 |
|||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
16/Apr
Our fourth day of rest here. Colds are drying up and coughs a bit better. Thanks for all your email and news from home. Special hello to all my friends at Troy Athens marching band and the Summit Journal Chat. The weather has been ugly up high with snow even down here at basecamp (4 cm a few nights ago). Clouds have obscured views of Everest completely these last few days.
Our plan for the next critical stage is to reach North Col and to spend time up there. We shall be leaving Base Camp on the 18th for Intermediate Camp and then to Advance Base Camp on the 19th. Here, we'll rest a bit and then hope to reach North Col on the 21st. I would add that the key to able to launch climbing forays higher up or a summit bid is dependent on how we do on this next round up the mountain. The Col is a snowy saddle at 7000, affording spectacular views onto the other side of the north face of Everest and a peek into Nepal over Everest's west ridge. It will be a grunt to get up - but hey, this is where climbing begins! We'll be out of touch except of radio calls down to BC for about eight days, so please bear with the skimpy dispatches until then.
Meanwhile, we're catching up on some reading with Roz tucking into Alex Haley's " Roots" and I sneak away daily with Henri Charriere's " Papillon". Since Gil has only one book in Portuguese, he is savouring the adventures of Bilbo Baggins in the translation of JRR Tolkien's "Fellowship of the Ring".
Ciao,
David
Em primeiro lugar agradeco a todos que tem mandado mensagens de apoio a nossa expedicao. Estas mensagens sao muito importantes pois ajudam a levantar o nosso astral. Muito obrigado.
Hoje completamos 17 dias aqui na montanha e jah chegamos aos 6.600m no Campo 3, ou ABC. O Campo 3 fica no peh do colo norte e bem embaixo de toda a face norte do Everest....eh magestosa a visao. Esta empreitada durou 5 dias, ida e volta ao campo base, e agora estamos descansando aqui no Base...aos 5.400m de altitude. O que fazemos por aqui?...bem, eh um trabalho de paciencia pois o clima e frio e muito vento. Passamos o dia dentro das barracas, com poucas saidas, lendo (estou lendo agora o Sr. dos Aneis), escutando musica e.....esperando a hora do almoco, do jantar, da pipoca da tarde... Tambem o contato com os americanos esta sendo muito bom, cabecas diferentes, experiencias diferentes, etc. Amanha, se o tempo melhorar quero ver se vamos ate o Monasterio de Rongbuk, um importante Templo Budista, proximo ao Campo Base do Everest. Umas 2 horas de caminhada.
Dia 18 devemos retornar para altitudes maiores. A meta sera o Colo Norte a 7.000m de altitude, depois voltamos, descansamos e voltamos de novo para cima...
abracos a todos,
Gil
translation
Hi,
First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has sent supporting messages for our expedition. These messages are really important. Keeps our motivation up. Thank you very much.
Today we complete 17 days here in the mountain and we already reached Camp 3 at 6.600m, also known as Advanced Base Camp. Camp 3 lies at the feet of the North Cole, right under the the north face of Mt. Everest... the view is magnificent. This journey to Camp 3 took us 5 days from Base Camp and back, and now we are resting here in BC at 5.400m of altitude. What do we do here? ... well, it's a patience exercise due to the strong wind and cold. We spend the day inside the tent, with a few going outs, reading (now I am reading The Lord of the Rings), listening to music and... waiting for lunch time, dinner and having popcorn in between... The contact with the Americans has also being very good, different minds, different experiences, and so on. Tomorrow, if the weather gets better, I will try to bring the guys up to the Rongbuk Monastery, which is an important Buddhist Temple, close to the Everest Base Camp, within 2 hours of walking.
On April, 18th we should get back to higher altitudes. Our next goal will be the North Cole at 7.000 asl, then we come back, rest and climb up again...
Big hug,
Gil
 |
||
|
|
||