everest: Beyond the Limit

First Summits

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What started as a cold, cloudy day has turned warm, at least at ABC, and has given up the first summits of the season.

At about 1 p.m., word got around camp that Phurba Tashi Sherpa and four of his top men had reached the summit. The Discovery film crew trained their massive Digi-Beta camera with its 560mm gyro-stabilized lens on the summit, and we watched some amazing action on a small TV monitor.

At 1.15 p.m (times are approximate), in between shifting clouds, we saw two Kazakh climbers, Maxut and Vassily, who we heard were trying to blitz Everest "alpine style" — climbing without supplemental oxygen and without fixing their own camps. They were inching their way up the slope above the Third Step, moving very slowly.

At about 1.30 p.m. we saw a red-suited climber — one of our Sherpas — standing on the summit. At 1.50 p.m. there was a dramatic encounter as three Sherpas bounded downhill and crossed paths with the still-climbing Kazakhs. Even though we were miles away, we could see the climbers exchanging pats on the back. The Kazakhs moved on toward the final rocky section, called The Dihedral, before the summit. Then the clouds blew in.

It's fair to assume the Kazakhs would need about another hour from the point we last saw them to reach the summit and that they'd still have enough time to get back down in the last light of day to their highest camp. It's also fair to assume that they are taking considerable risks at this point, but they're very experienced and know what they're getting into.

On this same day last year, Phurba Tashi Sherpa and his team also reached the summit. This is said to be (pending verification) the earliest date for summiting on Everest's north side. Last year, the summiting Sherpas hit the top in the afternoon and marched all the way down the mountain back to ABC by 9 p.m. for dinner. That's nothing less than amazing. And they'll probably be back here tonight at roughly the same time to plenty of admiration from this crew, and to massive plates of their favorite food, rice and dahlbat.

Signing off,
Greg Child

April 29, 2007 Good Weather Blows In

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Yesterday, an early morning radio call from Russell at base camp predicted a change in the weather. He could see the entire mountain from there and saw the clouds shifting from the northeast to the northwest.

By breakfast, winds had calmed down all over the mountain. The Sherpas, already at the North Col, seized the initiative. By lunchtime we saw them from a telescope at ABC nearing Camp 2 at 24,500 feet (7,500 meters); by nightfall they'd be at Camp 3 at 26,000 feet (7,900 meters).

Phurba Tashi Sherpa, leader of the nine-man Sherpa team and veteran of at least 10 Everest summits, radioed down to predict that on April 29 his crew would be at Camp 4 and would have ropes fixed past the exit cracks and up the North Ridge to Mushroom Rock. On April 30 he believed they’d summit — weather permitting.

With the ropes and camps near finished, the way is open for a possible summit frenzy in the coming weeks.

Even so, summit bids are still weeks away for the Himex group. Acclimatization continues for the climbers and film team. On April 28, most of the climbers headed up to the North Col to sleep at the head-hitting altitude of 23,000 feet. From ABC we saw at least 100 people moving up the North Col ropes; at times, a dozen people were clipped into a single strand of rope as thin as a pencil.

"Ropes were tight, twanging like violin strings," said Scottish cameraman Ed Wardle when he got back to camp.

This morning, the group returned to ABC. Their first slumber party on the mountain had hit each of them differently.

First into camp was Josette Valloton, the Swiss guide. A professional climber, she rocketed up and down the North Col and slept well. Fred Ziel appeared next; he says he slept a little cold. David, Mogens, Darius and Rod all arrived in short order.

Headaches plagued Rod during the night until the painkillers and Diamox kicked in. Darius, sleeping like a log beside him, barely noticed a thing as Rod spent the night "banging my head against the wall, moaning and getting up to pee" (a side effect of Diamox). Darius' sole complaint was rib pain from breathing so deeply on the ascent.

The whole camp credited Betsy for coping with the altitude and sleeping soundly at Camp 1, though guide Dean Staples, who shepherded her on the climb, cautioned that her ascent time of six and a half hours was too slow. Clients are expected to make the climb from ABC to North Col in five hours. That's because the next obstacle — the climb to Camp 2 — is a notoriously gut-busting grind, exponentially harder than the climb to Camp 1.

Tim, always marching to the beat of his own drummer, sauntered into ABC way last. He and tent-mate Yong Li (the Chinese climber recently christened "Bruce Lee") had a tough night because Yong Li stayed out late playing cards in the Chinese camp on the North Col. Tim hadn't appreciated being disturbed by the stench of cigarette smoke when he returned, and apparently there was a bit of yelling.

Today, everyone who returned is resting, eating and hydrating. Head guide Bill Crouse is off to the North Col with the remaining three Japanese climbers, Yanagi (who at 71 keeps on trucking), Kobi, Take and their highly experienced leader Hiro. A few days ago, team member Masa developed early stages of cerebral edema and had to be evacuated to base camp. He's now headed back to Japan.

Today, all but one of the five ill film crew is returning to ABC. Only cameraman Barrie Foster remains at base camp, still trying to figure out whether he's able to adapt to higher altitudes. And the trekker who went down on oxygen with signs of pulmonary and cerebral edema is well and good.

Signing off,
Greg Child

Climber Gallery

Breaking News: First Summits Reported

Two dispatches are set to launch today, April 30. Looks like Russell's Sherpas and a Kazakh team have reached the summit.

From one impending dispatch, "About 1 PM word got around camp that Phurba Tashi Sherpa and four of his top men had reached the summit. At 1.15 PM (times are approximate), in between shifting clouds, we saw two Kazakh climbers, Maxut and Vassily, who we’d heard were trying to blitz Everest “alpine style,” climbing oxygenless and without fixing their own camps. They were inching their way up the slope above the third step, moving very slowly. "

Tagging the North Col

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After an early start and a hike across the frozen flatlands leading to the foot of Everest, the whole crew arrived at the ropes leading to the North Col. We weren't the only ones there. By the time I clipped my ascender to the rope, about 60 people were above me, and when I descended four hours later, I scooted past at least that many people, maybe more.

This was our first major climbing foray to altitude — North Col lies at about 23,100 feet. The plan was to tag it and then head back to ABC, using the logic of acclimatizing that says you should climb high and sleep low. By the end of the day, everyone was pleased with their performance.

It was a dramatic day for weather, with high winds raking the summit and ghostly cloud shadows scudding fast across the gray-white glacier. Mogens and David sprinted up the face in two hours and 20 minutes; Josette made it in about three hours; most others took about four to four and a half hours. Betsy climbed with guide Dean Staples; she reached a point near the North Col and went down with a lot more knowledge about climbing than she had a couple of days earlier.

It's been 12 years since I've been to the North Col and it's much different than I remember. The glacier has sunk into itself, causing the ice wall we scaled to collapse into a more jumbled face. It's still pretty easy to climb: The face has an average angle of 25 degrees and every inch is lined with ropes, one for up and one for down, but global warming has clearly taken a toll on the ice.

As I headed up, I caught up to Rod, whose head was banging away with a dehydration headache. Perhaps he should have gone down, but he wanted to press on as he'd never been so high on a peak before. He swallowed two liters of water then kept plodding on.

"I don't recall this thing," I said to Rod a little later, pointing to a 200-foot-tall ice cliff right above us. It was fractured into a fragile pile of blocks that everyone had to pass under. It was one of those things that might sit tight for a year, or might collapse on our heads at any minute — kind of a mountaineering Russian roulette moment.

"If this thing goes, we're dead," I said, so we sped up the pace and five minutes later were back in the clear, moving up the rope, while others slid down another rope a few feet away. Rod's head pounded all the more for the effort, but he got to the Col in pretty good time.

The campsite on the North Col (Camp 1) is now so crowded that there are two levels separated by a few vertical feet and a crevasse spanned by a standard, hardware store-bought, household ladder. In total, about 50 tents are dug in up there and more are soon to sprout.

Old ropes dangle from an ice cliff above camp, frozen in place and swaying in the wind. They appear out of the most unlikely spots, like vines growing out of a cliff, and they show the way that the snow and ice cover everything in time, foot by foot and year by year, burying and compressing anything the climbers leave behind.

Filmmakers Ed Wardle and Mark Whetu had lugged their cameras all the way up to catch the traffic on the way up and down. Tim's arrival at Camp 1 was all but an autograph event, as his reputation from last season's Discovery Channel series ensures he's recognized by most anyone with an Everest dream. "Get it on!" he yelled to the mountains.

After tagging the campsite, we all slid down the ropes in about 20 minutes enveloped in a white fog of swirling snow and cloud. Climbers were still dragging themselves up and down, some pinch-cheeked, stumbling and absolutely hammered by the altitude, others (mainly Sherpas), skipping up or down with a smile and a "Namaste."

Today as I write this — the morning after our climb — we've all just emerged from snow-covered tents and a well-earned sleep. Tim's back is bugging him (remember, this guy has a metal cage around his spine from a motorbike crash), but some medication from our doctor and a rest will set him straight.

Weather on the mountain is still not the best for the Sherpas to push on with rope-fixing. Nevertheless, weather permitting, everyone returns to North Col tomorrow to sleep and keep the acclimatization training on schedule.

Signing off,
Greg Child

More pics from the North Col trek:

 

Hard Times at ABC

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It's so windy right now that nothing can be done on the mountain. At 6 a.m., the Sherpas fled the North Col, where it was too cold and windy even for them. I can stare up at the summit from my high-altitude office (my tent) and see scrolls of cloud ripping from the top of the mountain at warp speed. Something must be in the air — maybe it's the low atmospheric pressure — because there's been lots of sickness in camp today.

This morning, a trekker attached to Himex developed moist, rattling sounds in his lung, probably the onset of pulmonary edema. Immediately, Dr. Monica ordered his evacuation, so a seat was rigged up and strapped to the back of Dorje, a Tibetan member of the crew, to carry the trekker down. Beside Dorje, a Sherpa carried an oxygen bottle connected to a face mask strapped to the trekker's face. Five other Sherpas headed down to base camp with the trekker. Later in the day, another member of the Himex team developed altitude illness and is slated to descend tomorrow.

Eight members of this group have now had to descend to the safer, lower altitude of base camp, some 3,800 feet lower than ABC. All are managing well as radio reports from base camp confirm. Most people will return in a few days.

I'm not naming any of the ill members right now because this blog might precede phone calls to families. What I'm certain of, is that all of the ill are doing well.

Yesterday was a key day for the climbing clients of the team when Russell and his three guides rigged up an Everest boot camp to test the climbing skills of the clients. Ropes were rigged on an ice formation and the clients had to show what they know by climbing one strand of rope using an ascending device, then rappelling down another rope. It's all essential stuff to have wired in advance if you plan to get up and down the thousands of feet of rope to the summit.

Results were revealing.

Betsy raised everyone's eyebrows when she tried to attach her crampons to her boots upside down. "I'm not a climber," she later admitted, qualifying that 10 years ago she wore crampons on a trekking peak in Nepal, but that guides and Sherpas had looked after her climbing needs.

"Everest isn't the place to learn how to climb," Russell later told her, adding he'd allow her extra tuition to improve her crampon and climbing skills.

"I'm a fast learner, and I've gone through harder stuff than this in my life" Betsy told me later, looking at the North Col, 2,000 feet above us. She added, "If I think I'm being a liability to others, I'll burn rubber down this mountain."

I'm sure lots of readers will think I am picking on Betsy, but I'll just repeat Russell's professional opinion: "Everest isn't the place to learn how to climb. Betsy misrepresented her mountaineering experience to me."

In the end, everyone is giving Betsy every chance to find her feet on this mountain.

Others didn't get such great grades either. Darius didn't know how to rappel, but he learned fast and considers he's now ready for the big climb; Tim and Rod needed pointers on using their safety tethers on the ropes.

David and Mogens decided to skip class, figuring their previous time on Everest gave them sufficient credit. Yong Li (from China) slid up and down the ropes fastest of all, but Hiro's Japanese clients found the rope work difficult.

My opinion? These folks are clients, not climbers. They don't have resumes that include years of climbing expeditions on which they've fended for themselves and climbed mountains under their own steam — leading the way, fixing ropes, setting up their own camps. All of this is done for them on Everest.

Here, they've paid their way into an elite guiding operation that will give them the support they need to have a chance to realize their dream of getting to the top of Everest. But they must be able to get up and down the mountain under their own power and be able to safely cope with the technical climbing challenges ahead of them.

The fascinating thing about this expedition — and one of the reasons that a Discovery film team and blog are covering their exploits — is that this is a group of everyday people who have chosen to take on the biggest challenge of their lives. They'll be examined closely by their guides before being allowed to attempt the summit, because this is no picnic — it's a journey into the Death Zone.

Tomorrow, the team will get their first taste of the mountain. They'll ascend the ropes and tag the North Col, then come back to ABC. It'll be a long, hard day, probably lashed by winds. Perfect training for what lies ahead.

Signing off,
Greg Child

A Hard Place to Live

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Climbers, guides, Sherpas and film crew are all now at advance base camp (ABC) at 21,000 feet (6,400 meters). During the two-day hike, Everest was nearly always in view, its summit adorned with a jet stream blast of cloud flowing from the southwest.

We shared the trail with hundreds of yaks. The valley echoed with the jangle of their bells and the coos and songs the Tibetan yak drivers sing to their docile beasts of burden. Russell figures that 2,500 yaks are involved in the business of shuttling expeditions up and down this glacier.

While the 9-mile hike isn't very steep, the altitude gain can be punishing. It's common to arrive, spend a night, and succumb to sleeplessness, headaches, lethargy and puking nausea. The best cure for altitude sickness is descent back to base camp, and a few members of this group have already had to go down to rest up.

In fact, I haven't felt so great since I got here. The last couple of days I've been dreamy and wooden-headed, but now that I've drunk enough water to fend off altitude-induced dehydration I'm much more alert. Consider that at ABC we're camping higher than any point in North America, Africa or Europe.

ABC is situated in a dead end of the East Rongbuk Glacier on a narrow strip of glacier occupied by many expeditions. We all sleep on a constantly moving ice river that cracks and pops beneath us. Everest's long Northeast Ridge rises left of the camp and the North Col (location of Camp 1) is a wall of ice and snow at the end of the valley. Right now I can see 60 people threading their way up the slope that leads to Camp 1. From my tent they look like a line of ants crossing a sugar bowl.

The mountain is a beehive of activity. Russell's crew of Sherpas has been busy carrying masses of supplies, including oxygen, which will be used from 26,000 feet (7,900 meters) on up. The plan is to pave the North Ridge with enough rope to allow the hundreds of this year's Everest contenders to reach the summit.

The first summiters will likely be Russell's well-trained Sherpa crew, who believe they'll summit by the end of April. Because Russell's team has been fixing ropes on Everest for so many years, most of the expeditions are content to let his crew do the hard work and set the lines in place. In return, they pay a minimal fee ($100 per person) to cover the enormous manpower, oxygen and rope that the job entails; those expeditions who don't wish to pay use the fixed ropes anyway.

Meanwhile, the climbers in this group are getting their personal gear in order and training on the ice cliffs beside camp before making the move onto the mountain. The next destination will be the North Col at around 23,000 feet (7,000 meters). The gnarly thing about climbing high peaks is that as soon as you adapt to one altitude, you have to move up and suffer at a higher altitude.

In the next few dispatches I'll be writing about the superhuman Sherpas who are the backbone of this expedition, as well as the ongoing adventures of the individuals who've signed up for Russell Brice's Everest expedition.

Signing off,
Greg Child

Base Camp and Beyond

In honor of the Everest blog Friday tradition, enjoy a little slice of base camp in pictures. More yaks!

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Moving to Advance Base Camp

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The climbers and Discovery film crew are leaving for advance base camp (ABC) today and tomorrow, moving in two waves, each of about 14 people. This involves two days of travel up the East Rongbuk Glacier accompanied by a caravan of yaks. It'll be a test of equipment, because delicate video and computer gear will be lashed to the backs of yaks and roughly dumped onto the glacier at the end of each day. Let's hope my laptop survives so this blog may live on.

Because the journey takes us to 21,000 feet (6,400 meters) — a brain-bashing gain of about 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) spread out over 9 miles (14 kilometers) — we'll camp for one night at interim camp, at 19,000 feet (5,800 meters).

Meanwhile, on the North Ridge, Russell's Sherpa crew reached 24,500 feet (7,500 meters) today, fixing ropes and installing supplies. They'll probably be at 26,000 feet (8,000 meters) by the time we reach ABC. Climbing Sherpas are the backbone of all expeditions on this hill. Without them, not a lot would get done.

In each dispatch so far I've written about a few members of this large expedition. Let me introduce the rest of the climbers.

Betsy Huelskamp is the wild card to this team. A self-described Harley-riding biker chick from L.A., personal trainer and writer for biker Web sites, she has no technical climbing experience and she's never worn crampons. Her interest in Everest sprang from seeing the Discovery series, Everest: Beyond the Limit, and making the acquaintance of Tim Medvetz, a veteran of the 2006 season and prominent player in the series.

"If he can do it, so can I," she told me in Kathmandu. The sweet-natured 46-year-old feels that Everest has been "calling" her for a long time. "If God wants me to get to the top, then I will," she says.

Contrary to what seems logical, Everest has let many novice climbers gain its summit, so long as they've been accompanied by Sherpas, guides and good luck. If Betsy's determination is as strong as she believes and she remains fit, she may succeed.

I've already mentioned David Tait, the British manager of the $8 billion Peleton hedge fund. His plan is to make the first double traverse of Everest by climbing over the summit into Nepal then back into Tibet. He knows of roughly a dozen people who've made the traverse in one direction, but the double traverse, which occurred to him after his successful Everest ascent in 2005, is a new concept. The neat thing about it is that he will traverse the mountain and then return to the starting point.

David carries himself with the confidence of a self-made man with a mission — a "007 coolness" Betsy observes. His career in finance has been about taking risks and winning, and this mindset shows in his mission to Everest.

But there's another dimension to his ambitious plan: He wants to use the double traverse to promote the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). This U.K.-based organization runs shelters for abused children that incorporate a courtroom setting where children can testify about their ordeals.

David freely admits that he's thrown himself into the NSPCC because he himself was a victim of childhood abuse. Everest is not only a personal adventure for him that offers the chance to notch up a "first," but it's a platform to raise awareness about a devastating social problem. David Tait's Everest plan is gutsy, but laying open his childhood ordeal to promote a noble cause is even more gutsy.

When Darius Vaiciulis got the bug to climb Everest a couple of years ago, he phoned Russell's Himex office in Chamonix and asked what it would take to climb the world's highest peak. Russell recommended he test himself on a lower, easier 8,000-meter peak, Cho Oyu. So Darius signed up and made quick work of the mountain. The Lithuanian provider of cell phone services has little doubt he'll succeed, yet he's practical, saying that if something prevents him from reaching the summit he'll return another year.

Darius can often be found playing backgammon in the Pleasure Dome with Briton Rod Baber. The pair appear to have gelled into a team. Rod comes to the expedition with a unique mountaineering resume. Over 835 days during the ‘90s, he and a friend climbed the highest point in all of the 47 European nations. The highest was Mount Elbrus (18,619 feet/5,642 meters) in Russia, the lowest, 52 meters in Monaco. The adventure landed them a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

Rod's tales include weaving through minefields to get to the top of Bosnia's tallest peak and sneaking past Turkish army outposts to climb Mount Ararat. On Everest, he hopes to make the world's first cell phone call from the summit, which will be sponsored by Motorola.

In addition, we've got five Japanese climbers — Hiro, lead guide, and climbers Yanagi, Kobi, Take and Masa — whose ages range from 24 to 71. They're climbing somewhat independently from the rest of the team and the language barrier creates a polite wall between us, although Hiro asked today if we'd mind watching a subtitled version of Pirates of the Carribean in the Pleasure Dome tonight. Yong Li, a young Chinese climber, has also signed onto Russell's expedition.

Finally, a latecomer to the team is Swiss guide Josette Valloton. She's here for another gasless attempt on the North Ridge and is also climbing somewhat independently to the rest of the team, utilizing Russell's infrastructure to position herself for a summit bid.

It's now Tibetan noon and the cooks will soon be sounding the lunch gong. Half of the team left this morning with the yaks for the trudge up to interim camp and beyond. I'll be departing tomorrow, April 20, with the remainder of the climbers and film crew.

Communications may become more challenging beyond base camp as the cold and altitude takes a toll on our satellite phones and laptops — not to mention our brains. I won't blog until after April 23, when we've settled into ABC.

I'm looking forward to getting under Everest's North Ridge again. Twelve years have passed since I was there and last night's sunset, which turned Everest a magical shade of pink and gold, reminded me why people are drawn to the Himalayas.

Signing off,
Greg Child

Blessing at Base Camp

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Yesterday, Tibetan Buddhism infused base camp when monks from Rongbuk Monastery gave us a "puja" blessing. It's a tradition for expeditions to Everest and other Himalayan peaks to bring this slice of ancient mysticism into the lives of climbers.

Three monks presided over the ceremony, in which we sat around a stupa — an altar of stones — while prayer flags were strung from a pole, juniper brush was burned, rice and flour were tossed to the air, and chants and prayers were offered to bring everyone home safely.

The climbers each placed an item of gear on the stupa — an ice ax, a crampon, a personal memento from home — to be blessed. It seems good insurance to carry a Tibetan monk's blessing onto the mountain, whatever your at-home faith.

These are mellow days at base camp. Call it the lull before the storm, so to speak, because when the climb begins, the days will be hard and painful. It's no waste of time, though. As team members take hikes up the valley flanks, everyone is getting fit and deepening their acclimatization. Already our adaptation is showing, with most of us sleeping better at night.

Our first few nights at base camp were restless because nearly everyone suffered Cheyne-Stokes breathing, an altitude nasty in which the sleeper literally stops breathing for several seconds, then starts up again with an unsettling series of gasps. Our energy levels are higher now that we're getting better sleep.

These days are also valuable for team bonding. This diverse group barely knew each other before Kathmandu and now we're forming alliances and learning one another's histories.

Trying to figure out the motivation that's led each team member to Everest is one of my objectives for this blog, but it's a harder task than you'd think. I've been climbing for about 37 years and since day one I've been asked why I climb. I've never given a very good answer, other than to say it's something that got into my blood as a kid and intensified with every year and every climb.

Sitting over a cup of tea today with Mogens Jensen, the 34-year-old Dane who wants to make a "pure" (i.e., sans supplemental oxygen) ascent of Everest, I wondered what I'd hear.

Many people make it up Everest using bottled oxygen, but few dare try without it. The risk factor and difficulty of climbing the mountain with no gas is probably tenfold. And Mogens (pronounced like "bones") suffers chronic asthma to the extent that he must take state-of-the-art medications twice daily. Even so, he's a triathlete who trains about 40 hours a week. He's also multilingual and a teacher by trade.

Everest turned him on several years ago as a "test of the self" and an ultimate athletic event. He started high-altitude climbing on a smaller 26,000-foot peak called Cho Oyu, guided by Russell's crew. He then hit Everest twice, each year having to abandon his gas-free bids at 26,000 feet. Last year he got slammed by the altitude, ataxia and vision problems. This year, he's trained harder and he's already spent weeks trekking at altitude in Nepal.

"I feel ready for her, and I think she's ready for me," he says.

"Do you think that under any circumstance you'd use oxygen?" I ask him. "I mean, wouldn't it be better to use gas and get the summit under your belt in the end?"

Mogens thinks a bit and then tells me he'll stick to his guns. He's certain he can summit while plugged into a bottle of oxygen, but he'd rather hit the his body's limit and turn back. Mogens is a perfectionist, physically and mentally strong, yet he's also certain this will be his last try at Everest.

It's now 5.30 p.m. on April 16, and it looks like a storm is blowing in. Russell has given a yell around camp that if anyone has wash on the line or a tent door open, they better get organized because the storm might bring rain.

Rain? It seems too cold for that, but a dark curtain of cloud is blowing up the valley from the warmer lowlands rather than from the icy heights.

Tomorrow, some of the guides are heading to Advance Base Camp (higher than the summit of Mt. McKinley in Alaska), with a caravan of yaks to start organizing camp for the next wave of climbers and film crew. In a few more days everyone will move up, and then the real action will begin.

Signing off,
Greg Child

Pleasure Dome Days

Received Saturday, April 14

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Fourteen of Russell's 30-strong Sherpa team marched into base camp last night after rigging ropes and installing ladders (to span crevasses) to the North Col. All expeditions in "Everestville" will eventually use this highway of ropes after they've acclimatized. That the Sherpas, from Nepal and Tibet, have been able to pave the way so early shows how mountain fit and permanently acclimatized they are.

"The boys are chomping at the bit to get up this hill," said Russell after the Sherpas had briefed him on conditions up there, which they say present lots of hard, exposed ice. Many of those Sherpas have been trained by Russell and his guides.

Meanwhile, the Himex climbers remain at base camp, slowly acclimatizing. Some of the team are nursing headaches and lethargy, symptoms of our recent arrival at 17,000 feet (5,200 meters); others seem unaffected. Regardless, everyone must patiently adjust to the thinly oxygenated atmosphere surrounding us.

Even if the world's best Himalayan climber arrived at base camp fit and strong and decided to immediately stomp up Everest, that climber would collapse and probably die from a cocktail of high altitude maladies. The human body cannot push fast to 26,000 feet (8,000 meters); weeks of patience are essential.

So we bide our time, hiking around the stupendous valley, getting to know one another, and relaxing in the Pleasure Dome (which was recently party central for my 50th birthday; a grand place and great people to share hitting a half-century).

The Pleasure Dome was also recently the site of what might be an Everest record — namely, world's highest vacuum cleaning. Russell's Pleasure Dome is carpeted wall-to-wall and scattered with thick Nepali rugs, so periodic sweeping is required. But the sight of teammember Betsy Huelskamp pushing a vacuum cleaner struck me as a mountaineering first.

I even joined in, vigorously siphoning glacial dust from the floor until I was breathless. People who've been to my house will regard the idea of me getting behind a vacuum cleaner as a first in itself, but I assure you it was strictly for acclimatization training.

Jokes aside, several other firsts are planned by members of this team.

Mogens Jensen, a Dane, triathlete and lifelong asthmatic who doses himself with medication twice daily to fend off attacks, figures that getting to the summit will be a first for asthma sufferers. Climbing the highest peak seems the opposite of what an asthmatic should be doing, but Mogens wants to up the ante by climbing without bottled oxygen. Pharmaceutical company Smith Kline Beecham, which manufactures the medications Mogens takes, is backing his adventure. This year is his third try at Everest. Last year he cycled from Kathmandu to Tibet to acclimatize. He's ferociously fit.

Another first comes from Rod Baber, a Briton who has climbed the highest point in every country in Europe. He'll try a technology first by making a cell phone call from the summit. Motorola is backing his venture.

David Tait, a British financial whiz, and Sherpa Phurba will try the first double traverse of Everest. That means they'll climb it twice. First, they'll go up Tibet's North Ridge to the summit, then down Nepal's South Ridge. They'll then turn around and climb back up the South Ridge, cross the summit again, and head down the North Ridge to where they started — namely, the Pleasure Dome.

Ah yes, the Pleasure Dome. It's going to be hard for us all to leave this comfy oasis in a few days when Russ gives the order to head to Advance Base Camp. Right now, I'm looking out of the dome's window, watching the jet stream blast a plume of snow from the summit. It's 4.30 p.m. here and already the temperature outside is plummeting. But in here I can almost fool myself into thinking I'm home, safe and warm.

Signing off,
Greg Child