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Bone Chilling Cold

April 7, 2012   

Team Peak Freaks is in Pheriche tonight. A few complaints of rain and bone chilling temperatures. Tim called while having tea at Lama Geshi's house to say everyone was doing good and everything is moving along as planned but it's cold. 

This news prompted me to have a look at weather and get setup for dispatching the seasonal reports to the team. I must say I can appreciate their complaints. 

The freezing level is hovering around 3600m to 4400m. They've been getting rain mixed snow the higher they go with temperatures of -4c at night warming to around +1 in the day. 

It's only going to get colder. By the time they reach base camp it will be -20c so they'll be putting those lofty down bags to good use in the days to come. 

I also looked at what is going on on the summit. Try and imagine -60c and 95 kilometres an hour winds this time next week. Yow! 

This is all pretty normal for this time of year. Things will start to warmup in the days and weeks to come but it's certainly a rude awakening for anyone coming here for the first time. 

Becky Rippel

Photo: stupa on the trek to Pangboche

Elevations & Distances to Base Camp

ELEVATIONS- DISTANCES- TREK TIMES- EVEREST REGION

FLIGHT TIME KATHMANDU TO LUKLA- 30 minutes:  Distance- 136.17 Kilometers (84.61 miles)

DISTANCE LUKLA TO EVEREST BASE CAMP:  38.58 miles or 62 Kilometers 8 to 9 days walk in

and a 3 to 4 day walk out. Walk in is slower due to the extra days needed to allow a persons body to adjust to the new altitudes. Upon descent the air will get richer each day as you retreat.

Village elevations Kathmandu, Lukla to Everest Base Camp

KATHMANDU (1400m)

LUKLA (2880m)

MONJO (2804m)

NAMCHE BAZAAR (3445m)

KHUNDE (3840m)

TENBOUCHE (3867m)

DEBOCHE (3734m)

PANGBOCHE (3901m)

DINGBOUCHE (4412m)

LOBUJE (4931m)

PUMORI BC (5209m)

EVEREST BC (5360m)

Everest Region Trekking Peak Elevations

KALA PATTAR (5545m)

Island Peak (6145m)

Climbing Peak elevations Everest Region

Mount Pumori (7145m)

Mount Ama Dablam (6856m)

Lobuche (6119m)

Nuptse (7861m)

Lhotse (8526m)

Everest (8848m)

KHUMBU VALLEY TREK TIMES BETWEEN VILLAGES from LUKLA TO EVERST BASE CAMP

Lukla to Monjo:  - 4 hours

Monjo to Namche Bazaar  - 5 hours

Namche Bazaar to Khunde - 2 hours

Namche Bazaar to Tengboche - 4.5 hours

Tengboche to Debouche - .5 hours

Debouche to Pangboche - 2 hours

Pangboche to Dingboche - 3.5 hours

Dingboche to Island Peak Base Camp - 6 hours

Dingboche to Lobuje  - 5 hours

Lobuje to Gorak Shep - 3.5 hours

Gorak Shep to Everest Base Camp - 2 hours

Return times are much quicker after acclimatization. Example Everest Base Camp to Lukla can be done in 3 days. 

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Lukla - we're in

Thank you everyone for your kind words and thoughts during the difficult time surrounding Mingma Tenzing Sherpas death. They help and know we appreciate it. 

We just landed with all our bags and are sitting down for breakfast while our bags are getting loaded up on the animals and porters.

Here's most of our crew. Team introductions will be coming shortly.  Onward and upward we go! Monjo tonight for what I know will be the best sleep for a very long time for all of us.  

Overwhelmed with Sadness

IToday's blog was to be reporting how excited we are to have passed the formalities for our Everest permit and celebrating our last night in Kathmandu. Very sadly we got a punch in the heart just as were shaking hands saying good by to the Ministry officials.

My phone rings in my pocket. I'm informed Mingma Tenzing, one of our Sherpas passed away at Kathmandu hospital today. 

Mingma was working at Base camp with the rest of the team organizing base camp when he complained of not feeling well. Tashi Tunde Sherpa, our Sirdar, sent him him down to Pheriche to the HRA clinic but he only went to Lobuche. The doctors there determined he had severe HAPE - high altitude pulmonary edema. Now too dark for helicopter rescue, he was kept at the clinic under the care of the medical team. He was lifted by helicopter and flown to Kathmandu. Karsung Sherpa our base manager met him at the airport and took a video of him walking with the oxygen bottle to the ambulance and showed this to me at the Ministry office. My first thought was one of relief, he can walk! He waved at Karsung taking his picture, he'll be okay! 

A few hours went by with the formalities and I get a call that Mingma Tenzing Sherpa from Namche Bazaar had passed away. They could not control the fluid that kept building in his lungs no matter how hard they tried. 

We are in complete disbelief. This reminds us once again just how serious AMS - (acute mountain sickness) is. Even with all the knowledge, medicene, clinics, awareness, conditioning and helicopters, you cannot guarantee no one will die from the affects of altitude. 

I've yet to talk to Tashi or Mingma's family. We fly to Lukla tomorrow morning where we can meet in person. 

Our team is overwhelmed with sadness for his family. Ours prayers go out to them at this extremely difficult time.  Tea lights have been lit, we hang my heads in sorrow. 

This is really difficult as our Sirdar Tashi Sherpa had hired him for the first time. I had not even had the opportunity to meet him. 

Tim & Becky and team

Date with Ms Hawley

Elizabeth sends her Beetle for Tim. Such a beauty. I love this car. 

Becky (helping the team blog) 

(Christof helping send out photos.) more coming soon. 

Ready To Roll

Namaste everyone from Kathmandu!   

    We are all one big happy family here in Kathmandu. Everyone has arrived, gear sorted and it's time to roll upon completion of a few more chores. One of them being the formalities at the Ministry of Tourism tomorrow, this always proves to be interesting.

 The team is all bonding really well, mostly because we all know each other and have climbed together in Nepal before, this always makes for a great start to an expedition. We welcome to the group our team of base camp trekkers and Island Peak climbers in joining us on this journey. 

My dear friend Elizabeth Hawley called today to summon me for a visit at her home. I feel honoured to be her friend for so many years, she can't get around very well these days. The past few expeditions we've been meeting this way catching up on family and life. Contrary to what people may think we don't even talk about climbing. Our friendship is more than that, and she's dear to me. She celebrated her 90th birthday in November, she's super spry and quicker than a whip. Reminds me of my grandmother who is just a few years older. 

 Power outages are common here and right now we are experiencing 11 hour outages. Kathmandu operates on hydro so this tells us just how dry it is in the mountains this year.  Unfortunately it's generators that keep communications and kitchen gadgets in the restaurants going. 

 Everyone is looking forward to getting out of the city and up in the mountains. Barking dogs are out of control again making it difficult to get a good nights sleep.  We'll be checking back here tomorrow with more information on what we're up to. 

 Over and out! Tim