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