Wednesday May 4, 2011
4:33PM
Wow! It’s been a really long time since my last entry and there have been so many events that it is difficult to know where to start. Today I’ll talk about the trip up to base camp and then maybe in the next day or two I’ll try to record the Imjatse details.
Thinking back on being in base camp last week, simple words like great and awesome come to mind. At the time I welcomed the trip to a place where there were a few more people with whom to talk, but I didn’t really have any special expectations. I actually thought that I might not enjoy the company of some the people I would meet, but the opposite was, in fact, the case.
I arrived around lunch time and met up with Ashish and Rachel, two of the three base camp physicians for the season. Jenn, of course, is the third and had gone down to Pheriche to meet up with Ed, thus making my visit possible, as any extra person in camp is required to pay $100 per night. I threw my bag in my tent and sat down to a quick lunch of tuna salad on fried bread.
While we ate we discussed the case, or drama you could say, involving a 19 year old woman who had stroke-like symptoms at Camp 1. She and her expedition leader thought that she shouldn’t be evacuated on account of her having a previous diagnosis of migraines and seizures, and they were fishing for a physician in camp to support them. Even someone with no knowledge of the disease process could recognize the risk it placed on her as well as her team should she become symptomatic high on the mountain. It’s amazing the rationalization that takes place when big money has been spent and sponsors’ expectations add an even higher level of pressure. During the discussion amongst several physicians and team leaders, a radio invitation came through from the RMI team asking us for afternoon tea, and once the definitive evacuation decision had been concluded we made our way across the city of tents to the American camp.
Walking at base camp is not a simple process as it is set up on a glacier, which is a highly rocky, icy, uneven, dynamic land form. One minute you walk on a relatively even, albeit rocky, path and the next you are crossing open ice with water flowing beneath. On two occasions I punched through the ice into the chilly water below, and couldn’t help but wonder why I had left my boots in Pheriche once again. There is one main path that extends traverses from end to end but often seems to dead-end into a camp. Once you have been there a few days it starts to make some sense, but initially you get some angry looks from people as you inadvertently walk straight through “their space”. To limit this from happening, several groups have strung ropes around their camp with signs marking the territory, which I thought was really a little unnecessary.
When we arrived at RMI, I recognized some the guides from having passed through Pheriche as well as their clients. It felt like being home, chatting about climbing, drinking beer and playing horseshoes, of all things, in front of their dining tent. It also turned out that one of the guides went to Dartmouth and spent a lot of time climbing in the Maine and New Hampshire mountains, my current playgrounds. There was also a man from Atlanta climbing with his 16 year old daughter and together they are trying to complete the 6th of the 7 summits this season. The fun couldn’t last long and soon another radio message indicated that patients were lining up back at the medical tent.
Unfortunately, most of them were Nepali Ministers in for their daily checkup. I really don’t know where to start my description of what a complete disaster this group is. They’re the same government officials who clogged up our clinic a few weeks ago with complaints that were, in no uncertain terms, stupid, and they refused to pay. Things had obviously not changed as their medical needs had increased greatly from scratched finger in Pheriche to dry mouth and chapped lips in base camp. It is an extremely frustrating situation for us as they are some of the wealthiest people in Nepal and expect us to provide free care to them, while their cooks and porters who get paid very little have to pay a significant portion of their daily wage for an evaluation. The other expedition groups are equally put out by them as virtually none of the government group have any mountaineering experience and have been seen trying to figure out how to put on crampons and making poor decisions like crossing ladders in the icefall several members at at time. (To illustrate this last point, picture an aluminum step-ladder at full extension laid horizontally across a crevasse 25 feet wide and possibly 100’s of feet deep. Common sense would indicate that it’s not a situation where extra weight or strain on the ladder is advantageous.) The primary concern of the other guides is that the official’s inexperience and apparent lack of fitness is going to lead to an accident requiring rescue on the mountain, thus straining the resources, endangering the lives and jeopardizing the operations of the other climbers.
Technically, when switching positions with the doctors from the other post, it was supposed to serve as a short break, so no patient evaluations. I just couldn’t watch my colleagues wallow through the blood pressure checks, runny noses and coughs any longer, however, so I chipped in for a couple of hours to ensure we made it to our 4PM poker engagement. One has to have priorities.
We wandered over to the camp of Mountain Trip, another American team, where a serious game was already underway. Anyone who has played poker with me before knows that my skills are lacking. I would say that it is really no different than handing someone else my money, but the fun had was worth the entrance fee. Beside experiencing the joy of losing 500 Rupees, I also met some of the better known names in climbing and ski-mountaineering, all of whom seemed like normal. down-to-earth kind of people. As this was more social interaction than I have had in months, I was pretty tired following dinner and retired to my tent at the early, by base camp standards, hour of 10 PM.
That night it snowed several inches and I laid awake listening to the avalanches pouring off the surrounding mountains, and hoped that none were plowing through the tents up at camp 1. The following day was clear and cold to start but soon heated up to near balmy temperatures as the rising sun reflected off the snow covered slopes. Oscar, a photographer for a Swedish expedition in the neighboring camp, and I hiked up and across the glacier to the base of the Khumbu Icefall. Neither of us had real boots or crampons so we were limited in how far we could go safely, and more importantly, without incurring the $40,000 fine and 5 year ban from Nepal for climbing without a permit.
The view from base camp was pretty spectacular but didn’t really awaken any new desires to venture upward. I have long had some issues with the way in which many climbers with limited experience are “guided” up the mountain, but when I stood at the base of the icefall looking up toward the high camps something changed. I thought about the humorous sketch of this year’s icefall route that Dave Hahn, RMI’s expedition leader, had posted in their dining tent. It had descriptive names of the various areas of seracs, like popcorn and football field, that had instructions off to the side indicating when to run, not run or pray. The icefall is notoriously the most dangerous part of the mountain but looking at it all I thought was how that chunky, jumbled mass of ice was beautiful and I really wanted to climb it, if for no other reason than to see what was up higher. If it happens, however, it will have to be on my own terms and after several other higher priority climbs. Don’t worry people - I’m not going to attempt Everest any time soon.
After lunch I lounged in the sun for little while and then returned to the poker table and this time donated 1000 Rupees to the guides from IMG, RMI, Mountain Trip and Alpine Ascents. The Oreo’s and milk tea I snacked during the game, again, made my losses seem very insignificant.
The most unexpected part of the trip occurred at dinner that night. We were invited to the Patagonian Brothers camp, headed by the world renowned mountaineers Damien and Willie Benigas, for sushi flown in that day. Ostentatious, perhaps, but it was most certainly a welcome treat. Feeling quite satisfied from the day’s events and culinary delights, I slept soundly in my tent that night despite the creaks and groans coming from the glacier beneath me.
It was hard to return to Pheriche the next day, but at least I was treated to good weather for a change. I made dinner plans with a few of my new friends to have dinner in Pheriche or Dingboche when they come down from their next rotation at camp 3 and am looking forward to hearing stories from high on the mountain. I’ll certainly try to stay away from the poker table, however.
Nothing had changed in Pheriche in my absence, but I only had two days in the clinic until going climbing - finally. I’ll have to save that story until tomorrow’s update.
