My trip to the top of Everest
Discussion
Peanut Gallery said:
Do not worry - same here, "He is red in the face, take him home" - yeah, you have the heating set to 5 million degrees, and he is still wearing jumpers etc!
Looking forward to your updates when you get there!
Yep!! Exactly that!! I'm meant to be in town today but I'm WFH on standby for any minute now when they send her home again! Looking forward to your updates when you get there!
Right, pulling my finger out now that I seem to have a tiny window of child still in nursery, wife at work and my diary somewhat clear for an hour!!
So, the trekkers had all left. Amusing sidenote, the majority of them (if not all) had signed up for the 'full trek' - trekking in AND back out. The final night of us all together was a lovely dinner, with plenty of wine flowing. The conversation was then brought up by one of the team to the expedition leader of perhaps getting a helicopter directly from basecamp to Kathmandu. He said of course possible, but it would cost, so anyone who was thinking about taking that option lets get numbers together. Amusingly, sheepish hands started to go up all around the table!! In the end all but two of the group took the lazy helicopter option!! Slackers haha.
Anyway, so they had all flown off, all of us hungover, it may have been a bit dusty at that moment saying goodbye to everyone, of course with the unspoken chance that if things went badly, that's the last time we'd ever see each other.
As soon as they left, we immediately went to the nearest bit of ice to do some ice work/practice
As usual taking photos of the top pretty much any time it came into view
The next step for us was to head back to Lobuche where we'd get on with our acclimatisation work. I think I've said earlier in the thread, every other team at Everest would be going up to Everest camp 1 as part of their acclimatisation rotations. This means multiple trips through the icefall which drastically increases your risk. Our team used getting to the top of Lobuche as the equivalent of Everest camp 1 - it's pretty much exactly the same elevation, but without the need to climb through the icefall. It's a no brainer really, but amazing that ours is the only team that did it.
View from the tent at Lobuche camp the evening before heading to the top
We set off very early the next morning, and as you can imagine the views from pretty much any place we went were awesome and always seeing new things from different angles
Finally a 'proper' bit of climbing
Getting a different, higher perspective on our end goal
Top of Lobuche in sight
And we reached the top
Plan now was to just sit and spend time at that altitude and let our bodies slowly get used to it
And here's where we had just been seen from our mini basecamp
I can't remember the exact timescale but we headed for a beer break in the nearest 'village' before heading back to Lobuche to do the same thing again and spend more time at altitude
Our two tents at Lobuche camp 1, last time we'd use them
Here's what the setup looks like for any time spent up on the mountain
Bit of panoramic action
Second time at the top
And that was the last time we'd spend at Lobuche as we'd got as high as we could before the next acclimatisation would need to happen higher up on Everest
So, the trekkers had all left. Amusing sidenote, the majority of them (if not all) had signed up for the 'full trek' - trekking in AND back out. The final night of us all together was a lovely dinner, with plenty of wine flowing. The conversation was then brought up by one of the team to the expedition leader of perhaps getting a helicopter directly from basecamp to Kathmandu. He said of course possible, but it would cost, so anyone who was thinking about taking that option lets get numbers together. Amusingly, sheepish hands started to go up all around the table!! In the end all but two of the group took the lazy helicopter option!! Slackers haha.
Anyway, so they had all flown off, all of us hungover, it may have been a bit dusty at that moment saying goodbye to everyone, of course with the unspoken chance that if things went badly, that's the last time we'd ever see each other.
As soon as they left, we immediately went to the nearest bit of ice to do some ice work/practice
As usual taking photos of the top pretty much any time it came into view
The next step for us was to head back to Lobuche where we'd get on with our acclimatisation work. I think I've said earlier in the thread, every other team at Everest would be going up to Everest camp 1 as part of their acclimatisation rotations. This means multiple trips through the icefall which drastically increases your risk. Our team used getting to the top of Lobuche as the equivalent of Everest camp 1 - it's pretty much exactly the same elevation, but without the need to climb through the icefall. It's a no brainer really, but amazing that ours is the only team that did it.
View from the tent at Lobuche camp the evening before heading to the top
We set off very early the next morning, and as you can imagine the views from pretty much any place we went were awesome and always seeing new things from different angles
Finally a 'proper' bit of climbing
Getting a different, higher perspective on our end goal
Top of Lobuche in sight
And we reached the top
Plan now was to just sit and spend time at that altitude and let our bodies slowly get used to it
And here's where we had just been seen from our mini basecamp
I can't remember the exact timescale but we headed for a beer break in the nearest 'village' before heading back to Lobuche to do the same thing again and spend more time at altitude
Our two tents at Lobuche camp 1, last time we'd use them
Here's what the setup looks like for any time spent up on the mountain
Bit of panoramic action
Second time at the top
And that was the last time we'd spend at Lobuche as we'd got as high as we could before the next acclimatisation would need to happen higher up on Everest
Peanut Gallery said:
Do not worry - same here, "He is red in the face, take him home" - yeah, you have the heating set to 5 million degrees, and he is still wearing jumpers etc!
Looking forward to your updates when you get there!
Highly suspect they send home XX% of the children due to “high temp” on any days they have staff who don’t turn up OR maybe just every day as they don’t have enough staff. You don’t get a refund though! Probably use a spreadsheet to rotate the children they send home.Looking forward to your updates when you get there!
I was thinking of this thread as the family and I had a similarly taxing jaunt up Roseberry Topping, a hellish 'mountain' near where I used to live in Guisborough. I was thinking, assuming helicopters will become electric at some point, would anyone be up for a helicopter ride to the top of Everest? Would that be similar to these millionaires who like going to daft depths in the sea in experimental submarines?
Also wouldn't having electric helicopters seriously reduce the fatalities?
Flying up there in a tricked-out internal combustion helicopter has been done so its not impossible.
Also wouldn't having electric helicopters seriously reduce the fatalities?
Flying up there in a tricked-out internal combustion helicopter has been done so its not impossible.
fatbutt said:
I was thinking of this thread as the family and I had a similarly taxing jaunt up Roseberry Topping, a hellish 'mountain' near where I used to live in Guisborough. I was thinking, assuming helicopters will become electric at some point, would anyone be up for a helicopter ride to the top of Everest? Would that be similar to these millionaires who like going to daft depths in the sea in experimental submarines?
Also wouldn't having electric helicopters seriously reduce the fatalities?
Flying up there in a tricked-out internal combustion helicopter has been done so its not impossible.
As far as I understand it, one helicopter made it up there, with one person in it, and as much weight as humanly possible taken out of it. Also wouldn't having electric helicopters seriously reduce the fatalities?
Flying up there in a tricked-out internal combustion helicopter has been done so its not impossible.
The problem with the thin atmosphere is getting the lift from the blades, so I don't imagine it'll ever be possible to take 'tourists' in a helicopter up there.
Of course someone with more science in their brain might tell me I'm wrong if you can get the blades spinning quick enough or something.
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