Caudwell Xtreme Everest

It was incredibly windy last night. I woke on several occasions due to the noise of the prayer flags that were flapping in the wind above my tent. I wondered about how the DRASH shelters were doing and in particular the one the Trekkers use.

I sat up in my sleeping bag, leant forward and unzipped the tent door. The DRASH was still there, despite the horrendous winds that were blowing. What of the other 6S shelter I thought? Would it be OK?

I awoke to a sunny morning, the sun was shining brightly and the winds had abated. It?s been cold ever since we arrived here, so I put on my down jacket read for the blast of icy cold air to hit me as I left my tent. I was pleasantly surprised though as I walked over to the generator hut to start up four of the Honda EU20i?s.

Even though the sun was out and I was warm, the generators have been sitting outside in temperatures down to -20 degrees, so it can take a while to pull-start them first thing in the morning. The four at the front of the generator hut in full view of the morning sun and warmed by it only require a couple of tugs on the starting cord, but the four at the back in the shade can be a bit of a pain to get going. From advice I was given, we weren?t expecting temperatures to be quite as cold and so the oil may be a little too thick, hence difficulty in starting.

I removed my down jacket and pulled the starting handle again and again. I was getting hot, but true to form, they both eventually started

As I walked over to see Pema, who was sitting outside the kitchen tent with some of the cooks, he stood up to greet me.

I looked at the large plastic bag that was on the rocky ground. Inside was a large box of red wine, but unfortunately it had burst during transit. There were a few boxes of Pringles and a handful of letters.

I clutched the letters along with two other packages and hurried over to the Lab tent. Inside were letters for Callan, Mark Edsell, Kay and me. I ripped open the letter in eager anticipation, even though I knew it was from my Mum and she would be chatting about the chickens and the cats! The letter hadn?t taken too long to get here either, only 16 days, which is very quick considering that our equipment took 14 days to get to Kathmandu alone!

It was Kay and I knew that she wanted me to do something for her, it?s the only time that she calls me flower!

?One of the trekkers, Geoff Taylor has arrived in Base Camp with not enough warm clothing. Do you have anything that you could lend him??

?I guess he didn?t take up the Mountain Equipment offer of a cheap down jacket then?? I replied. ?I?ll go and have a look.?

I climbed back up to ?Eagle?s Nest?, where my tent was not only one of two, the third having been taken down and moved before it fell down. I have three ?blue? barrels in which I keep my spare clothing and other equipment and rummaged around to see what I could find. Inside one of them, I found my spare kit that I had been issued for Cho Oyu II and was labelled just Xtreme Everest. I walked down to the trekker?s tent with two fleeces under my arm.

Geoff made himself known and I asked him to come outside for a quick word. I introduced myself.

?I hear you haven?t got enough of the ?warm stuff?? I said as I handed over my fleeces.

He was very appreciative of the thought and thanked me as I walked back up to our camp.

My next job for the day wasn?t so pleasant as I walked over to the ladies loo in the ghetto area of the camp. A plastic water container had been sawn in half and laid in a hole for the girls to pee into. The idea being that the wee would drain out of the neck of the bottle and soak into the rocks below. Problem was that someone had dropped toilet paper into the container, blocked it up, it had overflowed and then frozen. The container was now stuck in the iced wee and I had to use an ice axe to chip away at it and free it!

An hour later, I?d freed the container and shifted a load of rocks to allow for a natural drain. How glamorous my life is here as Base Camp Manager!

The day really wasn?t that exciting, as my next task was to build a flagpole for Gwen and erect her South African flag. It?s a good looking flag, but will never be as special as the Union Jack of course!

There were a few of us sitting in the dining tent having afternoon tea, when there was an almighty rumble from the icefall area. Nikki ran outside.

For the second time that day, a huge lump of ice had fallen from an area just to the left of the main route up the icefall. Only a couple of hours earlier, the same thing had happened.

For several minutes the cloud of snow drifted across the valley floor, threatening to smother us, but the southerly winds kept it at the head of the valley and it missed us. It did however expose a massive area of bare rock, that had once been covered by hundreds of feet of solid ice.

?I spoke to Jon Fuller this morning,? she said. ?Do you know how many hits you are getting on the website? 15,000 page hits per day!?

This was an incredible number and even more so when it turned out to be over 2,000 individual people per day tuning in to the site.

For the first time in around 2 weeks it didn?t snow all day. As we stood by the aerial mast, the moon rose over the peak to the left of the icefall. It was a half moon and sat just above the peak, being backlit by a deep blue sky. It was a stunning scene.

Logistics team blog

Post a comment on this article...