NEWS: 28th Sep 2006
Life at ABC by Mac Mackenney
The weather here is fine, not a cloud in the sky. This is great during the day as it means that we can work in good conditions, but by night, things take a turn for the worse. The clear skies means that any heat produced during the day quickly evaporates, causing temperatures to plummet to as low as -13 C. Not a problem you would think as we have all got Mountain Equipment Everest 1250 sleeping bags, rated to temperatures in excess of -25. For those of us still at Advanced Base Camp, there is one small problem, our sleeping bags have been pre-positioned at Camp 1 ready to cope with the even more extreme conditions up there. This means cold nights spent wearing down suits and anything else we can find!
As Base Camp Manager, I have opted to stay behind and man the fort. The remainder of the team that hadn?t already left ABC, left this morning. Two guys headed down the mountain as the prolonged exposure to high-altitudes was causing them problems. Mike Stroud has decided that he will not acclimatise any better and is returning to the UK, while Jon Morgan is heading for the village of Zhangmu at 2000m for one night in order to help his acclimatisation. He plans to return to ABC tomorrow night before climbing back up to Camp 1 and possibly Camp 2.
The Van Tulleken twins left ABC this morning also. Although Chris will not climb higher than Camp 1, Alex will have a go at Camp 2 if conditions are considered safe and he feels strong enough to do so. As for the rest of the team, they left yesterday in two parties, one that pushed on straight to Camp 1 and another that stayed overnight at ?Lake Camp?. As I write this report, the team already at Camp 1 are resting in preparation of a possible climb to Camp 2, while the others are making good progress up the scree slope to join them.
There are many teams here at Cho Oyu and many highly experienced Guides who have summitted this mountain many times. All the teams are working closely with each other to ensure that the safest decision is reached as to whether they climb higher and possibly summit the world?s 6th highest mountain. With heavy snows over the past week, depositing around 2 feet of snow at ABC, there is the ever present avalanche risk. No-one will be fool-hardy when it comes to climbing higher and the Xtreme Everest team are working very closely with those teams that have more experience of this particular mountain.
As for me, well I picked up a small retinal haemorrhage in my right eye. It?s nothing serious as it?s similar to looking at a bright light for a while, leaving a patch in your vision. Mine is in my peripheral vision, so as long as I don?t climb higher, it shouldn?t get any worse. If it was within my main line of sight, then things would be different and I too would have opted to go home.
As it is though, I?m manning the radios, checking the regular weather reports that we have and passing information on to the rest of the team, whether above or below Base Camp.
ABC is perched on the side of a large valley, with steep rising buttresses above and a meandering glacier below. The whole area is covered with a thick coating of snow, resembling an Arctic scene. So much so, that we dug out our ?Father Christmas? hats the other day when the sun finally reappeared, to take some impromptu Christmas card photos! To our south lie the mountains of Nepal, the border being only some 2 or 3 miles away. A trail across the plateau marks where the Tibetan traders take their Yak herds across the border, a long and dangerous journey in order to bring back goods from a ?wealthier? country. Westerners aren?t allowed to make the same journey and the Chinese authorities ensure to that.
At the easterly ?Cho Oyu? end of our camp we have the main living area. This consists of a Mess Tent in which the now 15 of us are served 3 hearty meals per day by the two excellent cooks, Akal (Head Chef) and Cho, along with assistant Sukra. The tent is lined and carpeted and comes complete with gas heater and electric lights, resembling a wedding marquee ? and you thought we were roughing it out here! In the evenings we either play games ? cards, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit or watch films on our portable DVD player. It?s a bit on the small side and the volume doesn?t go up very loud, so when the wind blows and the tent is thrashing about, a good knowledge of lip-reading is handy if you are at the back of tent! It?s still pretty luxurious never-the-less.
Next to the Mess Tent is the Kitchen Tent where Yak meat hangs from the walls and a paraffin burner is constantly on the go, heating water for drinking, cooking or washing. The cooks work tirelessly in there, but then when the temperature is down to -13 C, it?s probably the best place to be!
Descending a few rocky steps (now slippery with snow and ice) we reach the ?working? end of the ?Xtreme Everest? Cho Oyu expedition. Situated on level ground and heavily secured with guy ropes and rocks is the DRASH 1XB shelter. DRASH stands for Deployable Rapid Assembly Shelter and is probably one of the strongest and most versatile shelters I have ever used. Designed primarily for military applications, the 1XB shelter is 16? x 16? in an octagonal shape, standing about 9? high inside. Double skinned for extra strength and warmth it can be erected in less than 5 minutes! Normally, it would be delivered by either truck or helicopter, but for our needs we have had to carry it over many miles of mountain by Yak to ABC. With a weight limit of 40kg per Yak, the 1XB had to be broken down into small manageable chunks. Even so, we can build or dismantle the tent in well under and hour, which is ideal when the weather conditions can change so rapidly out here.
The DRASH shelter is primarily used as a Laboratory, but on many occasions, it has quickly been converted into a Field Hospital, complete with all the latest medical research equipment and manned by some of the most experienced high-altitude doctors in the country, if not the world. Luckily, Xtreme Everest has not had to use the hospital, apart from a couple of minor cuts, but it has proved invaluable in helping other team members less fortunate.
Between the DRASH and the Mess Tent lies the Comms (communications) Tent. Equipped with the latest edition Panasonic CF-29 Toughbook, mated to an Inmarsat Regional BGAN satellite communications system, we can keep in touch with the outside world, updating the website and receiving emails. Regional BGAN is a regional version of the Broadband Global Area Network and allows us to receive broadband communications. This is great for team moral, hearing from loved-ones when away from home for 6 weeks, but also allows us to receive regular weather reports, with detailed maps.
Along one wall of the Comms Tent is a bank of Exide batteries. Designed to withstand the harsh conditions that would kill a normal battery, these provide our main source of power and keep the DRASH and Mess Tent fully equipped with electricity. We try to rely on solar power to keep these batteries topped up, but solar power is not reliable out here. Bad weather blocks out the sun and snow blows over the 9 panels that we have, not to mention when the sun goes down, being blocked by the huge mountain peaks that surround us. This is when we rely on the Honda generators that we have been loaned. The two EU20i?s can produce 4000 watts of power between them at sea-level, so we are working on about 2000 watts at this altitude. When one member of another team came in with a stroke, they proved invaluable in keeping all the medical equipment powered and the DRASH shelter fully lit during the night. Without them, we wouldn?t have been able to provide the high level of care that we did.
There?s a lot to consider when trying to keep an expedition powered for such a long period and in such harsh conditions. Personal cameras, I-Pods, Satellite phones, torches, not to mention the whole host of medical research equipment that we have ? from fridges to keep blood sampling cartridges cool, to machines that examine brain blood flow and the exercise bikes themselves. The whole power system is 240 volts, the same as in your home, so that machines can simply be plugged into banks of sockets, just the way you would in the UK. The batteries though are 12 volts, the same as in your car, so we have to change the voltage from them up to 240 volts. This proves no problem to us as we have the use of a Victron Energy Phoenix Multiplus. What does this do? Well, the 12 volt batteries and 240 volt generators both feed into this amazing box of tricks. The Victron unit allows power to swap between the two power sources to provide smooth power which is essential for some of the very sensitive equipment we are using. If the generators run out of fuel, the batteries will automatically take over without any equipment shutting down.
Another luxury that we have is a shower. Basically this consists of a pressurised bottle with a pump handle on the top, similar to the ones you find in garden centres to spray weed-killer. At the end of the hose is a shower head and with a 10 litre capacity, there is more than enough piping hot water (courtesy of the guys in the kitchen) to have a really good wash. With a two room shower tent, clothes are deposited in one room, while you wash in the other.
The toilets are an interesting experience. Made from a pile of rocks dragged down the valley by the glacier, the Sherpas who built it can obviously do the splits better than we can! Situated about 18''apart, the rocks have a habit of sliding away as you are perched 4? over a large trench ? one that you would definitely not want to fall down!!! Preparation for a toilet visit requires a very strict routine, all pockets must be secure, sunglasses taken off and put away and this is before you dis-robe! There have been a few unfortunate instances where items have plunged into the mia ? not a pleasant job retrieving them I can tell you!
We sleep in two-man tents, but with all our equipment they are rather on the small side, so we have one to ourselves. These are scattered over a 50 yard distance, linked together by tracks in the snow. Every morning at 06:30 two of the Sherpas bring us ?Sherpa Tea?, a milky tea with cinnamon flavouring ? delicious, and an hour later the gong is rung for breakfast. Showers, DVD?s, tea in bed, the trekking company Jagged Globe who are providing all the support staff are certainly spoiling us!
By day we work at the camp wearing normal hiking boots and our Mountain Equipment Windstopper Fleeces. These are like normal fleeces, but have a windproof outer layer to protect against the harsher conditions we are experiencing up here. If it?s really warm, we will strip down to our Base Layers, but when the sun turns in for the night we all snuggle into our Down Jackets and put on our woolly hats. Apart from a few cold feet when the snow was really thick, but that was mainly due to getting wet, none of us are troubled by the cold thanks to our Mountain Equipment clothing.
And there we have it, life at Cho Oyu Advanced Base Camp. It can be a little uncomfortable when the bad weather arrives, but all in all we are fed well and live in quite luxurious conditions, for life at 5600 meters that is.
The Van Tulleken twins have just reached Camp 1, so all is well. I?ll keep you updated tomorrow, and let you know how the team are progressing.