Weblog & Podcasts

Just an hour later Thomas, Milan and I were waiting at Yak camp, when Kevin literally stumbled in, totally beat by the altitude. Milan turned back as agreed, but Kevin was not sure, once he rested, he felt a lot better. We decided to take him with us to middle camp. But soon Kevin started to sway like a drunk, which is normally a sign of acute Mountain Sickness, but his general health had been great with top oxygen levels, no headaches etc.

Thomas climbing up from Intermediate camp

We continued slowly but at a certain point Thomas and I decided to help Kevin with his luggage. It was not much, but taking it -after some pressure as Kevin did not want to give his luggage up- apparently made it just a bit easier for Kev, so e could think straight again and we arrived in Intermediate camp without much problems. The camp is again located next to amazing ice pinnacles, the Ice Sharks..

We had a reasonable night, but Kevin was to tired to contine to ABC, so I went alone with Thomas. Just after a few minutes Thomas asked me if it was cloudy or foggy. It was not, but his vision was deteriorating fas and he could not tell colours anymore. We continued slowly over the sometimes icy track and I had to push him to go faster as I dit want to be in ABC before sunset as it gets really cold there.

Just after our lunch break at Yak camp (6000m) we noticed Ludmila, Sergey who were taking care of Vince (Bousselaire). Vince appeared bad and when I chacked his breathing I immediately noticed the typical gurgling sound of a pulmonary oedema, which means the lungs are filling up with fluids. This can be lethal, so evacuation is important. Here our extensve logistics system came into effect. I radio'd middle camp to send up Nifedipine, ABC sent a Sherpa down with an extra oxygen bottle and the team guided Vince down, va Middle camp, all the way to BC. Kevin joined them down to BC, where they arrived late at night. Vince was evacuated to the Nepali Border the next day and is safe now.

We all feel regret that Vince cannot finish his expedition with us, he is a very friendly and amicable man and he was a joy to climb with on Vinson and here on Everest, a true friend. We are glad that he is safe and healthy now though, and wish him and his family all the best.

Only moments after we passed the team with Vince, I saw a Yak train coming, with someone being carred down on top of a yak. When he passed me, he asked 'Harry?' , 'Harry?'. I was surprised and said 'Yes'?

'It's Dale'. Dale. Dale Abenojar from the Phillipines. He was actually part of my team for Everest 2006, but in the end he had not climbed any of the agreed mountains, that I had required as a basis for joining the team. So regrettably I had to take him off the team in February as he had not enough experience and I did not want him to kill himself or endanger others on our expedition. Surprisingly he emailed me later that he was in KTM and that he would climb after all. I had not heard any details since and this was the first time we actually met, him on a Yak riding down, me going up with Thomas.

'What happened?' I asked him. 'I will email you' he said while descending out of view...

Thomas was getting really tired, especially his shoulders were strained as by now he had to rely on his arms and walking poles to determine the path. He indicaed that his vision was now so bad that he could only see my rough shape and could not recognize me. As the sun was about to go down and we had at least an hour to go, I radiod our Sirdar Mingma in ABC to send one of our Sherpa's down to assist and sonn 2 of our team came down, with milk tea! We drank some and Thomas handed over his luggage, so we could continue and arrived just when the sun went down.

ABC is an amazing place. We now hold the center spot, and occupy a huge area as not only all members have a private tent, also the Sherpas have several large tents for sleeping, cooking, eating etc. We supply the Sherpas with the same food as the members and they are very happy with it. Some expeditions do not appreciate the enormous amounts of work the Sherpas do, but we definately know that we would be nowhere without them.

ABC, 7summits city! North Col in the back

We got treated well by Mingma and the cooks and had a relaxed evening talking about the expedition. Both Thomas and I had a suprisingly good sleep and also Lincoln, who had arrived shortly after us felt good in the morning.

Thomas and I headed down to BC, which was not easy. After all the snowfall, the main track was very icy. This is already troublesome for people with good vision (when meeting Lorenzo, he mentione he had slipped a few times), but for Thomas it was much more difficult. I had to create new tracks for him, so he would not slip and it was a long trip back to Intermediate camp at 5800m. We had some lunch there and continued down, meeting Milan close after. He had come up at my request so he would be ready to join n a next trip up.

We went slow as both Thomas as well as Milan were very tired, but we arrived just in time for dinner, at 20.00...

Today we rested and prepared the further filming. Alex had been catching sheep in Taschi Dzom, the place where Lorenzo now is resting to recover from his throat infection. He is taking his time as he has seen from up close what happened to me last year... Viking Frode is with him and has similar problems, so we hope they recover soon.

While Noel, Petter, Johnny & Henrik went back up to IC already today, Kevin turned into the Barber of Sevilla at BC, shearing Richard Harris, a Tibetan kitchen boy and Thomas.

Kevin & Thomas

Meanwhile it started snowing again and now BC is covered in yet another layer of snow, so we wil have to see if the planned departure of 15 members (to IC) will go ahead as planned in the morning.

Signing off from a chilly BC,

all the best, Harry