Well about a month ago I started my 12 month MdS training plan... week 1 consisted of 5 x 25 min runs with a back pack. Well on the 5th day after my run I decided to go out snowboarding we had 2 feet of snow in 24 hours and it was a great end to the season. Until... I had rather a bad accident. Well technically someone had a bad accident on ME. I was videoing my friend go off a jump but somehow it all went wrong and he landed on me (I was kneeling on the floor) and did some very bad damage to my legs.
It has taken me until now to (almost) recover. I couldn't even really walk for the first week and after two weeks I managed to start cycling which seemed to do my legs a lot of good. Finally two days ago I managed a ten minute run through the desert lands of Fruita. Today I managed 35 minutes. I am not going to push it so I am just taking it slowly but it has been immensely frustrating. I still have a fair amount of scar tissue but each day it recedes slightly.
We are now coming up to the last couple of days in Colorado so we are busy packing up the house and tying up all our loose ends. We are going on a ten day road trip starting here and stopping in Moab, Goblin Valley, Bryce Canyon, Gooseberry Mesa, Zion and finishing up in Salt Lake City where we will fly home to Manchester from.
I'll put up our photos of the trip as soon as we touch down in the UK.
Caroline x
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
The MDS 2009
March 1 2007
I have been AWOl again for a while due to vast numbers of visitors descending on us these past few weeks. Well it has all been great fun but this morning I opened the newspaper to see an article that briefly mentioned the MdS. The MdS is something I have been trying my utmost to forget about for the past couple of months but today was a warning. If I dont face up to my responsibilities and start preparing for it NOW then I will never finish that race. So you may be wondering what exactly is it this MdS - I borrowed the following paragraph from someone else's blog and it does sum everything up nicely...
"The 24th Marathon des Sables will take place in March 2009. This ultramarathon has been consistently acknowledged as 'The Toughest Footrace On Earth'.
The event takes place in late March/early April and crosses around 150 miles of the Sahara Desert over 6 days. The terrain varies between rocky trails, mountain slopes, and steep sand dunes. Temperatures can hit 40+ degrees celcius during the days and plummet to almost freezing point at night.
During the event we will have to carry all of the food, clothing, sleeping bag, and emergency equipment that we will need over the 6 days. Water is strictly rationed at around 9 litres a day and accomodation is a Berber tent.
Each year around 750 competitors take part in the Marathon des Sables with the largest single contingent coming from the UK. Perhaps we have more masochists than average!
In the 2006 race, widely regarded as the toughest yet, 146 competitors failed to complete the distance. "
Right so there it is... and for the first time I actually feel nervous about the whole thing. In preparation I am going to/ have already entered into a couple of marathons this summer just to get the whole process kick started. But there is so much more to train for in this competition. Its not just a physical race it's going to be an emotional and psychological one too. And there are so many factors health wise that I need to learn about and prepare for from ridiculous blisters (people have had toes amputated), to hydration and energy consumption, to scorpion bites (YIKES!!!).
And as if that wasnt bad enough I have to carry all my own food and kit so the sleeping bag has to be just right the food has to be the exact right amount my footwear and blister care techniques have to be well practiced.. aaargggghh!
Oh well today is the first day of the rest of my training plan. Luckily I am not doing this race alone Le Berb my Crazy Californian team mate has also signed up and he is leaps and bounds ahead of me on all this stuff already...
OK well I have written it down now I need to just get on with it. I am going to post training plans, diet plans. medical info on here so that anybody else doing it can see my ideas and hopefully give us any advice!
I'm off for a run ;)
Caroline x
I have been AWOl again for a while due to vast numbers of visitors descending on us these past few weeks. Well it has all been great fun but this morning I opened the newspaper to see an article that briefly mentioned the MdS. The MdS is something I have been trying my utmost to forget about for the past couple of months but today was a warning. If I dont face up to my responsibilities and start preparing for it NOW then I will never finish that race. So you may be wondering what exactly is it this MdS - I borrowed the following paragraph from someone else's blog and it does sum everything up nicely...
"The 24th Marathon des Sables will take place in March 2009. This ultramarathon has been consistently acknowledged as 'The Toughest Footrace On Earth'.
The event takes place in late March/early April and crosses around 150 miles of the Sahara Desert over 6 days. The terrain varies between rocky trails, mountain slopes, and steep sand dunes. Temperatures can hit 40+ degrees celcius during the days and plummet to almost freezing point at night.
During the event we will have to carry all of the food, clothing, sleeping bag, and emergency equipment that we will need over the 6 days. Water is strictly rationed at around 9 litres a day and accomodation is a Berber tent.
Each year around 750 competitors take part in the Marathon des Sables with the largest single contingent coming from the UK. Perhaps we have more masochists than average!
In the 2006 race, widely regarded as the toughest yet, 146 competitors failed to complete the distance. "
Right so there it is... and for the first time I actually feel nervous about the whole thing. In preparation I am going to/ have already entered into a couple of marathons this summer just to get the whole process kick started. But there is so much more to train for in this competition. Its not just a physical race it's going to be an emotional and psychological one too. And there are so many factors health wise that I need to learn about and prepare for from ridiculous blisters (people have had toes amputated), to hydration and energy consumption, to scorpion bites (YIKES!!!).
And as if that wasnt bad enough I have to carry all my own food and kit so the sleeping bag has to be just right the food has to be the exact right amount my footwear and blister care techniques have to be well practiced.. aaargggghh!
Oh well today is the first day of the rest of my training plan. Luckily I am not doing this race alone Le Berb my Crazy Californian team mate has also signed up and he is leaps and bounds ahead of me on all this stuff already...
OK well I have written it down now I need to just get on with it. I am going to post training plans, diet plans. medical info on here so that anybody else doing it can see my ideas and hopefully give us any advice!
I'm off for a run ;)
Caroline x
Photos Again...
February 23 2007
Beautiful day at Breckenridge watching everyone crash in the half pipe!
Shootin the breeze in Pueblo.... (quite literally in my case)
Our Ride
Whale Cloud
Beautiful day at Breckenridge watching everyone crash in the half pipe!
Shootin the breeze in Pueblo.... (quite literally in my case)
Our Ride
Whale Cloud
Busy Busy
February 19 2007
Right I am back - so the past few weeks have been crazy busy. After we got back from Utah with the new truck and me feeling much better, we had a few days to hang out and relax before the first of the visitors arrived. The first batch was a big one (5 South Africans and me old mucker from London) - luckily they weren't all staying at my place! Halfway through that week a couple of our other friends arrived from London too so we were a pretty big gang. The snow was great for everybody and towards the end of the holidays the weather even started to warm up with a few sunny days so thats always a bonus.
Last weekend me and one of the other girls enrolled on an all girls Park Weekend at Breckenridge. That was really cool - we got to learn how to ride the halfpipe, jumps and rails with not a drop of testosterone in sight! That was so much fun its so nice to be encouraged rather than always being told that "you're not trying hard enough..." hmmm
Then this weekend we all headed down to Denver to stay with various friends we have met and see their home towns and generally drink a lot. First stop Columbine - you may recall that a few years ago two young boys went into their school with machine guns and killed a load of the students.. thats where we were - in fact the guy we were staying with had refitted all the glass windows that were shot out of it during the incident. It was a bit creepy driving through the town and I still just haven't gotten used to the idea of people walking around freely with guns all the time. Anyway we all had a big party and that was a lot of fun - the next day not so fun as we had to wake up at 7am and drive 3 hours down to Pueblo to meet some other mates!
Pueblo was great the sun was shining and it was HOT - 65 F in fact! So we hit a biker bar in the evening where the free drinks were flowing all night (again) and then up at 7am again to go shooting. Jon was really good at that but I screamed when I had to hold the gun and then ran back to the safety of the cabin. I really don't like them. After that we headed down to the paintballing field to watch the pros practicing for their upcoming tournament. All of that was followed by yet more drinks and yet another early start to head back up to Avon! So we are back at home now getting ready for the next motley crew to arrive on Saturday.... its a tough life eh?
So I will write a bit more this week and put some photos up tomorrow but hope you are all having fun!
Caroline x
Right I am back - so the past few weeks have been crazy busy. After we got back from Utah with the new truck and me feeling much better, we had a few days to hang out and relax before the first of the visitors arrived. The first batch was a big one (5 South Africans and me old mucker from London) - luckily they weren't all staying at my place! Halfway through that week a couple of our other friends arrived from London too so we were a pretty big gang. The snow was great for everybody and towards the end of the holidays the weather even started to warm up with a few sunny days so thats always a bonus.
Last weekend me and one of the other girls enrolled on an all girls Park Weekend at Breckenridge. That was really cool - we got to learn how to ride the halfpipe, jumps and rails with not a drop of testosterone in sight! That was so much fun its so nice to be encouraged rather than always being told that "you're not trying hard enough..." hmmm
Then this weekend we all headed down to Denver to stay with various friends we have met and see their home towns and generally drink a lot. First stop Columbine - you may recall that a few years ago two young boys went into their school with machine guns and killed a load of the students.. thats where we were - in fact the guy we were staying with had refitted all the glass windows that were shot out of it during the incident. It was a bit creepy driving through the town and I still just haven't gotten used to the idea of people walking around freely with guns all the time. Anyway we all had a big party and that was a lot of fun - the next day not so fun as we had to wake up at 7am and drive 3 hours down to Pueblo to meet some other mates!
Pueblo was great the sun was shining and it was HOT - 65 F in fact! So we hit a biker bar in the evening where the free drinks were flowing all night (again) and then up at 7am again to go shooting. Jon was really good at that but I screamed when I had to hold the gun and then ran back to the safety of the cabin. I really don't like them. After that we headed down to the paintballing field to watch the pros practicing for their upcoming tournament. All of that was followed by yet more drinks and yet another early start to head back up to Avon! So we are back at home now getting ready for the next motley crew to arrive on Saturday.... its a tough life eh?
So I will write a bit more this week and put some photos up tomorrow but hope you are all having fun!
Caroline x
UTAH
January 30 2007
Well another weekend another road trip and this time we went to Utah to visit some friends. Things didn't start out well as I spent the first half of the week in bed seriously ill. I had fever, lost my voice and was coughing and spluttering like crazy. By Friday it was time to make the fifteen hour cross country journey but I really wasn't feeling up to it. We set off anyway - me clutching my box of tissues and bottle of vaporub and Jon trying to find any way to distract himself from my grumbling. The trip consisted of a short car ride, followed by an hour and a half bus journey to Glenwood Springs, followed by a 2 hour wait (which turned into a 4 hour wait) followed by a 7 hour train ride, followed finally by a 1 hour car ride! Phew.... So we finally arrived at The Becks' house in Mount Pleasant at about midnight on Friday and we were shattered as you can well imagine.
Now I would just like to list all the cool stuff that they have at their house in no particular order: 3 horsies, 2 dogs, a duck, a hot tub outside with a television, a cinema with a Nintendo Wii, a games room ( table football, pool etc), 4 snowmobiles, 3 Quad Bikes, 2 trucks etc etc etc so it isn't really the type of place that you can get bored easily!! As we were only staying for the weekend we had a lot to fit in. Day 1 - Snowmobiling.. Mark (dad) is an excellent snowmobiler and used to race them back when he was younger. Luckily they have four of them knocking around so we all took them out for a day on the mountain. That was fun - snowmobiling is like motorbiking but without the roads and other traffic to bother you. And those things go fast (well mine didn't I like to go slooooooow) but everyone was bombing around like lunatics and there was more than one moment when I felt like I was in a Bond Film! The day wasn't without it's disasters of course, at one point Jon had managed to go the wrong way only to find himself off the beaten track and on top of a cornice that could have collapsed at any moment and sent him plunging fifty feet into the valley quickly followed by an avalanche... he bailed out and then Mark had to go and rescue his machine!!
So after that we spent the night soaking in the hot tub and watching the X-Games and then off to bed. Sunday was an interesting day as our friends are mormens and so of course they spend Sunday at church and doing nice things for people. We decided to join them and after a quick wardrobe change into all their Sunday church clothes we were off for a nice Sunday at church. Made a bit of a difference to the usual Sunday spent on the couch with a hangover.
Mark had also kindly hooked us up with an awesome Chevy Tahoe truck for us to use for the next five months and so that was another reason for our visit. Unfortunately though on Monday night when we were getting set to leave we discovered that a huge storm was about to hit Utah and we were actually going to be snowed in for an extra day! It is lucky that we didnt leave when we were planning to as there were 282 accidents reported on the stretch of road that we were heading for! So this morning we set off and the drive took 8 hours but we have just made it backsafe and sound. No more road trips for a little while as we have a ton of guests arriving in the next few weeks. (maybe I can show them the Jesus DVDs we have brought back with us ha ha)
OK well we are off to the pub there is no beer in Utah..
Caroline x
Well another weekend another road trip and this time we went to Utah to visit some friends. Things didn't start out well as I spent the first half of the week in bed seriously ill. I had fever, lost my voice and was coughing and spluttering like crazy. By Friday it was time to make the fifteen hour cross country journey but I really wasn't feeling up to it. We set off anyway - me clutching my box of tissues and bottle of vaporub and Jon trying to find any way to distract himself from my grumbling. The trip consisted of a short car ride, followed by an hour and a half bus journey to Glenwood Springs, followed by a 2 hour wait (which turned into a 4 hour wait) followed by a 7 hour train ride, followed finally by a 1 hour car ride! Phew.... So we finally arrived at The Becks' house in Mount Pleasant at about midnight on Friday and we were shattered as you can well imagine.
Now I would just like to list all the cool stuff that they have at their house in no particular order: 3 horsies, 2 dogs, a duck, a hot tub outside with a television, a cinema with a Nintendo Wii, a games room ( table football, pool etc), 4 snowmobiles, 3 Quad Bikes, 2 trucks etc etc etc so it isn't really the type of place that you can get bored easily!! As we were only staying for the weekend we had a lot to fit in. Day 1 - Snowmobiling.. Mark (dad) is an excellent snowmobiler and used to race them back when he was younger. Luckily they have four of them knocking around so we all took them out for a day on the mountain. That was fun - snowmobiling is like motorbiking but without the roads and other traffic to bother you. And those things go fast (well mine didn't I like to go slooooooow) but everyone was bombing around like lunatics and there was more than one moment when I felt like I was in a Bond Film! The day wasn't without it's disasters of course, at one point Jon had managed to go the wrong way only to find himself off the beaten track and on top of a cornice that could have collapsed at any moment and sent him plunging fifty feet into the valley quickly followed by an avalanche... he bailed out and then Mark had to go and rescue his machine!!
So after that we spent the night soaking in the hot tub and watching the X-Games and then off to bed. Sunday was an interesting day as our friends are mormens and so of course they spend Sunday at church and doing nice things for people. We decided to join them and after a quick wardrobe change into all their Sunday church clothes we were off for a nice Sunday at church. Made a bit of a difference to the usual Sunday spent on the couch with a hangover.
Mark had also kindly hooked us up with an awesome Chevy Tahoe truck for us to use for the next five months and so that was another reason for our visit. Unfortunately though on Monday night when we were getting set to leave we discovered that a huge storm was about to hit Utah and we were actually going to be snowed in for an extra day! It is lucky that we didnt leave when we were planning to as there were 282 accidents reported on the stretch of road that we were heading for! So this morning we set off and the drive took 8 hours but we have just made it backsafe and sound. No more road trips for a little while as we have a ton of guests arriving in the next few weeks. (maybe I can show them the Jesus DVDs we have brought back with us ha ha)
OK well we are off to the pub there is no beer in Utah..
Caroline x
Aspen Road Trip
January 21 2007
Last week was exceptionally cold even for here. An Arctic weather system had moved in and temps dropped to below -20 with wind chills of -25 (luckily we didnt experience anything as bad as that personally). Bloody Hell. Jon and me did manage to make it up the mountain most days but the place was pretty empty and we could only stand a couple of hours at most! I did hear yesterday someone telling me that this is Colorado's coldest winter on record - well I can believe it! So there really was only one thing to do and that was hit the bars and warm up. After a particularly drunken Friday night with a few friends we have met we decided to go on another road trip - this time to Aspen.
So early Saturday morning we all set off on the 99 mile drive to Aspen Mountain. We had thought that the X Games were going to be on but thats because we were too drunk to realise that they were in fact the weekend after so that was a shame I would love to have seen that. The drive there was pretty non-eventful (unlike the lastone), and we arrived at Snowmass in great time to hit the pistes for the day. Our friends coming from Denver weren't so lucky - it took them almost 7 hours to get there (including an hour spent trying to find somewhere to park) as it was Martin Luther King weekend and the whole of Denver was escaping to the mountains. Anyway they finally arrived at 1.30 so at least they could get in a nice half day... Snowmass is a huge mountain that still seemed to be nice and quiet despite the fact that it was one of the busiest weekends of the year and accomodation was fully booked out for a full 30 mile radius.. (we had more than one piste entirely to ourselves that day) Welcome to the States!
After that we had to head to the hotel which as I mentioned was more than 30 miles away - fine in the car, not so fine on the bus to take us back for the night out - that took an hour and twenty minutes!! On our way back two of our friend were so drunk that they didnt actually get off the bus when we woke them up at our stop and ended up stuck on the bus trying to persuade the driver to bring them back to our stop!! ha ha
The next day we stopped by Glenwood Springs to soak in the nice steaming hot water surrounded by snow covered mountains - that was nice...
We also managed to call the kids in Nepal it was so nice to hear their little voices saying "I am fine.. How are you?" over and over again (they got a bit shy for some reason!). So today it's snowing again I have been out running and we are just deciding wether to stay here and watch movies or go out and brave the cold.. life is tough!
Caroline x
Last week was exceptionally cold even for here. An Arctic weather system had moved in and temps dropped to below -20 with wind chills of -25 (luckily we didnt experience anything as bad as that personally). Bloody Hell. Jon and me did manage to make it up the mountain most days but the place was pretty empty and we could only stand a couple of hours at most! I did hear yesterday someone telling me that this is Colorado's coldest winter on record - well I can believe it! So there really was only one thing to do and that was hit the bars and warm up. After a particularly drunken Friday night with a few friends we have met we decided to go on another road trip - this time to Aspen.
So early Saturday morning we all set off on the 99 mile drive to Aspen Mountain. We had thought that the X Games were going to be on but thats because we were too drunk to realise that they were in fact the weekend after so that was a shame I would love to have seen that. The drive there was pretty non-eventful (unlike the lastone), and we arrived at Snowmass in great time to hit the pistes for the day. Our friends coming from Denver weren't so lucky - it took them almost 7 hours to get there (including an hour spent trying to find somewhere to park) as it was Martin Luther King weekend and the whole of Denver was escaping to the mountains. Anyway they finally arrived at 1.30 so at least they could get in a nice half day... Snowmass is a huge mountain that still seemed to be nice and quiet despite the fact that it was one of the busiest weekends of the year and accomodation was fully booked out for a full 30 mile radius.. (we had more than one piste entirely to ourselves that day) Welcome to the States!
After that we had to head to the hotel which as I mentioned was more than 30 miles away - fine in the car, not so fine on the bus to take us back for the night out - that took an hour and twenty minutes!! On our way back two of our friend were so drunk that they didnt actually get off the bus when we woke them up at our stop and ended up stuck on the bus trying to persuade the driver to bring them back to our stop!! ha ha
The next day we stopped by Glenwood Springs to soak in the nice steaming hot water surrounded by snow covered mountains - that was nice...
We also managed to call the kids in Nepal it was so nice to hear their little voices saying "I am fine.. How are you?" over and over again (they got a bit shy for some reason!). So today it's snowing again I have been out running and we are just deciding wether to stay here and watch movies or go out and brave the cold.. life is tough!
Caroline x
Denver - The Mile High City
January 14 2007
This weekend we decided to get out of Avon and do a bit of sight seeing. So we set off for Denver to check out the nightlife and also a few cars whilst we were there. We got a hire car from here and hit the road.. the conditions were horrendous. We were driving on about half a foot of packed snow (no tarmac in sight) on the freeway with more snow coming down and just to add the cherry to the cake every so often a huge gust of wind would blow all the snow off the mountain as a cloud around the car and then you simply couldn't see a thing. Now I am the WORST passenger ever in a car I shriek and yell at every corner or obstacle on quiet country roads so you can just imagine what I went through on this journey. I made myself feel physically sick with worry and poor Jon was ready to kill me by the time we arrived in Denver. OK not off to the best start - first stop Big Buffalos Car Lot where the owner tried to sell us a jeep with a crack that went from one side of the windscreen to the other... hmmm I'm sure they are ilegal at home. "Oh No" I was assured "totally legal in Colorado". I wasnt convinced - luckily we made a quick call to one of our friends over here who assured us that in fact we were right it wasn't legal!! Next stop - some ridiculously expensive car sales yard where the guy had misheard Jon on the phone and thought that we had $10k to spend.. they had in their forecourt the BIGGEST truck I have ever seen in my life and it was only a two seater. The salesman persevered trying to sell us one of their "cheaper" vehicles but when we started bargaining back Nepali style we were shown the door!
By this point we had been on the road for about 5 hours (a 69 mile journey) and I was tired hungry and developing a nasty cold so we decided to can the night out and go and get dinner - Mexican mmmmmm I have been living off Mexican since I got here its amazing and catch a movie. Rock and Roll eh? (The movie was great I can definitely recommend it Charlie Wilsons War with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts). So all in all Denver ended up being a bit of a flop and we drove back on Saturday after purchasing my brand new beautiful Apple MacBook Pro...
Sunday we decided to go mountain biking instead of snowboarding (but on the same terrain).. hmm that was fun the flatter sections of the track that had been packed down by the snow mobile were quite easy to ride on but once we got to the single track section it was totally impossible - Jon managed to ride some sections but we both did a few face plants into the snow and came out looking like snowmen by the end of it.. the mountains were beautiful though and we were across the valley from the skiing so we could see everyone bombing down in the distance. Colorado really is amazing to look at. So I will attach some photos for you and we are off to do some skiing now and try to get rid of this cold!!
Caroline x
This is the road section
This is the Single Track...
Denver Skyline
This weekend we decided to get out of Avon and do a bit of sight seeing. So we set off for Denver to check out the nightlife and also a few cars whilst we were there. We got a hire car from here and hit the road.. the conditions were horrendous. We were driving on about half a foot of packed snow (no tarmac in sight) on the freeway with more snow coming down and just to add the cherry to the cake every so often a huge gust of wind would blow all the snow off the mountain as a cloud around the car and then you simply couldn't see a thing. Now I am the WORST passenger ever in a car I shriek and yell at every corner or obstacle on quiet country roads so you can just imagine what I went through on this journey. I made myself feel physically sick with worry and poor Jon was ready to kill me by the time we arrived in Denver. OK not off to the best start - first stop Big Buffalos Car Lot where the owner tried to sell us a jeep with a crack that went from one side of the windscreen to the other... hmmm I'm sure they are ilegal at home. "Oh No" I was assured "totally legal in Colorado". I wasnt convinced - luckily we made a quick call to one of our friends over here who assured us that in fact we were right it wasn't legal!! Next stop - some ridiculously expensive car sales yard where the guy had misheard Jon on the phone and thought that we had $10k to spend.. they had in their forecourt the BIGGEST truck I have ever seen in my life and it was only a two seater. The salesman persevered trying to sell us one of their "cheaper" vehicles but when we started bargaining back Nepali style we were shown the door!
By this point we had been on the road for about 5 hours (a 69 mile journey) and I was tired hungry and developing a nasty cold so we decided to can the night out and go and get dinner - Mexican mmmmmm I have been living off Mexican since I got here its amazing and catch a movie. Rock and Roll eh? (The movie was great I can definitely recommend it Charlie Wilsons War with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts). So all in all Denver ended up being a bit of a flop and we drove back on Saturday after purchasing my brand new beautiful Apple MacBook Pro...
Sunday we decided to go mountain biking instead of snowboarding (but on the same terrain).. hmm that was fun the flatter sections of the track that had been packed down by the snow mobile were quite easy to ride on but once we got to the single track section it was totally impossible - Jon managed to ride some sections but we both did a few face plants into the snow and came out looking like snowmen by the end of it.. the mountains were beautiful though and we were across the valley from the skiing so we could see everyone bombing down in the distance. Colorado really is amazing to look at. So I will attach some photos for you and we are off to do some skiing now and try to get rid of this cold!!
Caroline x
This is the road section
This is the Single Track...
Denver Skyline
Monday, April 21, 2008
The U. S. of A.
December 28 2007
After a ridicoulously long journey we finally arrived at our appartment in Avon night before last. Our flat is amazing it must be twice the size of our old London flat even the bed is huge. Unfortunately we are still suffering from jet lag so as soon as we get in it we wake up and have to get out again!
So yesterday after a few hours sleep (we arrived at 1am and woke up around 5.30am) we stocked up on some munch and headed out to Beaver Creek to get a couple of hours of snowboarding in. After a bit of faffing around sorting out passes etc we were on the chair lift and OMG was it cold. I had checked out the weather report that morning and it had warned of highs of -10 C.. but I wasn't ready for quite what that means in reality. We were wearing all of our Nepal gear down jackets, thermals etc but it was no use it was absolutely freezing. The snow however was great and the runs were really nice and quiet even though this is supposedly the busiest time of year. We only managed a couple of runs and then headed down to Dusty Boots, a bar that had been recommended by a couple of locals we met ;)
Well Jon took one look at all the different micro beers on offer and we were settled for the night!!
We staggered home quite a few hours later and spent the rest of the night trying to stay awake and stave off jet lag. That was all in vain as we passed out at 8am and I spent the entire night waking up at 30 min intervals.. one time to catch Jon storming out of the bedroom to catch a burglar that he thought he had heard ha ha ha.
This morning there is a snow storm.. well like the saying says when the going gets tough the tough go shopping - I am now the proud owner of a beautiful K2 VVV board (which I don't actually know how to ride) with matching bindings and Jon stocked up on a few goodies too. Now we have to go out riding even though its even colder than yesterday!! Well at least there is fresh snow.. and of course there is always Dusty Boots...!
Caroline x
After a ridicoulously long journey we finally arrived at our appartment in Avon night before last. Our flat is amazing it must be twice the size of our old London flat even the bed is huge. Unfortunately we are still suffering from jet lag so as soon as we get in it we wake up and have to get out again!
So yesterday after a few hours sleep (we arrived at 1am and woke up around 5.30am) we stocked up on some munch and headed out to Beaver Creek to get a couple of hours of snowboarding in. After a bit of faffing around sorting out passes etc we were on the chair lift and OMG was it cold. I had checked out the weather report that morning and it had warned of highs of -10 C.. but I wasn't ready for quite what that means in reality. We were wearing all of our Nepal gear down jackets, thermals etc but it was no use it was absolutely freezing. The snow however was great and the runs were really nice and quiet even though this is supposedly the busiest time of year. We only managed a couple of runs and then headed down to Dusty Boots, a bar that had been recommended by a couple of locals we met ;)
Well Jon took one look at all the different micro beers on offer and we were settled for the night!!
We staggered home quite a few hours later and spent the rest of the night trying to stay awake and stave off jet lag. That was all in vain as we passed out at 8am and I spent the entire night waking up at 30 min intervals.. one time to catch Jon storming out of the bedroom to catch a burglar that he thought he had heard ha ha ha.
This morning there is a snow storm.. well like the saying says when the going gets tough the tough go shopping - I am now the proud owner of a beautiful K2 VVV board (which I don't actually know how to ride) with matching bindings and Jon stocked up on a few goodies too. Now we have to go out riding even though its even colder than yesterday!! Well at least there is fresh snow.. and of course there is always Dusty Boots...!
Caroline x
Merry Christmas!
December 25 2007
Well I know I have been EXTREMELY quiet on here for the past month but as you may have all gathered we left Nepal on the 4th December and have been in the UK seeing family and friends since then. Leaving Nepal turned out to be much more difficult than we thought I think most of the plane trip home was spent with little tears dribbling down my face. But getting home and seeing all our friends was great and now we are just getting ready to head out to the States. Obviously we are really excited about going to Colorado I can't actually believe it's happening to be honest.. So Merry Christmas everyone I will post all the photos once we hit the slopes on Saturday and let everyone know whats going on over there!!
Take care,
Caroline x
Well I know I have been EXTREMELY quiet on here for the past month but as you may have all gathered we left Nepal on the 4th December and have been in the UK seeing family and friends since then. Leaving Nepal turned out to be much more difficult than we thought I think most of the plane trip home was spent with little tears dribbling down my face. But getting home and seeing all our friends was great and now we are just getting ready to head out to the States. Obviously we are really excited about going to Colorado I can't actually believe it's happening to be honest.. So Merry Christmas everyone I will post all the photos once we hit the slopes on Saturday and let everyone know whats going on over there!!
Take care,
Caroline x
Nepal National Mountain Bike Championships 2007
November 26 2007
Just when we thought all our adventures were over..
I can't be bothered to write so I will tell the story in pictures!!
Friday evening we got the bus back to Kathmandu and Jon was already hatching a plan to get us to enter this the following morning...
So after an 8 hour bus journey we trawled Thamel for bikes to rent and some gear helmets, gloves etc...
An early night to bed and a 5am start later we were on the bus with Joe from the US, who is currently touring Asia on his bike pulling a trailer and Ed from Bristol.
I might just add at this point that I have never raced in a mountain bike event before and so to start with a National Championships might seem a bit ambitious. In Nepal though anything is possible...
I might also point out that I have ridden a bike once in the past five months.
Getting ready.. this is me, Ed and Joe
Me and The T
So the course was pretty technical but the crowds were amazing they were treating it like it was some sort of festival or something. Around every corner they would be waiting to cheer you on - sometimes they jumped out in front of you which was a bit tricky when you were pelting down some rocky staircase at 30mph ;) but they were great. If you had time to look at the views they were stunning the weather has cleared up and you can literally see the Himalayas from every direction.
So in my category there were 11 girls (mostly from Australia) BUT I managed to come 3rd ha ha!!
That is the first and last time I will even be allowed to enter a competition with the words "National" and "Championships" in the title so I am milking it for everything its worth!
See below shaking hands with someone very important and receiving my Prize!!
ha ha ha ha ha
Just when we thought all our adventures were over..
I can't be bothered to write so I will tell the story in pictures!!
Friday evening we got the bus back to Kathmandu and Jon was already hatching a plan to get us to enter this the following morning...
So after an 8 hour bus journey we trawled Thamel for bikes to rent and some gear helmets, gloves etc...
An early night to bed and a 5am start later we were on the bus with Joe from the US, who is currently touring Asia on his bike pulling a trailer and Ed from Bristol.
I might just add at this point that I have never raced in a mountain bike event before and so to start with a National Championships might seem a bit ambitious. In Nepal though anything is possible...
I might also point out that I have ridden a bike once in the past five months.
Getting ready.. this is me, Ed and Joe
Me and The T
So the course was pretty technical but the crowds were amazing they were treating it like it was some sort of festival or something. Around every corner they would be waiting to cheer you on - sometimes they jumped out in front of you which was a bit tricky when you were pelting down some rocky staircase at 30mph ;) but they were great. If you had time to look at the views they were stunning the weather has cleared up and you can literally see the Himalayas from every direction.
So in my category there were 11 girls (mostly from Australia) BUT I managed to come 3rd ha ha!!
That is the first and last time I will even be allowed to enter a competition with the words "National" and "Championships" in the title so I am milking it for everything its worth!
See below shaking hands with someone very important and receiving my Prize!!
ha ha ha ha ha
Biker Chic?
November 18 2007
Looking cool..
Jon and Rik on the road to India
The Migster
The mountain bike trip
I am going to get a total bollocking for this as soon as mama lea gets her hands on me but it is too late now. First I should explain..
Since all of the bad things that happened in Kathmandu we decided that we were going to treat ourselves a bit and start enjoying life ;)
So instead of living at the orphanage this time we checked into a hotel on the lake - I have to say the view from our balcony is stunning. Now we can eat what we like whenever we like it (which I can tell you is a total luxury) and our time is our own to do with whatever we choose.
Pokhara is an outdoor lovers paradise there is so much to do here. The great thing is that whatever your sport - there is usually someone in Pokhara who is pretty serious about it.
Among those people there is an English guy whose passion is motorcycles. He moved here from London four years ago with his wife from Holland and they make customised bikes, teach people how to ride, and also run bike tours all around the country. His bikes are pretty amazing each one is a piece of art really.
So... Me and The Turnip decided to take motorcycle lessons.. now parents before you start worrying I would just like to say that we have spent a whole week having lessons and practicing, first in a camping ground where there was no traffic and finally out onto the roads. Rik (our teacher) used to be a race rider and as such he really knows how to handle a bike and he is a great teacher.
I have to say that it was TOTALLY AWESOME. It is one of the funnest things I have ever done. The roads here are incredibly beautiful with the scenery changing every few minutes. There are some crazy drivers but we have been taught how to ride a bike properly and I have to say that it feels a hell of a lot safer than riding my bicycle. Well for anyone who has ridden a bike I don't need to tell you how good it is!
Sorry parents...
In between motorbiking we also decided to do a bit of hiking, climbing and mountain biking. Yesterday we went out with the mountain bike club which was a bit more work than the days spent on the motorbike but just as fun. We rode up to the top of one of our nearby hills and then flew back down the other side. The club sent two little kids with us as well as two experienced guides (they currently rank in the top 10 riders in the country). I think the kids had been sent to look after me while the guys did some harder stuff with Jon. But once we got to the top they all started fighting to go with Jon down the fast route as I was going to be taking the slower one.. thats ok not embarrassing at all.
As well as all of that we have done some hikes up to Sarangkot which is just breathtaking and of course we manage to fit playing with the orphans in every day too! They were so excited to see us again I had feared that they may not even remember us but they all ran out shouting and cheering when we arrived. We plan to stay here until Friday and then head back to Kathmandu where we are trying to finalise some financials over the sponsoring of an orphanage here.
Oh and did I mention it's my birthday today??? The T-Man has got me a pretty cool present but I will tell you all about that when it arrives!
Caroline x
Looking cool..
Jon and Rik on the road to India
The Migster
The mountain bike trip
I am going to get a total bollocking for this as soon as mama lea gets her hands on me but it is too late now. First I should explain..
Since all of the bad things that happened in Kathmandu we decided that we were going to treat ourselves a bit and start enjoying life ;)
So instead of living at the orphanage this time we checked into a hotel on the lake - I have to say the view from our balcony is stunning. Now we can eat what we like whenever we like it (which I can tell you is a total luxury) and our time is our own to do with whatever we choose.
Pokhara is an outdoor lovers paradise there is so much to do here. The great thing is that whatever your sport - there is usually someone in Pokhara who is pretty serious about it.
Among those people there is an English guy whose passion is motorcycles. He moved here from London four years ago with his wife from Holland and they make customised bikes, teach people how to ride, and also run bike tours all around the country. His bikes are pretty amazing each one is a piece of art really.
So... Me and The Turnip decided to take motorcycle lessons.. now parents before you start worrying I would just like to say that we have spent a whole week having lessons and practicing, first in a camping ground where there was no traffic and finally out onto the roads. Rik (our teacher) used to be a race rider and as such he really knows how to handle a bike and he is a great teacher.
I have to say that it was TOTALLY AWESOME. It is one of the funnest things I have ever done. The roads here are incredibly beautiful with the scenery changing every few minutes. There are some crazy drivers but we have been taught how to ride a bike properly and I have to say that it feels a hell of a lot safer than riding my bicycle. Well for anyone who has ridden a bike I don't need to tell you how good it is!
Sorry parents...
In between motorbiking we also decided to do a bit of hiking, climbing and mountain biking. Yesterday we went out with the mountain bike club which was a bit more work than the days spent on the motorbike but just as fun. We rode up to the top of one of our nearby hills and then flew back down the other side. The club sent two little kids with us as well as two experienced guides (they currently rank in the top 10 riders in the country). I think the kids had been sent to look after me while the guys did some harder stuff with Jon. But once we got to the top they all started fighting to go with Jon down the fast route as I was going to be taking the slower one.. thats ok not embarrassing at all.
As well as all of that we have done some hikes up to Sarangkot which is just breathtaking and of course we manage to fit playing with the orphans in every day too! They were so excited to see us again I had feared that they may not even remember us but they all ran out shouting and cheering when we arrived. We plan to stay here until Friday and then head back to Kathmandu where we are trying to finalise some financials over the sponsoring of an orphanage here.
Oh and did I mention it's my birthday today??? The T-Man has got me a pretty cool present but I will tell you all about that when it arrives!
Caroline x
Bad Things
November 3 2007
Well we have been back for just over a week - in fact we leave for the UK 3 weeks today but I won't start ranting on about that because it's all Jon and me have been able to talk about for the PAST 3 weeks ha ha!
Some bad things happened to me since getting back I will tell you about them.
The first bad thing is that upon returning to our family's house in Kathmandu we found out that it had become infested with rats due to some broken window incident... I can tell you that rats in Nepal are somewhat bigger than the local farm kind in the UK and at night we would have to lock the bedroom doors, barricade them and then sit inside listening to the rats screech and fight and try to claw their way into our rooms.. mmmm nice. When we woke up (as if we slept) and needed to go to the toilet it was a two-person mission to make sure that neither of us got bitten and that none of the rats got into our room.
On one of the nights it had gotten a bit much so one of the volunteers
took matters into his own hands, grabbed one of the little critters and then promptly spiked him with a trekking pole. Yes very nice.
After that little episode you can imagine that we were quite glad to leave them to sort out the rat problem without us whilst we swanned off to Pokhara. So we stayed in a hotel in Thamel the night before we took that HORRID eight hour bus journey again AND... that is where the second bad thing happened.
I got EATEN ALIVE by bed bugs. I can tell you that being eaten by bed bugs is an extremely unpleasant experience. The little bastards bite you very hard and the lumps and swellings do not go away (nor do they stop hurting) for one week!! I actually had almost twenty bites just on my neck and Jon did not have a single one! So as I sit here now I am itching and scratching away in pain. I have a photo, evidence of my suffering which I may put on here.
The last bad thing is that yesterday I gave myself food poisoning - some little twit down the road tried to poison me with a rotten egg so I spent the day puking in my toilet.....
Well they do say bad things come in threes.....
Caroline x
Well we have been back for just over a week - in fact we leave for the UK 3 weeks today but I won't start ranting on about that because it's all Jon and me have been able to talk about for the PAST 3 weeks ha ha!
Some bad things happened to me since getting back I will tell you about them.
The first bad thing is that upon returning to our family's house in Kathmandu we found out that it had become infested with rats due to some broken window incident... I can tell you that rats in Nepal are somewhat bigger than the local farm kind in the UK and at night we would have to lock the bedroom doors, barricade them and then sit inside listening to the rats screech and fight and try to claw their way into our rooms.. mmmm nice. When we woke up (as if we slept) and needed to go to the toilet it was a two-person mission to make sure that neither of us got bitten and that none of the rats got into our room.
On one of the nights it had gotten a bit much so one of the volunteers
took matters into his own hands, grabbed one of the little critters and then promptly spiked him with a trekking pole. Yes very nice.
After that little episode you can imagine that we were quite glad to leave them to sort out the rat problem without us whilst we swanned off to Pokhara. So we stayed in a hotel in Thamel the night before we took that HORRID eight hour bus journey again AND... that is where the second bad thing happened.
I got EATEN ALIVE by bed bugs. I can tell you that being eaten by bed bugs is an extremely unpleasant experience. The little bastards bite you very hard and the lumps and swellings do not go away (nor do they stop hurting) for one week!! I actually had almost twenty bites just on my neck and Jon did not have a single one! So as I sit here now I am itching and scratching away in pain. I have a photo, evidence of my suffering which I may put on here.
The last bad thing is that yesterday I gave myself food poisoning - some little twit down the road tried to poison me with a rotten egg so I spent the day puking in my toilet.....
Well they do say bad things come in threes.....
Caroline x
The Trip - Part 2
November 7 2007
I think I got as far as Everest Base Camp last time so I shall continue.
When we first arrivd on the trek we had all of our backpacks as well as three huge duffel bags full of climbing equipment. We had employed one porter, Lapa, who devised a complicated logistical system on a schedule that differed to our own so that he could scurry up and down the mountain depositing the duffel bags in various locations where we wold need them and we would be free to carry our (still rather heavy) backpacks. Once we reached Gorak Shep though we had to share the weight between us and carry it together the remaining few hours to EBC.
I can't tell you how incredibly difficult this was - we really got a taste of what it was like to be Lapa - he carried 50kgs (he does not weigh that much) and still he hopped along ahead pausing only to wait for us along the way! Well finally we arrived and not a moment too soon we were totally exhausted, the weather was baltic and of course Jon was starving...!
I mentioned that the first few nights we found it quite difficult to sleep. This was due to a number of things there were the altitude headaches, but then there were also the avalanches that go off every couple of hours. Great thundering booming avalanches that you are sure are going to reach the tents this time.. and finally there is the glacier. We camped our tents on the actual glacier and the thing about glaciers is that they are constantly on the move and all throughout the night you would hear a huge crack when the ice would split and a whole mound of rock and rubble would just pour straight into the newly formed hole. Well of course we WERE one of these mounds of rubble and so it made it quite hard to relax as you can well imagine. After a few nights of this we weren't as bothered by all the noise and sleep was a little easier but the first couple of nights we did often look at eachother and wonder what on earth we were doing!!!
I thought I would just also tell you what we ate whilst at base camp. Breakfast - "Sherpa Porridge" - flour, sugar, butter, hot water
Lunch and Dinner - Noodles
We spent most nights dreaming about some food or another , which is basically all we have done since we got to Nepal but it was a million times magnified on the trek!
Right so 6 days after arriving we set off back down to a town called Dingboche where we were to have a rest day and let our bodies recover slightly before the final summit attempt of Island Peak. It took around 7 hours to walk to Dingboche and we were all really in the mood for a celebration by that point. Chang is a mountain beer made from (you guessed it) RICE! It is actually pretty good and so the first thing we ordered was a big jug of it. The lodge owners, realising it was a special occasion decided to get us an extra special Chang. So they warmed it up, added a raw egg and a knob of yak butter and voila ?Mountain Champagne!! mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
So the final section of our trek was the Island Peak Climb. We trekked to our base camp (5000m) from Dingboche which was an exceedingly strenuous day and the next day to our high camp (5400m). After we set up camp we ate (alot), drank and generally just lazed around. Jon went to the glacier to cut ice for us to melt but I did very little. The walk there had actually been a long climb over the moraine and there was a point where I had becme seperated from the group and had actually gotten so scared I almost cried. That sounds a bit silly but climbing on that stuff is seriously dangerous if you do not know exactly where to put your feet and I was carrying a pack and trying to scramble over boulders the size of a small house.. anyway thankfully Jon had come to save me and arrived just in the nick of time (before I had a breakdown!!). We then climbed the remaining section together and vowed to stay that way until we got down!
Summit Day:
We woke up at 2.30am hoping to beat any other climbers on the mountain. Unfortunately by the time we left at 3 there were already 2 groups (around 20 people) ahead of us so we were a bit disappointed. BUT! Lo and behold within half an hour we had overtaken all of them! Grown men mountaineers!! I was very proud as I had been worried that I would slow Jon and Tendi down. We reached the crampon point in 1hr - around half the time we had estimated! I was pretty happy by this point and starting to think for the first time that we would actually make the top.
We roped up and headed out over the cravass field - we were by now way ahead of the other climbers and had the whole mountain to ourselves. Climbing to the light of our headtorches and the moonlight was absolutely beautiful. There were a million stars in the sky twinkling away with the Himalaya as a backdrop. If my lungs weren't about to explode I would have had a tear in my eye!
It takes around an hour to cross the cravass field and then you see IT. IT is a sheer almost vertical ice wall (say 80 degrees) that is about a 200m climb. Gulp. So up we went climbing in a three with Tendi leading the climb putting in protection as we went and me gasping and gulping for air the entire way!! After that you have a further climb up a (rather narrow) ridge to the summit! Unfortunately on the ridge the winds reach around 60mph but when we reached the summit at 6.25am the winds stopped and the sun came up and it was absolutely INCREDIBLE!!!
After some photos we headed down to pass all the other climbers on the cravass field, we had overtaken them by at least an hour so I was so proud of how well and quickly we had summited. Tendi says we beat his fastest group by over an hour and all the other Sherpas were radioing eachother to say that there was this crazy group of English racing to the top!!
It was awesome, one of the most amazing things I have ever done. We were sad to leave but there was a lot of beer on the way down.
Got to go now but everything else is a bit boring after all of that!
Caroline x
The ridge we traversed is just behind us
Another one at the top (I am just showing off now!). Temp is around -30 C
I think I got as far as Everest Base Camp last time so I shall continue.
When we first arrivd on the trek we had all of our backpacks as well as three huge duffel bags full of climbing equipment. We had employed one porter, Lapa, who devised a complicated logistical system on a schedule that differed to our own so that he could scurry up and down the mountain depositing the duffel bags in various locations where we wold need them and we would be free to carry our (still rather heavy) backpacks. Once we reached Gorak Shep though we had to share the weight between us and carry it together the remaining few hours to EBC.
I can't tell you how incredibly difficult this was - we really got a taste of what it was like to be Lapa - he carried 50kgs (he does not weigh that much) and still he hopped along ahead pausing only to wait for us along the way! Well finally we arrived and not a moment too soon we were totally exhausted, the weather was baltic and of course Jon was starving...!
I mentioned that the first few nights we found it quite difficult to sleep. This was due to a number of things there were the altitude headaches, but then there were also the avalanches that go off every couple of hours. Great thundering booming avalanches that you are sure are going to reach the tents this time.. and finally there is the glacier. We camped our tents on the actual glacier and the thing about glaciers is that they are constantly on the move and all throughout the night you would hear a huge crack when the ice would split and a whole mound of rock and rubble would just pour straight into the newly formed hole. Well of course we WERE one of these mounds of rubble and so it made it quite hard to relax as you can well imagine. After a few nights of this we weren't as bothered by all the noise and sleep was a little easier but the first couple of nights we did often look at eachother and wonder what on earth we were doing!!!
I thought I would just also tell you what we ate whilst at base camp. Breakfast - "Sherpa Porridge" - flour, sugar, butter, hot water
Lunch and Dinner - Noodles
We spent most nights dreaming about some food or another , which is basically all we have done since we got to Nepal but it was a million times magnified on the trek!
Right so 6 days after arriving we set off back down to a town called Dingboche where we were to have a rest day and let our bodies recover slightly before the final summit attempt of Island Peak. It took around 7 hours to walk to Dingboche and we were all really in the mood for a celebration by that point. Chang is a mountain beer made from (you guessed it) RICE! It is actually pretty good and so the first thing we ordered was a big jug of it. The lodge owners, realising it was a special occasion decided to get us an extra special Chang. So they warmed it up, added a raw egg and a knob of yak butter and voila ?Mountain Champagne!! mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
So the final section of our trek was the Island Peak Climb. We trekked to our base camp (5000m) from Dingboche which was an exceedingly strenuous day and the next day to our high camp (5400m). After we set up camp we ate (alot), drank and generally just lazed around. Jon went to the glacier to cut ice for us to melt but I did very little. The walk there had actually been a long climb over the moraine and there was a point where I had becme seperated from the group and had actually gotten so scared I almost cried. That sounds a bit silly but climbing on that stuff is seriously dangerous if you do not know exactly where to put your feet and I was carrying a pack and trying to scramble over boulders the size of a small house.. anyway thankfully Jon had come to save me and arrived just in the nick of time (before I had a breakdown!!). We then climbed the remaining section together and vowed to stay that way until we got down!
Summit Day:
We woke up at 2.30am hoping to beat any other climbers on the mountain. Unfortunately by the time we left at 3 there were already 2 groups (around 20 people) ahead of us so we were a bit disappointed. BUT! Lo and behold within half an hour we had overtaken all of them! Grown men mountaineers!! I was very proud as I had been worried that I would slow Jon and Tendi down. We reached the crampon point in 1hr - around half the time we had estimated! I was pretty happy by this point and starting to think for the first time that we would actually make the top.
We roped up and headed out over the cravass field - we were by now way ahead of the other climbers and had the whole mountain to ourselves. Climbing to the light of our headtorches and the moonlight was absolutely beautiful. There were a million stars in the sky twinkling away with the Himalaya as a backdrop. If my lungs weren't about to explode I would have had a tear in my eye!
It takes around an hour to cross the cravass field and then you see IT. IT is a sheer almost vertical ice wall (say 80 degrees) that is about a 200m climb. Gulp. So up we went climbing in a three with Tendi leading the climb putting in protection as we went and me gasping and gulping for air the entire way!! After that you have a further climb up a (rather narrow) ridge to the summit! Unfortunately on the ridge the winds reach around 60mph but when we reached the summit at 6.25am the winds stopped and the sun came up and it was absolutely INCREDIBLE!!!
After some photos we headed down to pass all the other climbers on the cravass field, we had overtaken them by at least an hour so I was so proud of how well and quickly we had summited. Tendi says we beat his fastest group by over an hour and all the other Sherpas were radioing eachother to say that there was this crazy group of English racing to the top!!
It was awesome, one of the most amazing things I have ever done. We were sad to leave but there was a lot of beer on the way down.
Got to go now but everything else is a bit boring after all of that!
Caroline x
The ridge we traversed is just behind us
Another one at the top (I am just showing off now!). Temp is around -30 C
The Trip - Part 1
November 5 2007
Ok I will start at the beginning and see how far I get this morning as I am a bit busy and need to miss the early morning traffic.
The beginning is The Flight. So you get on this little mini plane that seats around 8-10 people and off you whizz over the hills that get bigger and bigger until they turn into mountains and all the time you seem to just be skimming the tops of them. And then you get to The Runway. So this is a 500m strip of concrete built into the slant of the hill with a cliff drop at one end (to aid take-off) and a stone wall at the other (to aid landing). OMG. Well I was pretty much screaming throughout the entire flight in both directions and the Air Hostess even came to sit next to me and hold my hand bless her.
Ok so after we had landed to be honest that was about enough adventure for one day for me - luckily it was just a short walk to Padking where we were staying the ngiht. It took us 3 days to walk to Thame which was going to be our home for 8 days and do our rock climbing. Thame is 3 days walk from Tibet and the Tibetan influence is really prominent in everything from the food to the decor. Thame often felt like the ends of the earth with its barren landscape and hostile climate. It should not have been as cold and cloudy as it was but there was still a late monsoon in the Bay of Bengal that was also affecting the weather in the mountains. So everyday we would wake up and at 8and trek over to The Rock, set up our gear and get climbing. I must admit that the half an hour trek over to The Rock was often a time filled with dread for me as I am not used to hanging off a cliff face attached by only a rope to another rope and trusting that my climbing partner (Jon) has done everything perfectly otherwise it is of course certain death.
We learnt various rescue techniques (all of which I must say are pretty clever as they only use a few bits of rope and they can pretty much rescue any climber from any disaster), multi-pitch climbing, lead climbing, various rope techniques etc. On the final day we climbed the entire rock face (240m) which was 4 pitches and then rapelled down. Jon and I did it entirely on our own so we were quite proud of our achievement. It was an amazing experience but as a novice I think for me I would have liked to just mess around on something easy for a few weeks rather than being thrown in at the deep end (as usual). Of course we had some little friends - some very cute tibetan kids who followed us to The Rock every day and would just stand and watch us for hours - every so often clambering up The Rock themselves with no harnesses or ropes to keep them safe - then we would all start screaming for them to get down and their huge red cheeks (from all the red blood cells)would retreat back to the grass!
We had one rest day in Thame where it was decided that a good rest would be to climb a little 5000m rocky peak just next to the village to help acclimatise (Thame is 3800m). So thats what we did which took about 7 hours so I was even more exhausted than when we started.
After 8 days we headed back through Namche Bazaar to Everest Base Camp where we were going to learn Ice Climbing for 6 days. It took us 5 days to trek there as we would be going up almost another 2000m and we needed to be careful - by this point we had seen numerous guides and clients being taken off the mountain due to AMS. As we went up the temperature went down.. down down down. By the time we reached EBC the temp would be around -10 in the evenings without wind chill factor. Our first night at EBC was pretty sleepless. We both had bad headaches, it was the coldest environment I have ever been in and basically we were both exhausted. Jon was suffering from the altitude more than we had thought or he was letting on. The next day he confessed that he had spent the entire night plottting to pack up his bags and run off down the mountain on his own.. which just shows you how your mind gets affected by AMS. After the second night we had all settled down and were sleeping much better. Although it is hard - basically at 5pm the sun would go behind the mountains and the temperature would immediately drop to below zero. At this point you would need to go into your tent because it was so cold and the sun was not to return until 8am - so you can see this is rather a long time to spend in a tent every day. We would devise many ways to stay awake and talk past 7pm so that we could actually sleep through until the morning. We even meticulously devised a pub crawl through London when we get back with travel routes, budgets, timelines etc!!!
All through the nights the winds would rage and blow all the icicles off the tent walls into our sleeping bags where they would promptly melt and soak us.. but it was all good fun!! We would wake up to Italian coffee and then head out onto the Glacier to Ice Climb - which was actually great fun whacking the Ice with your axes and crampons.. the only problem was that at 5400m everything is rather a lot more tiring than it is at sea level!! After 5 hrs of it we were thoroughly exhausted and would go over to sit with the guides of the Thai expedition on Everest (a reality TV show ha ha) and moan about how useless everyone was apart from us ;)
Ok so I have to dash now I will write up our summit attempt in a few days when I get back to an internet!
Only just over 4 weeks till we come home I cant believe how fast time is flying by - but hopefully see some of you when we get back (for the Pub Crawl)!!
Caroline xx
Our little mate all dressed up in our clothes - he actually followed us around for 3 days before he dared to speak to us! He would just wait outside the hotel all morning till we came out and then just follow 10 paces behind stopping whenever we did and standing 8in the freezing winds in his dads ripped trousers patiently waiting!
Ok I will start at the beginning and see how far I get this morning as I am a bit busy and need to miss the early morning traffic.
The beginning is The Flight. So you get on this little mini plane that seats around 8-10 people and off you whizz over the hills that get bigger and bigger until they turn into mountains and all the time you seem to just be skimming the tops of them. And then you get to The Runway. So this is a 500m strip of concrete built into the slant of the hill with a cliff drop at one end (to aid take-off) and a stone wall at the other (to aid landing). OMG. Well I was pretty much screaming throughout the entire flight in both directions and the Air Hostess even came to sit next to me and hold my hand bless her.
Ok so after we had landed to be honest that was about enough adventure for one day for me - luckily it was just a short walk to Padking where we were staying the ngiht. It took us 3 days to walk to Thame which was going to be our home for 8 days and do our rock climbing. Thame is 3 days walk from Tibet and the Tibetan influence is really prominent in everything from the food to the decor. Thame often felt like the ends of the earth with its barren landscape and hostile climate. It should not have been as cold and cloudy as it was but there was still a late monsoon in the Bay of Bengal that was also affecting the weather in the mountains. So everyday we would wake up and at 8and trek over to The Rock, set up our gear and get climbing. I must admit that the half an hour trek over to The Rock was often a time filled with dread for me as I am not used to hanging off a cliff face attached by only a rope to another rope and trusting that my climbing partner (Jon) has done everything perfectly otherwise it is of course certain death.
We learnt various rescue techniques (all of which I must say are pretty clever as they only use a few bits of rope and they can pretty much rescue any climber from any disaster), multi-pitch climbing, lead climbing, various rope techniques etc. On the final day we climbed the entire rock face (240m) which was 4 pitches and then rapelled down. Jon and I did it entirely on our own so we were quite proud of our achievement. It was an amazing experience but as a novice I think for me I would have liked to just mess around on something easy for a few weeks rather than being thrown in at the deep end (as usual). Of course we had some little friends - some very cute tibetan kids who followed us to The Rock every day and would just stand and watch us for hours - every so often clambering up The Rock themselves with no harnesses or ropes to keep them safe - then we would all start screaming for them to get down and their huge red cheeks (from all the red blood cells)would retreat back to the grass!
We had one rest day in Thame where it was decided that a good rest would be to climb a little 5000m rocky peak just next to the village to help acclimatise (Thame is 3800m). So thats what we did which took about 7 hours so I was even more exhausted than when we started.
After 8 days we headed back through Namche Bazaar to Everest Base Camp where we were going to learn Ice Climbing for 6 days. It took us 5 days to trek there as we would be going up almost another 2000m and we needed to be careful - by this point we had seen numerous guides and clients being taken off the mountain due to AMS. As we went up the temperature went down.. down down down. By the time we reached EBC the temp would be around -10 in the evenings without wind chill factor. Our first night at EBC was pretty sleepless. We both had bad headaches, it was the coldest environment I have ever been in and basically we were both exhausted. Jon was suffering from the altitude more than we had thought or he was letting on. The next day he confessed that he had spent the entire night plottting to pack up his bags and run off down the mountain on his own.. which just shows you how your mind gets affected by AMS. After the second night we had all settled down and were sleeping much better. Although it is hard - basically at 5pm the sun would go behind the mountains and the temperature would immediately drop to below zero. At this point you would need to go into your tent because it was so cold and the sun was not to return until 8am - so you can see this is rather a long time to spend in a tent every day. We would devise many ways to stay awake and talk past 7pm so that we could actually sleep through until the morning. We even meticulously devised a pub crawl through London when we get back with travel routes, budgets, timelines etc!!!
All through the nights the winds would rage and blow all the icicles off the tent walls into our sleeping bags where they would promptly melt and soak us.. but it was all good fun!! We would wake up to Italian coffee and then head out onto the Glacier to Ice Climb - which was actually great fun whacking the Ice with your axes and crampons.. the only problem was that at 5400m everything is rather a lot more tiring than it is at sea level!! After 5 hrs of it we were thoroughly exhausted and would go over to sit with the guides of the Thai expedition on Everest (a reality TV show ha ha) and moan about how useless everyone was apart from us ;)
Ok so I have to dash now I will write up our summit attempt in a few days when I get back to an internet!
Only just over 4 weeks till we come home I cant believe how fast time is flying by - but hopefully see some of you when we get back (for the Pub Crawl)!!
Caroline xx
Our little mate all dressed up in our clothes - he actually followed us around for 3 days before he dared to speak to us! He would just wait outside the hotel all morning till we came out and then just follow 10 paces behind stopping whenever we did and standing 8in the freezing winds in his dads ripped trousers patiently waiting!
The Trip - Part 1
November 5 2007
Ok I will start at the beginning and see how far I get this morning as I am a bit busy and need to miss the early morning traffic.
The beginning is The Flight. So you get on this little mini plane that seats around 8-10 people and off you whizz over the hills that get bigger and bigger until they turn into mountains and all the time you seem to just be skimming the tops of them. And then you get to The Runway. So this is a 500m strip of concrete built into the slant of the hill with a cliff drop at one end (to aid take-off) and a stone wall at the other (to aid landing). OMG. Well I was pretty much screaming throughout the entire flight in both directions and the Air Hostess even came to sit next to me and hold my hand bless her.
Ok so after we had landed to be honest that was about enough adventure for one day for me - luckily it was just a short walk to Padking where we were staying the ngiht. It took us 3 days to walk to Thame which was going to be our home for 8 days and do our rock climbing. Thame is 3 days walk from Tibet and the Tibetan influence is really prominent in everything from the food to the decor. Thame often felt like the ends of the earth with its barren landscape and hostile climate. It should not have been as cold and cloudy as it was but there was still a late monsoon in the Bay of Bengal that was also affecting the weather in the mountains. So everyday we would wake up and at 8and trek over to The Rock, set up our gear and get climbing. I must admit that the half an hour trek over to The Rock was often a time filled with dread for me as I am not used to hanging off a cliff face attached by only a rope to another rope and trusting that my climbing partner (Jon) has done everything perfectly otherwise it is of course certain death.
We learnt various rescue techniques (all of which I must say are pretty clever as they only use a few bits of rope and they can pretty much rescue any climber from any disaster), multi-pitch climbing, lead climbing, various rope techniques etc. On the final day we climbed the entire rock face (240m) which was 4 pitches and then rapelled down. Jon and I did it entirely on our own so we were quite proud of our achievement. It was an amazing experience but as a novice I think for me I would have liked to just mess around on something easy for a few weeks rather than being thrown in at the deep end (as usual). Of course we had some little friends - some very cute tibetan kids who followed us to The Rock every day and would just stand and watch us for hours - every so often clambering up The Rock themselves with no harnesses or ropes to keep them safe - then we would all start screaming for them to get down and their huge red cheeks (from all the red blood cells)would retreat back to the grass!
We had one rest day in Thame where it was decided that a good rest would be to climb a little 5000m rocky peak just next to the village to help acclimatise (Thame is 3800m). So thats what we did which took about 7 hours so I was even more exhausted than when we started.
After 8 days we headed back through Namche Bazaar to Everest Base Camp where we were going to learn Ice Climbing for 6 days. It took us 5 days to trek there as we would be going up almost another 2000m and we needed to be careful - by this point we had seen numerous guides and clients being taken off the mountain due to AMS. As we went up the temperature went down.. down down down. By the time we reached EBC the temp would be around -10 in the evenings without wind chill factor. Our first night at EBC was pretty sleepless. We both had bad headaches, it was the coldest environment I have ever been in and basically we were both exhausted. Jon was suffering from the altitude more than we had thought or he was letting on. The next day he confessed that he had spent the entire night plottting to pack up his bags and run off down the mountain on his own.. which just shows you how your mind gets affected by AMS. After the second night we had all settled down and were sleeping much better. Although it is hard - basically at 5pm the sun would go behind the mountains and the temperature would immediately drop to below zero. At this point you would need to go into your tent because it was so cold and the sun was not to return until 8am - so you can see this is rather a long time to spend in a tent every day. We would devise many ways to stay awake and talk past 7pm so that we could actually sleep through until the morning. We even meticulously devised a pub crawl through London when we get back with travel routes, budgets, timelines etc!!!
All through the nights the winds would rage and blow all the icicles off the tent walls into our sleeping bags where they would promptly melt and soak us.. but it was all good fun!! We would wake up to Italian coffee and then head out onto the Glacier to Ice Climb - which was actually great fun whacking the Ice with your axes and crampons.. the only problem was that at 5400m everything is rather a lot more tiring than it is at sea level!! After 5 hrs of it we were thoroughly exhausted and would go over to sit with the guides of the Thai expedition on Everest (a reality TV show ha ha) and moan about how useless everyone was apart from us ;)
Ok so I have to dash now I will write up our summit attempt in a few days when I get back to an internet!
Only just over 4 weeks till we come home I cant believe how fast time is flying by - but hopefully see some of you when we get back (for the Pub Crawl)!!
Caroline xx
Our little mate all dressed up in our clothes - he actually followed us around for 3 days before he dared to speak to us! He would just wait outside the hotel all morning till we came out and then just follow 10 paces behind stopping whenever we did and standing 8in the freezing winds in his dads ripped trousers patiently waiting!
Ok I will start at the beginning and see how far I get this morning as I am a bit busy and need to miss the early morning traffic.
The beginning is The Flight. So you get on this little mini plane that seats around 8-10 people and off you whizz over the hills that get bigger and bigger until they turn into mountains and all the time you seem to just be skimming the tops of them. And then you get to The Runway. So this is a 500m strip of concrete built into the slant of the hill with a cliff drop at one end (to aid take-off) and a stone wall at the other (to aid landing). OMG. Well I was pretty much screaming throughout the entire flight in both directions and the Air Hostess even came to sit next to me and hold my hand bless her.
Ok so after we had landed to be honest that was about enough adventure for one day for me - luckily it was just a short walk to Padking where we were staying the ngiht. It took us 3 days to walk to Thame which was going to be our home for 8 days and do our rock climbing. Thame is 3 days walk from Tibet and the Tibetan influence is really prominent in everything from the food to the decor. Thame often felt like the ends of the earth with its barren landscape and hostile climate. It should not have been as cold and cloudy as it was but there was still a late monsoon in the Bay of Bengal that was also affecting the weather in the mountains. So everyday we would wake up and at 8and trek over to The Rock, set up our gear and get climbing. I must admit that the half an hour trek over to The Rock was often a time filled with dread for me as I am not used to hanging off a cliff face attached by only a rope to another rope and trusting that my climbing partner (Jon) has done everything perfectly otherwise it is of course certain death.
We learnt various rescue techniques (all of which I must say are pretty clever as they only use a few bits of rope and they can pretty much rescue any climber from any disaster), multi-pitch climbing, lead climbing, various rope techniques etc. On the final day we climbed the entire rock face (240m) which was 4 pitches and then rapelled down. Jon and I did it entirely on our own so we were quite proud of our achievement. It was an amazing experience but as a novice I think for me I would have liked to just mess around on something easy for a few weeks rather than being thrown in at the deep end (as usual). Of course we had some little friends - some very cute tibetan kids who followed us to The Rock every day and would just stand and watch us for hours - every so often clambering up The Rock themselves with no harnesses or ropes to keep them safe - then we would all start screaming for them to get down and their huge red cheeks (from all the red blood cells)would retreat back to the grass!
We had one rest day in Thame where it was decided that a good rest would be to climb a little 5000m rocky peak just next to the village to help acclimatise (Thame is 3800m). So thats what we did which took about 7 hours so I was even more exhausted than when we started.
After 8 days we headed back through Namche Bazaar to Everest Base Camp where we were going to learn Ice Climbing for 6 days. It took us 5 days to trek there as we would be going up almost another 2000m and we needed to be careful - by this point we had seen numerous guides and clients being taken off the mountain due to AMS. As we went up the temperature went down.. down down down. By the time we reached EBC the temp would be around -10 in the evenings without wind chill factor. Our first night at EBC was pretty sleepless. We both had bad headaches, it was the coldest environment I have ever been in and basically we were both exhausted. Jon was suffering from the altitude more than we had thought or he was letting on. The next day he confessed that he had spent the entire night plottting to pack up his bags and run off down the mountain on his own.. which just shows you how your mind gets affected by AMS. After the second night we had all settled down and were sleeping much better. Although it is hard - basically at 5pm the sun would go behind the mountains and the temperature would immediately drop to below zero. At this point you would need to go into your tent because it was so cold and the sun was not to return until 8am - so you can see this is rather a long time to spend in a tent every day. We would devise many ways to stay awake and talk past 7pm so that we could actually sleep through until the morning. We even meticulously devised a pub crawl through London when we get back with travel routes, budgets, timelines etc!!!
All through the nights the winds would rage and blow all the icicles off the tent walls into our sleeping bags where they would promptly melt and soak us.. but it was all good fun!! We would wake up to Italian coffee and then head out onto the Glacier to Ice Climb - which was actually great fun whacking the Ice with your axes and crampons.. the only problem was that at 5400m everything is rather a lot more tiring than it is at sea level!! After 5 hrs of it we were thoroughly exhausted and would go over to sit with the guides of the Thai expedition on Everest (a reality TV show ha ha) and moan about how useless everyone was apart from us ;)
Ok so I have to dash now I will write up our summit attempt in a few days when I get back to an internet!
Only just over 4 weeks till we come home I cant believe how fast time is flying by - but hopefully see some of you when we get back (for the Pub Crawl)!!
Caroline xx
Our little mate all dressed up in our clothes - he actually followed us around for 3 days before he dared to speak to us! He would just wait outside the hotel all morning till we came out and then just follow 10 paces behind stopping whenever we did and standing 8in the freezing winds in his dads ripped trousers patiently waiting!
A Few More..
November 3 2007
Me leading the way back down through the cravass field.
Base Camp at Island Peak
A cold morning!
Our home at EBC - we are actually camping on ICE
Tibetans who looked after us for 8 days!
Me leading the way back down through the cravass field.
Base Camp at Island Peak
A cold morning!
Our home at EBC - we are actually camping on ICE
Tibetans who looked after us for 8 days!
Khumbu Expedition Photos
November 2 2007
We just arrived back this morning so I cant be bothered to write much but I will soon - here are some photos to be going on with!!
Our plane from Kathmandu - I swear at points we were no more than 10m off the hilltops. The runway at Lukla is 500m long and has a cliff drop at one end and a stone wall at the other just in case your plane doesn't stop/take-off in time!!!
The rock we were climbing - in total 250m up an already rather high cliff face. Four pitches for those of you who know what that means.
My favourite little yak - "Yackles"
Ice Climbing at Everest Base Camp
On the Summit of Island Peak - October 30th 615am
More Ice Climbing at EBC
We just arrived back this morning so I cant be bothered to write much but I will soon - here are some photos to be going on with!!
Our plane from Kathmandu - I swear at points we were no more than 10m off the hilltops. The runway at Lukla is 500m long and has a cliff drop at one end and a stone wall at the other just in case your plane doesn't stop/take-off in time!!!
The rock we were climbing - in total 250m up an already rather high cliff face. Four pitches for those of you who know what that means.
My favourite little yak - "Yackles"
Ice Climbing at Everest Base Camp
On the Summit of Island Peak - October 30th 615am
More Ice Climbing at EBC
Everest Expedition
October 5 2007
Well we have spent the last five days with our guide running around all the outdoor shops in Kathmandu (there are at last count more than 700 in Thamel alone) buying, renting, trying on various bits of gear ready for Sunday. The flights are booked, we have the permit and we are ready to go!
This "trek" is quite different to the last one we went on the main reason being that the company we used last time was a commercial climbing comany and so they organised the entire trip for us. We had not even tried on all the gear and tested whether it fit or not until the moment we left. This time we are not climbing with a company at all - rather we are going with a free-lance climbing guide and so it is not HIS responsibility to find our gear or make sure that it is in full working order it is OURS. And I can tell you that it is a massive responsibility if you dont have the right gear in any sport it can put you in danger I think probably never more so than when you are hanging off the side of a mountain!! So we have been fully involved in the entire process including planning our route (something that we had absolutely no say in on the last trek either), sorting out all of the camping equipment even food (god help us all if we have to cook!!), hiring porters etc. So that has been pretty exciting to see all of the work that goes into an expedition and also it puts a lot more responsibility on our shoulders and helpls us to learn all of this stuff much more easily.
Today we went to the climbing wall with Tendi (guide) so he could see what type of climbers we are (after Jon had been bigging us up for the past two weeks he saw the truth!!). It was actually a really nice day I managed to climb to the top of the wall something that has until now eluded me. Not because it is too hard (it is actually quite easy) but because for some reason I have developed a fear of heights.. well when I say some reason I am quite certain that it had something to do with seeing a little kid fall off the top because his partner was not belaying him properly (holding him on the rope for those of you who don't know the lingo) and possibly breaking his ankle. Not that Jon would ever do that (he would suffer more than me), but still it does make you think! So anyway today I managed to get on with it and climb to the top then I looked down and nearly fainted. But dont worry parents it's all perfectly safe!! ha ha
So I will be out of touch for one month but when I get back I will fully update you with lots of boring stories and photos.. Le Berb Mt Blanc sounds good for next year either we run up it or we can climb.. (or why not both!!!)
You can bring the wine I will bring the crampons.
Caroline xx
Well we have spent the last five days with our guide running around all the outdoor shops in Kathmandu (there are at last count more than 700 in Thamel alone) buying, renting, trying on various bits of gear ready for Sunday. The flights are booked, we have the permit and we are ready to go!
This "trek" is quite different to the last one we went on the main reason being that the company we used last time was a commercial climbing comany and so they organised the entire trip for us. We had not even tried on all the gear and tested whether it fit or not until the moment we left. This time we are not climbing with a company at all - rather we are going with a free-lance climbing guide and so it is not HIS responsibility to find our gear or make sure that it is in full working order it is OURS. And I can tell you that it is a massive responsibility if you dont have the right gear in any sport it can put you in danger I think probably never more so than when you are hanging off the side of a mountain!! So we have been fully involved in the entire process including planning our route (something that we had absolutely no say in on the last trek either), sorting out all of the camping equipment even food (god help us all if we have to cook!!), hiring porters etc. So that has been pretty exciting to see all of the work that goes into an expedition and also it puts a lot more responsibility on our shoulders and helpls us to learn all of this stuff much more easily.
Today we went to the climbing wall with Tendi (guide) so he could see what type of climbers we are (after Jon had been bigging us up for the past two weeks he saw the truth!!). It was actually a really nice day I managed to climb to the top of the wall something that has until now eluded me. Not because it is too hard (it is actually quite easy) but because for some reason I have developed a fear of heights.. well when I say some reason I am quite certain that it had something to do with seeing a little kid fall off the top because his partner was not belaying him properly (holding him on the rope for those of you who don't know the lingo) and possibly breaking his ankle. Not that Jon would ever do that (he would suffer more than me), but still it does make you think! So anyway today I managed to get on with it and climb to the top then I looked down and nearly fainted. But dont worry parents it's all perfectly safe!! ha ha
So I will be out of touch for one month but when I get back I will fully update you with lots of boring stories and photos.. Le Berb Mt Blanc sounds good for next year either we run up it or we can climb.. (or why not both!!!)
You can bring the wine I will bring the crampons.
Caroline xx
Outta Here
October 3 2007
Ha I just read my last two entries.. we were quite miserable to be here eh? Well we have been busying ourselves greatly this past week plotting and scheming on ways to remove ourselves from here and get back to the countryside.. after weeks of researching Jon has come through once again and sorted out the most AMAZING expedition in the world. This is seriously the chance of a lifetime trip. So I will now bore you with the details..
We first fly into Lukla (which I have just been informed is an airport on a cliffside that is only 600m long... ), and then trek for 3 days to reach our first destination which is called Thame. Here we will do a one week rock climbing course where we will learn a load of stuff like anchors, rescue, single pitch climbing, multi pitch lead-climbing, self descent etc...
After 7 days of that we will take a further 4 days to trek through Namche Bazaar to Everest Base Camp which will be our home for 5 more days and we will learn to Ice Climb in the Kumbu Ice Fall. I am not expecting many of you to know what that is but for anyone who does you will realise why we are so excited. This is not something that normal commercial groups are permitted to do but Jon has found a climbing sherpa who takes just a few outings each year and has agreed this month to take us. ha ha. Right so we will also learn about Glacier and Cravass Field Travel, Rescue techniques and whatnot whilst we are at the EBC and after we are proficient at all of this (?!) we will trek to Island Peak Base Camp. Island Peak is one of the easier (seem to remember hearing that one before) climbing peaks in Khumbu but to spice things up again we will not be climbing on the usual fixed ropes that the other expeditions use. Rather we will find a new route up to the top that has not been travelled by the other expeditions. This will take 4 days in total and after returning to Base Camp we will trek back to Lukla and fly to Kathmandu. So like I said it is a chance in a lifetime to spend a month with one of Nepals leading mountaineers and basically have private tuition from him for the entire time. He runs expeditions around the wprld and so if I dont have a big fight with him he has suggested that we climb Mt Blanc next summer.. well lets get this one out of the way first!! Jon is actually trying to make the guide take us up another peak whilst we are there ("just pop up it " were the words I think he used) but I am pretty sure the guide thinks he is crazy!!
The only downside is that we have to leave in 4 days as that was the only time he could take us so we have been running around like crazy trying to hire boots, tents, ropes of varying sizes and descriptions (I still cant believe how expensive a bit of string is these days), harnesses, etc etc etc and I have already told you how difficult it is tring to get anything done here so we are on overload. There have been three strikes this week already and it is only Wednesday!!!
Caroline x
Ha I just read my last two entries.. we were quite miserable to be here eh? Well we have been busying ourselves greatly this past week plotting and scheming on ways to remove ourselves from here and get back to the countryside.. after weeks of researching Jon has come through once again and sorted out the most AMAZING expedition in the world. This is seriously the chance of a lifetime trip. So I will now bore you with the details..
We first fly into Lukla (which I have just been informed is an airport on a cliffside that is only 600m long... ), and then trek for 3 days to reach our first destination which is called Thame. Here we will do a one week rock climbing course where we will learn a load of stuff like anchors, rescue, single pitch climbing, multi pitch lead-climbing, self descent etc...
After 7 days of that we will take a further 4 days to trek through Namche Bazaar to Everest Base Camp which will be our home for 5 more days and we will learn to Ice Climb in the Kumbu Ice Fall. I am not expecting many of you to know what that is but for anyone who does you will realise why we are so excited. This is not something that normal commercial groups are permitted to do but Jon has found a climbing sherpa who takes just a few outings each year and has agreed this month to take us. ha ha. Right so we will also learn about Glacier and Cravass Field Travel, Rescue techniques and whatnot whilst we are at the EBC and after we are proficient at all of this (?!) we will trek to Island Peak Base Camp. Island Peak is one of the easier (seem to remember hearing that one before) climbing peaks in Khumbu but to spice things up again we will not be climbing on the usual fixed ropes that the other expeditions use. Rather we will find a new route up to the top that has not been travelled by the other expeditions. This will take 4 days in total and after returning to Base Camp we will trek back to Lukla and fly to Kathmandu. So like I said it is a chance in a lifetime to spend a month with one of Nepals leading mountaineers and basically have private tuition from him for the entire time. He runs expeditions around the wprld and so if I dont have a big fight with him he has suggested that we climb Mt Blanc next summer.. well lets get this one out of the way first!! Jon is actually trying to make the guide take us up another peak whilst we are there ("just pop up it " were the words I think he used) but I am pretty sure the guide thinks he is crazy!!
The only downside is that we have to leave in 4 days as that was the only time he could take us so we have been running around like crazy trying to hire boots, tents, ropes of varying sizes and descriptions (I still cant believe how expensive a bit of string is these days), harnesses, etc etc etc and I have already told you how difficult it is tring to get anything done here so we are on overload. There have been three strikes this week already and it is only Wednesday!!!
Caroline x
Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggggggghhh!!
September 27 2007
Kathmandu is a nightmare!!! Never mind all that tosh about it having a certain something.. it's a shithole!
Ah well I am over reacting but after staying in that beautiful town near Pokhara and having such wonderful views and clean air to breathe returning to Kathmandu has been very hard. The contrast between the two places could not be more severe. Don't get me wrong it is nice to be back and to see the kids and all of our friends some of whom now feel like family. It's a bit like that nice feeling you get when you know you are going home, but then you remember that you live in Hell.
Don't worry a couple of days and we will be used to it all and we won't mind but it has been quite hard to readjust. We travelled back on Tuesday on the (luxury) tourist bus which was a much more pleasant trip than the last one. The trip was supposed to take 8 hours in total so I was nicely suprised to arrive at the edge of the Kathmandu valley (maybe 5kms from our destination) after a mere 5 hours on the coach... I soon realised that the extra 3 hours was alloted to get us through the 5kms of Kathmandu traffic to Thamel. The fumes nearly killed me and Jon hasn't stopped wheezing since we arrived.
Ok ok enough whingeing - it's not all bad we got to see all of our friends as we said and have been busy plotting our escape in the form of a nice expedition as previously mentioned. We also have the climbing wall here which we did miss in Pokhara. Also we had to come back here to sort out our flights home - the embassy will not renew our visas past 7th December so we either need to come home 10 days or so early or go somewhere else. At the moment they only have business class seats going back to London on the dates that we require so I am heavily in favour of that option!!
Ok well I am heading back out into the dirt and grime pleas think of me while you sip your mocha-chocca-lattes at your nice clean desks!!
Caroline x
Kathmandu is a nightmare!!! Never mind all that tosh about it having a certain something.. it's a shithole!
Ah well I am over reacting but after staying in that beautiful town near Pokhara and having such wonderful views and clean air to breathe returning to Kathmandu has been very hard. The contrast between the two places could not be more severe. Don't get me wrong it is nice to be back and to see the kids and all of our friends some of whom now feel like family. It's a bit like that nice feeling you get when you know you are going home, but then you remember that you live in Hell.
Don't worry a couple of days and we will be used to it all and we won't mind but it has been quite hard to readjust. We travelled back on Tuesday on the (luxury) tourist bus which was a much more pleasant trip than the last one. The trip was supposed to take 8 hours in total so I was nicely suprised to arrive at the edge of the Kathmandu valley (maybe 5kms from our destination) after a mere 5 hours on the coach... I soon realised that the extra 3 hours was alloted to get us through the 5kms of Kathmandu traffic to Thamel. The fumes nearly killed me and Jon hasn't stopped wheezing since we arrived.
Ok ok enough whingeing - it's not all bad we got to see all of our friends as we said and have been busy plotting our escape in the form of a nice expedition as previously mentioned. We also have the climbing wall here which we did miss in Pokhara. Also we had to come back here to sort out our flights home - the embassy will not renew our visas past 7th December so we either need to come home 10 days or so early or go somewhere else. At the moment they only have business class seats going back to London on the dates that we require so I am heavily in favour of that option!!
Ok well I am heading back out into the dirt and grime pleas think of me while you sip your mocha-chocca-lattes at your nice clean desks!!
Caroline x
Leaving Phokara
September 28 2007
Well just as last week I dont have anything too interesting to write so you will be forgiven for switching to google now and searching for Brad Pitt stories...
I have, however put up some photos that may interest you they are mainly of Jon but one of the kiddies too. We finished work in Pokhara this morning and there were tears again. It is heart-breaking to have to say goodbye even after this short time and it's funny how it is always the toughest kids who cry the most. So for today we have checked into our favourite hotel in Lakeside and we are travelling back to Kathmandu tomorrow. Jon has gone off biking with the Nepalis again but I think he was a little scared. He went for a mini ride with them a few days ago, setting off at his usual military speed of close to 100mph, but soon realised that he has not been biking for 3 months and they ride up and down these crazy mountains every day! That or he is getting old. Anyway he came back completely exhausted and today he has gone for the whole day so he was a little nervous. Also the temperature is still around 30+ degrees here with no wind so it is not ideal biking weather (if you ask me).
We are really going to miss Pokhara it is a beautiful place and now that the rains have stopped we have a clear view of the Annapurna every morning and glorious weather. The running here is excellent and although we havent been clocking up too many miles the trails we get to run on are spectacular I really have never seen anything like it. Up and down over hilltops, across cliffs, over rivers on wooden bridges (somewhat more stable than those we trekked over) and all the while the snow capped mountains loom overhead. That said I am also looking forward to being in Kathmandu - I mean it is a hell hole there is no doubt about that but it does have a certain something that you cant help but love.
It will be great to see the family again and the little orphans that we left behind, the climbing is great there and we also have a lot of friends waiting for us.
We never managed to get a place on the Everest Trail Run (they do not answer emails and appear to not have a phone), and so we are going to have one final adventure in the form of an expedition in the Everest Region (Khumbu). After the falling out we had with our guide we need to find a new company which is rather a pain due to the sheer number of trekking/climbing companies that exist. It is really hard to find out which ones are any good. I am going to leave all that to Jon and concentrate on socialising and arranging parties in London over Christmas!
Caroline x
Well just as last week I dont have anything too interesting to write so you will be forgiven for switching to google now and searching for Brad Pitt stories...
I have, however put up some photos that may interest you they are mainly of Jon but one of the kiddies too. We finished work in Pokhara this morning and there were tears again. It is heart-breaking to have to say goodbye even after this short time and it's funny how it is always the toughest kids who cry the most. So for today we have checked into our favourite hotel in Lakeside and we are travelling back to Kathmandu tomorrow. Jon has gone off biking with the Nepalis again but I think he was a little scared. He went for a mini ride with them a few days ago, setting off at his usual military speed of close to 100mph, but soon realised that he has not been biking for 3 months and they ride up and down these crazy mountains every day! That or he is getting old. Anyway he came back completely exhausted and today he has gone for the whole day so he was a little nervous. Also the temperature is still around 30+ degrees here with no wind so it is not ideal biking weather (if you ask me).
We are really going to miss Pokhara it is a beautiful place and now that the rains have stopped we have a clear view of the Annapurna every morning and glorious weather. The running here is excellent and although we havent been clocking up too many miles the trails we get to run on are spectacular I really have never seen anything like it. Up and down over hilltops, across cliffs, over rivers on wooden bridges (somewhat more stable than those we trekked over) and all the while the snow capped mountains loom overhead. That said I am also looking forward to being in Kathmandu - I mean it is a hell hole there is no doubt about that but it does have a certain something that you cant help but love.
It will be great to see the family again and the little orphans that we left behind, the climbing is great there and we also have a lot of friends waiting for us.
We never managed to get a place on the Everest Trail Run (they do not answer emails and appear to not have a phone), and so we are going to have one final adventure in the form of an expedition in the Everest Region (Khumbu). After the falling out we had with our guide we need to find a new company which is rather a pain due to the sheer number of trekking/climbing companies that exist. It is really hard to find out which ones are any good. I am going to leave all that to Jon and concentrate on socialising and arranging parties in London over Christmas!
Caroline x
Some More Photos
September 23 2007
So this is Jon setting off to go mountain biking.. and when they say "mountain" they mean mountain!!
Jon giving blood in the ramshackle street hospital...
The ramshackle Hospital complete with Ambulance!!
Kiddywinks and one of the Didis
So this is Jon setting off to go mountain biking.. and when they say "mountain" they mean mountain!!
Jon giving blood in the ramshackle street hospital...
The ramshackle Hospital complete with Ambulance!!
Kiddywinks and one of the Didis
New Orphanage
September 18 2007
It has been almost a week since we started working in the new orphanage and we are not here for too long (only one week more) so it is a bit of a flying visit. This orphanage is a pretty amazing place the director Dinesh has gone to great lengths to provide a clean, safe environment to grow up in. We have spent a lot of time with the kids trying to improve their english as the orphanage was only started in January they have not been at school for very long. Most of them had not been to a school prior to joining the orphanage. To be honest though the people that have really captured our hearts at this place are the "didis".
Didi literally means older sister in Nepali but it is a respectful way of referring to a lady and that is what we all call the ladies who work at the orphanage. There are four of them in total and when we arrived they asked us if we would mind trying to teach them English. Of course we agreed and the next day we started what we thought would be a one hour lesson.... that turned into more like a three hour lesson because they kept making us tea and asking us for more and then they spent the entire afternoon practicing with eachother.
In Nepal women are generally not encouraged to learn skills and better themselves and these didis really showed a lot of courage to even ask us in the first place to help them. They are so cute everytime they gave an answer they broke down in shrieks of laughter because they felt so embarrassed. Anyway we are doing our best to give them a crash course as I think it can really help people get jobs over here if they can speak english well (yes you may well question my ability to teach English coming from Blackpool!!! but there you have it!).
So that is it really for this week a bit boring but after last weeks epic adventure I am quite happy for a bit of boredom. We have a day off today and Jon has gone mountain biking -I dont think I have seen him that excited since we arrived and I am drinking wine.
Caroline x
It has been almost a week since we started working in the new orphanage and we are not here for too long (only one week more) so it is a bit of a flying visit. This orphanage is a pretty amazing place the director Dinesh has gone to great lengths to provide a clean, safe environment to grow up in. We have spent a lot of time with the kids trying to improve their english as the orphanage was only started in January they have not been at school for very long. Most of them had not been to a school prior to joining the orphanage. To be honest though the people that have really captured our hearts at this place are the "didis".
Didi literally means older sister in Nepali but it is a respectful way of referring to a lady and that is what we all call the ladies who work at the orphanage. There are four of them in total and when we arrived they asked us if we would mind trying to teach them English. Of course we agreed and the next day we started what we thought would be a one hour lesson.... that turned into more like a three hour lesson because they kept making us tea and asking us for more and then they spent the entire afternoon practicing with eachother.
In Nepal women are generally not encouraged to learn skills and better themselves and these didis really showed a lot of courage to even ask us in the first place to help them. They are so cute everytime they gave an answer they broke down in shrieks of laughter because they felt so embarrassed. Anyway we are doing our best to give them a crash course as I think it can really help people get jobs over here if they can speak english well (yes you may well question my ability to teach English coming from Blackpool!!! but there you have it!).
So that is it really for this week a bit boring but after last weeks epic adventure I am quite happy for a bit of boredom. We have a day off today and Jon has gone mountain biking -I dont think I have seen him that excited since we arrived and I am drinking wine.
Caroline x
Tent Peak Expedition
September 12 2007
Right well finally the internet seems to have a decent connection so I will tell you about the trek. There is so much to tell but I will attempt to keep it brief. As you know the plan was to trek up to the Annapurna Base Camp (4135m) and then further up the mountain to a high camp after which we would attempt to climb Tent Peak (5665m).
Now firstly I will say that we decided to trek in the monsoon season. Not too many people do this and in fact in the trekkers guide to the Himalaya it describes people who decide to trek in the monsoon "as either extremely experienced (no), extremely enthusiastic (well sort of), or extremely stupid (ah right there's us then)." There are many reasons for this - the first one is that it is leach season. Now I have never actually seen a leach before and to be honest I had thought of them as somewhat mythical creatures. They are in fact very real and very fast and there only aim in life is to suck out all of your blood. They only exist in the monsoon and there are absolutely millions of them on the trekking trails at this time. There is no way to stop them getting on you they are so quick to jump on your boots, or they wait in trees until they feel the heat underneath and drop on your head (yes your head) then they start to suck. At some points we would have over 20 leaches crawling up our legs it was like something out of a horror film.. one day I even found one in my bra... yes that was a definite low point. They were only on the lower grounds so luckily we only had a few days of that but you can believe me when I say that was more than enough.
The other problem is that it rains continuously, which would not be such a bad thing because when its not raining it is so ridiculously hot that you wished it was raining, had it not been for the state of the trails. The "trails" were mainly made up of huge stone stairs going straight up or straight down the mountains (nothing was ever flat just up and down all day) and so the rain made them slippery. Very slippery. Moss covered, wet stone stairs they were just death traps waiting to happen. Right so apart from those two main problems there were definite benefits to trekking in the monsoon and the best bit was that we hardly saw any other trekkers the whole time and we literally had the whole place to ourselves which was great.
Next our team. We had a team of seven in total consisting of:
Endra - Our technical climbing guide
Dawaa - The Living Legend Technical Climbing Guide/ Porter/ Cook/ etc etc
Kissna & Pritibi - Our Porters also
Plus us.
That is quite a big team and we were quite suprised as we were all carrying all of our own personal gear but we hadnt considered the gear we would need for high camp these guys carried food, stoves, cutlery, tents etc and they were incredible. On the first day we all arrived gore-tex'd up to the max with all our coats and hiking boots and new bags - I managed to fit everything I owned into a 28 litre day pack which to anyone who goes hiking will know is tiny. These guys arrived sporting flip flops that were invariably at least two sizes too big and carrying two huge back packs tied together and then bundled into baskets along with around twenty other items on their heads. Talk about feeling inadequate.
Ok so we trekked up to ABC which took 6 days of trekking for around 5 hours a day - this is fat camp at its best I definitely see a business opportunity here for fat brits. Once at ABC we trekked up around 500m and back down again to help acclimatise. We all had headaches and flu symptoms by this point due to the elevation and they didnt go away until we descended a few days later. The day after ABC we trekked over a glacier, up a gulley and over some stupidly high hills to make a camp at around 4800m. That really was one of the most terrifying things I have ever done and if I can get some photos up of the sheer cliff drops we had to scale I will. The gulley was moving and shifting underneath us as we climbed and all around were fresh rocks the size of houses that had fallen down just a few hours earlier. Had they have fallen while we were there it would have been sudden death. I am not kidding it was insane. We were pretty relieved to reach the high camp and set up the tents and rest the past seven days had been really strenuous and we were now all suffering from the altitude to varying degrees.
The next morning was our summit attempt. Each night we had been taught various little techniques.. knots, how to use the Ice-axe & Crampons, cravass rescque etc so we had been training along the way. We were woken up at 1.30am and set off about an hour later. We had to trek for 2 1/2 hours to reach the crampon point and very soon after we set off it started to snow. Unfortunately the snow did not stop and in fact only got worse so around 7 hours into our attempt we turned back due to the conditions. We made it to within 300m of the top which is not bad for a first attempt on such a big mountain but we all felt defeated and a bit deflated. The trek back was horrendous. The snow had made the boulder fileds that we had climbed in the morning icy death fields and we were so exhausted that I just stopped caring about the possibilities of breaking an ankle or worse and just slipped and slopped the whole way down. Back at hight camp after a total of around 10 hours we were met with hot chocolate by the team and we just slept for the next 24 hours and then slowly made our way down.
The whole experiencewas trully amazing and we all have a real taste for mountaineering now. We did have another trip planned for November to Island Peak in the Everest Region but unfortunately I had a big fight with our guide on the last night about gay rights and now we hate each other. So I think we need a new plan as I dont trust him not to push me off if I actually made it to the top next time!!!
Ok off to work at the new orphanage this afternoon after some more fun at the visa office and we just said goodbye to Tim who is heading back to England after attempting Asia's highest bingee jump in Kathmandu.
Speak to you all soon,
Caroline x
1am start in the snow
These are the bridges we had to cross - double tree trunks rotten and slippery wet with huge drops underneath
See the blue building - that is ABC - the sheer cliff drop is what we had to climb down and later back up with all of our gear in order to get to High Camp.
And finally the team (Kissna, Dawaa, Pritibi)
Right well finally the internet seems to have a decent connection so I will tell you about the trek. There is so much to tell but I will attempt to keep it brief. As you know the plan was to trek up to the Annapurna Base Camp (4135m) and then further up the mountain to a high camp after which we would attempt to climb Tent Peak (5665m).
Now firstly I will say that we decided to trek in the monsoon season. Not too many people do this and in fact in the trekkers guide to the Himalaya it describes people who decide to trek in the monsoon "as either extremely experienced (no), extremely enthusiastic (well sort of), or extremely stupid (ah right there's us then)." There are many reasons for this - the first one is that it is leach season. Now I have never actually seen a leach before and to be honest I had thought of them as somewhat mythical creatures. They are in fact very real and very fast and there only aim in life is to suck out all of your blood. They only exist in the monsoon and there are absolutely millions of them on the trekking trails at this time. There is no way to stop them getting on you they are so quick to jump on your boots, or they wait in trees until they feel the heat underneath and drop on your head (yes your head) then they start to suck. At some points we would have over 20 leaches crawling up our legs it was like something out of a horror film.. one day I even found one in my bra... yes that was a definite low point. They were only on the lower grounds so luckily we only had a few days of that but you can believe me when I say that was more than enough.
The other problem is that it rains continuously, which would not be such a bad thing because when its not raining it is so ridiculously hot that you wished it was raining, had it not been for the state of the trails. The "trails" were mainly made up of huge stone stairs going straight up or straight down the mountains (nothing was ever flat just up and down all day) and so the rain made them slippery. Very slippery. Moss covered, wet stone stairs they were just death traps waiting to happen. Right so apart from those two main problems there were definite benefits to trekking in the monsoon and the best bit was that we hardly saw any other trekkers the whole time and we literally had the whole place to ourselves which was great.
Next our team. We had a team of seven in total consisting of:
Endra - Our technical climbing guide
Dawaa - The Living Legend Technical Climbing Guide/ Porter/ Cook/ etc etc
Kissna & Pritibi - Our Porters also
Plus us.
That is quite a big team and we were quite suprised as we were all carrying all of our own personal gear but we hadnt considered the gear we would need for high camp these guys carried food, stoves, cutlery, tents etc and they were incredible. On the first day we all arrived gore-tex'd up to the max with all our coats and hiking boots and new bags - I managed to fit everything I owned into a 28 litre day pack which to anyone who goes hiking will know is tiny. These guys arrived sporting flip flops that were invariably at least two sizes too big and carrying two huge back packs tied together and then bundled into baskets along with around twenty other items on their heads. Talk about feeling inadequate.
Ok so we trekked up to ABC which took 6 days of trekking for around 5 hours a day - this is fat camp at its best I definitely see a business opportunity here for fat brits. Once at ABC we trekked up around 500m and back down again to help acclimatise. We all had headaches and flu symptoms by this point due to the elevation and they didnt go away until we descended a few days later. The day after ABC we trekked over a glacier, up a gulley and over some stupidly high hills to make a camp at around 4800m. That really was one of the most terrifying things I have ever done and if I can get some photos up of the sheer cliff drops we had to scale I will. The gulley was moving and shifting underneath us as we climbed and all around were fresh rocks the size of houses that had fallen down just a few hours earlier. Had they have fallen while we were there it would have been sudden death. I am not kidding it was insane. We were pretty relieved to reach the high camp and set up the tents and rest the past seven days had been really strenuous and we were now all suffering from the altitude to varying degrees.
The next morning was our summit attempt. Each night we had been taught various little techniques.. knots, how to use the Ice-axe & Crampons, cravass rescque etc so we had been training along the way. We were woken up at 1.30am and set off about an hour later. We had to trek for 2 1/2 hours to reach the crampon point and very soon after we set off it started to snow. Unfortunately the snow did not stop and in fact only got worse so around 7 hours into our attempt we turned back due to the conditions. We made it to within 300m of the top which is not bad for a first attempt on such a big mountain but we all felt defeated and a bit deflated. The trek back was horrendous. The snow had made the boulder fileds that we had climbed in the morning icy death fields and we were so exhausted that I just stopped caring about the possibilities of breaking an ankle or worse and just slipped and slopped the whole way down. Back at hight camp after a total of around 10 hours we were met with hot chocolate by the team and we just slept for the next 24 hours and then slowly made our way down.
The whole experiencewas trully amazing and we all have a real taste for mountaineering now. We did have another trip planned for November to Island Peak in the Everest Region but unfortunately I had a big fight with our guide on the last night about gay rights and now we hate each other. So I think we need a new plan as I dont trust him not to push me off if I actually made it to the top next time!!!
Ok off to work at the new orphanage this afternoon after some more fun at the visa office and we just said goodbye to Tim who is heading back to England after attempting Asia's highest bingee jump in Kathmandu.
Speak to you all soon,
Caroline x
1am start in the snow
These are the bridges we had to cross - double tree trunks rotten and slippery wet with huge drops underneath
See the blue building - that is ABC - the sheer cliff drop is what we had to climb down and later back up with all of our gear in order to get to High Camp.
And finally the team (Kissna, Dawaa, Pritibi)
Tent Peak Expedition Photos
September 11 2007
We got back from the trek yesterday and have been having some internet problems so I will write all about the expedition tomorrow but for now here are some photos.
Breakfast at High Camp (4800m)
This is our home at high camp... fine until everything got soaking wet including our sleeping bags!
This is us walking up the ridge into the cravass field..
Jon Standing on the Ridge
The Living Legend that is Dawaa - he has worked as a climbing Sherpa on Everest and is basically awesome but I can explain all of that tomorrow when I write.
We got back from the trek yesterday and have been having some internet problems so I will write all about the expedition tomorrow but for now here are some photos.
Breakfast at High Camp (4800m)
This is our home at high camp... fine until everything got soaking wet including our sleeping bags!
This is us walking up the ridge into the cravass field..
Jon Standing on the Ridge
The Living Legend that is Dawaa - he has worked as a climbing Sherpa on Everest and is basically awesome but I can explain all of that tomorrow when I write.
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