Discovery Channel - Everest: Beyond the Limit

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

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

Welcome to Everestville

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Not far out of Shegar, the buses gear down and climb a 17,000-foot pass, then wind into the valley leading to base camp. A storm last night has dusted the rolling, tan hills and boulder-strewn river banks with snow. We share the road with occasional yaks, horse-drawn carts, motor bikes and SUVs.

At the Rongbuk monastery, the massive north wall of Everest suddenly appears out of a smoky haze of cloud. Everyone gets off the bus to take it in. Fred Ziel, one of the climbers riding on my bus, stares at the mountain. This expedition will be his third try at Everest. In 2003, on the Nepalese side, he climbed above the Hillary Step. That's maddeningly close to the summit, and he returned with a frostbitten nose. In 2005, Fred tried Everest's North Ridge and got as far as Camp 3.

Other than Everest, this 53-year-old California endocrinologist and family man has quietly racked up an impressive list of 26,000-foot (8,000-meter) peaks. He has summited three (Manaslu, Broad Peak and Shishapangma) and climbed high on K2, the second-highest peak on Earth, which makes Dr. Ziel the most experienced climber on the team.

Back on the bus we pass the infamous Shanty Town, a skid row of tents that Tibetan yak drivers have built up in recent seasons to cash in on the expedition trade. Rough and muddy as Deadwood, it boasts trinket shops and sometimes brawling pubs.

A couple of miles later we hit base camp, and what an extraordinary sight it is. This portable city sprawled in front of the Rongbuk Glacier houses who-knows-how-many expeditions, including a Chinese team of 70 climbers with a barracks of tents and two trucks sporting transmission towers. Base Camp is Wi-Fi live, and a cell tower ensures that everyone with a dual-band/Tri-mode cell phone can call home.

Russell's Himex camp, though, is the centerpiece of Everestville. After we offload our gear, Russell welcomes us into his high-altitude suburb, sending us to find vacancies in the 36 tents his Sherpas have pitched to accommodate the climbers and film team.

In addition, there's a plywood shack for the Discovery TV crew to use as a camera workshop and edit suite, and 11 spacious 30x15-foot tents for Sherpa housing, dining quarters, storage, communications headquarters and bathrooms. Yes, we've got toilets and showers here (so long as a barrel with a toilet seat is your idea of a john).

Best of all is Russell's luxurious mushroom-shaped, 20-foot-tall, 25-foot-diameter pleasure dome. Years of Everest trips have taught Russ that the "key to success is to keep everyone comfortable." With this in mind he's brought along this insulated, carpeted shelter, with chairs and tables, a chrome wet bar, flat-screen TV and sound system, and a gas heater. Oh yeah, it's got a vinyl window facing the big E. I'm looking out that window right now as I type this dispatch.

Everest is in cloud and the sun is setting. My head feels like a hammer is gently tapping on it, as today we've driven 1,000 meters higher than Shegar — to a base camp height of 5,200 meters. Gazing out that window, I count about 120 other tents housing our fellow expeditioners, spread along the gray, gravely snout of the glacier.

A few other Everestville factoids before I sign off: Our water is siphoned out of a glacial lake by several hundred feet of pipe and fed into a 1,000-liter tank; the cook tent currently has a supply of about 100 bomb-shaped propane tanks; four generators and a host of solar panels will feed our battery chargers, lights and appliances.

As we lounge in the pleasure dome — which a member of the film crew has just dubbed "the most extreme night club in the world" — it's easy to forget that luxury and technology alone aren't enough to get a climber up Everest. That's up to the body and the mind.

Signing off,
Greg Child