Dispatch 6 - Base Camp Life - A Strange Village at 17,500 ft! :

April 23rd

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Base Camp is a wonderful place to come back to!  Here at Base Camp (BC) we have as much luxury as is possible at 17,500 ft.  Each climbing team member has his own personal (two man) tent for sleeping and belongings (the Sherpas like to share and two will use a three man tent). The next most popular location is the dining tent, where we eat our four meals a day: breakfast, lunch, tea time and dinner.  Of course, where there is dining there is a need for an outhouse - we have two beautifully constructed little stone houses with tarps on top. We also have a shower tent to round out our restroom facilities. The dining tent is the centerpiece of our "main street," but there are many other important tents nearby: the medical/stretching tent, the cook tent for westerners, the cook tent for Sherpas, a storage tent, and the communications tent/high altitude gear storage (oxygen, tents, special food, etc.).

Despite earlier claims of over twenty teams at Base Camp, we have talked with and identified 17 expeditions at Base Camp. These teams cam be divided up into 3 different groups: commercial/guided, national, and filming. In the commercial/guided groups category in addition to International Mountain Guides (IMG) - the group that I am associated with, there are 5 others: Mountain Link, Adventure Consultants, Mountain Madness, Alpine Ascents, and Dream Everest. There are nine national type expeditions including Greece , Mexico/Canada, Korea , Chile , Ireland , Malaysia , Canada , Spain , and a Nepali with one leg. As far as the filming expeditions, there is a group from the Discovery Channel working on a six-part series to air this fall and group called Peak Promotion/Working Title that is making a full length movie about the tragic 1996 Mt. Everest season.  So far all the groups seem to be working together well. A couple of weeks ago our team organized a Base Camp-wide helicopter pad building event that was well attended by many teams. More recently, many teams have cooperated in the fixing of rope up the steep Lhotse face on the way to the South Col.

 

As far as logistics - both acclimatization-wise and camp/gear-wise everything is going really well. Everyone has participated in a first foray up the mountain staying at least at Camp One and most people have spent two or three nights at Camp 2. Currently there are three IMG climbers at Camp 2 on their second rotation, and two of them plan on staying at Camp 3on Friday night. The expedition members at BC right now plan on heading up for their second rotation Friday or Saturday with the end result of sleeping at Camp 3. Our Sherpas are doing an awesome job - Camp 2 is fully operational and Camp 3 should be set on Friday. The next step is to start shuttling gear and oxygen to the high camp at the South Col (Camp 4). Once those supplies are in place then we just have to wait for the mountain to let us climb it (good weather up high). This is highly dependant on the Jet Stream moving away from the area (since we will hopefully be climbing at over 29,000 ft!).

The numbers . . .

2 outhouses at IMG Base Camp

4 car batteries store the power of a series of solar panels to power our electric lights, radio communication, and charging computers, satellite phones, digital cameras and other electronic nick-knack's here at BC.

34 different total tents


Day by day

19 April - Shower and Rest

20 April - Laundry and Rest

21 April - Rest

22 April - Rest

Photo Captions

Base Camp view from icefall
A far off view of all of Base Camp from the icefall.

Main Street
Main Street- the heart of our camp. The Medical tent is on the left on the right moving away from the camera are the communications tent, the dining tent, the cook tent, the sherpa cook/dining tent, and the storage tent.

Dining Tent
The Dining tent - the most popular tent in camp. Note the artificial flower arrangement hanging from the ceiling.

Comms tent
Mr. Tanguay working on the latest dispatch with the laptop supplied by Vashon Island School district - also on the table is the satellite phone and the base station radio to communicate with other teams and higher camps.

Restroom & Shower
One of our two "little stone huts" (outhouses) - the shower tent is in the background.

Laundry with tents in background
Mr. Tanguay doing laundry - the individual sleeping tents are in the background.

IMG base with Icefall
Our IMG corner of the strange little village.

Cook tent
Inside the cook tent where our Sherpa cooks prepare the most wonderful dishes.