Hello again Boatbloggers®
And welcome to the latest edition of The Boatblog®
And this is a Boatblog with a difference. Not content with spending all their time at sea level, Ju & Lyn decided to venture to 5,364m above sea level. Most extreme adventure sailors go High Latitude Cruising. Nothing so tame for the crew of Domini. They go High Altitude Cruising.
Apparently more people have climbed Everest than have sailed around the world. But how many people have climbed 7/8 of Everest, AND sailed 7/8 of the way round the world. There are no exact statistics, but it’s thought to be a pretty exclusive group.
Welcome to the 7/8 Society.
And this is their story.
You might remember from the last blog that Ju & Lyn met up with Li, the new crew member on Anima. It turns out that not only is she an expert sailor (not to mention diver, motorcyclist, horse rider and all round superwoman) she is also a mountaineer.
One evening somewhere in the Similan Islands out of the blue she proposed, “Let’s all climb to Everest Base Camp?” After a few sundowners everyone thought it was a great idea, so with little more ado the team was assembled.
And what a team it was. That’s Scott next to Ju. He’s an Iron Man (three times) and he’s cycled across Canada. In front of him is Kat, an International Racing Yachtswoman. Ju & Lyn were starting to get a bit worried that they might be the slowest on the trek and hold everybody up. So that left only Manuel on the right that they thought they might be able to beat.
Until he sent this photo of him with Li at the top of Mount Kushan, the highest mountain in Taiwan.
There was going to have to be some pretty serious mountain training if this wasn’t going to be a disaster. Which was going to be difficult as by now they were in Brentford Base Camp. Everest Base Camp was going to be eight days of gruelling climbing, all the while running the risk of Altitude Sickness and stopping at night at the traditional yet basic Nepalese Teahouses. They needed to be prepared.
First job – get the gear. It’s very important to look the part.
Looking good Ju.
Next, find the nearest mountain, which turned out to be part of the Horsendon Hill Massif. (Elevation 85m – not much given that EBC is over 5,000m but it’s a start.) This is Horsendon Hill Base Camp.
There were plenty of traditional teahouses on the way where they could wait to acclimatise.
The locals seemed pretty friendly and the indigenous food tasted quite good.
The first ascent was the treacherous South Face.
After many hours they reached the summit and were able to enjoy the spectacular views.
It was just a little worrying quite how knackered they were.
The training had to move up a gear. They even joined a gym (it sold excellent carrot cake.) Things were looking serious.
They summited Bigbury Hill in South Devon. They still couldn’t manage Galpin Street in Modbury, but it’s best to work up to the bigger challenges.
Back on the boat in Malaysia they climbed every hill within twenty miles – even in the rainy season. The Bukit 300 near the marina was summited almost every day. 5km and 300m up. Sometimes twice!
Fortunately there was a massage parlour just near the bottom, so they could recover fairly easily.
They trekked with Joe in Thailand.
Of course Everest was going to be cold, and there is no way of training for that in the tropics. But there’s always a way to cool off if you really need to.
They joined forces with the experts and co-EBCers, training with Scott and Kat in Langkawi. This was the start…
And this was the end…
And after six months they were as ready as we were going to be. They’d both lost loads of weight (Ju nearly two stone – his BMI now said overweight rather than obese) and were match fit.
Kathmandu here we come!
The Team had to spend a few days in Kathmandu to start acclimatising to the altitude. Kathmandu itself is about 1,400m above sea level. To give you some idea of what that means, it’s about half as much again as Snowden in North Wales which is just over 1,000m. (Apologies to our Welsh readers – we know Snowden has changed its name to something without any vowels, but it’s just too hard for us Saises to remember.)
It’s an amazing city. Full of history, and culture and some of the craziest driving anywhere on the planet.
The restaurants are fab,
The food is a sort of mix of Indian and Asian all cooked to order.
This is Juju eating juju which is a kind of panna cotta made out of Yak’s milk.
It’s better than it sounds. Actually it’s not quite true to say it’s made from Yak’s milk. A female Yak is called a Nak, so technically it’s made from Nak’s milk. (Here at the Boatblog® we aim to inform as well as entertain.)
And many of the old working traditions are still carried on today. This is sorting out the rice.
The Himalayas are just about visible from the top of some of the buildings.
And that’s where we’re heading next!
The plan was to take a dodgy van on a five hour trip to the airport in Ramechhap in order to catch a plane to Lukla where the trek to EBC would begin. Lukla is an interesting place to fly to. The Tenzing-Hillary Airport gained worldwide fame as it was rated the most dangerous airport in the world for more than 20 years. Nice.
Fortunately someone had a brainwave and found out that you could go by helicopter.
It turned out it was the best thing to have done Not only did it leave from Kathmandu so the five hour dodgy van trip was avoided, but that day the weather turned bad and all the planes to Lukla were grounded. Other hikers ended up stranded in Rampechhap for FIVE DAYS sleeping on the airport floor waiting for the planes to fly again.
And anyway – helicopters are fun!
And you get to see where you are going to be walking.
The reason Lukla Airport is so dangerous is because the runway is so short.
You really need the brakes to be working.
This was the first tearoom.
It seemed a bit basic, but it turned out that this would be the very height of luxury compared with what was to follow. And the food was good. They even showed Lyn how to make the famous Nepalese momo.
Ju’s looking hungry.
It is essential to have a professional sherpa to go to EBC, and there is no one better than the one and only Bikram Karki. This is him on his previous climb.
He’s summited Everest twice and trekked to Everest Base Camp over 200 times. He’ll do!
The whole team was up at dawn the next day ready to start the first leg.
There were three porters assigned to the group. These men are incredible. They are generally quite small, but strong as oxes – or should that be yaks. They do exactly the same trek that the main party does, but while the hikers carry day sacks weighing perhaps 4kg, the porters carry the main bags weighing up to 40kg per man.
All held up on a that strap going over their heads. Which may explain why they are so short.
And they run. When they get to the next tearoom, they drop off the bags, then run back down to help with the day packs.
There are no roads past Lukla. Everything that goes further up the mountain is either carried by man, mule or yak – and they get paid by the kilo – so the more they carry, the more they earn.
The first day from Lukla to Phakding was relatively easy. Rather disappointingly it was mostly downhill and so the day ended up at a lower altitude than it started. And with the knowledge that every step down would be followed by an equally high step back up.
And then came the first of the suspension bridges. Lyn is never that great with heights so it is amazing that she got over them all.
And some of them are pretty high.
Ju isn’t that keen on heights either.
That smile is pretty forced.
Sometimes you had to cross with the yaks which only makes it more frightening.
The first day was relatively easy – but everyone was still knackered by the time they got in.
Next stop – Namche Bazaar.
This time it was all uphill.
We had lunch at the Hotel Everest View.
Which would have been great, except there was so much cloud that we couldn’t see Everest. In fact with all the cloud, there wasn’t really a view. And from what we could tell, it wasn’t much of a hotel either. But apart from that it’s quite a good name.
On the other hand, it did have a grand piano.
Which doesn’t seem that amazing until you consider that everything has to come up here either by porter or yak. Or possibly helicopter.
After a short rest, and a hastily thrown together song, it was time to set off again.
Mules have the right of way.
And so do yaks.
Actually these aren’t proper yaks. These are a cross between a yak and a cow. No one seems to know if they are called a yow or a cak. True yaks can’t exist at such low altitudes, and we would only come across the real thing once we got higher.
And of course the porters also have right of way. The way they carry their loads with their head straps means that they can’t see where they’re going, so it’s only doing the decent thing to let them pass.
Even the rocks are carried up by hand.
By mid afternoon the main party arrived at Namche Bazaar and were looking forward to putting their feet up, with a tasty bowl of hot sherpa stew.
Not so lucky. You have to acclimatise for the next days hike. The rule is climb high, sleep low. You need to sleep at a lower altitude than you have climbed to. So our guide Bikram insisted on climbing another 400m – where at least there was an interesting monastery. As you would expect, the main Lama was a very spiritual man and held a ceremony giving blessings for the ascent.
It was also where the preserved skull of the famous Himalayan yeti is kept.
Rumours that it is an old coconut are entirely unfounded.
But still Bikram wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to go even higher. Right up to the helipad. By now it was getting dark and the mist was starting to come in – but the town twinkled in the distance as the exhausted hikers groped their way back down the mountainside.
That night no one slept particularly well, and everyone was starting to wonder what on earth we had let ourselves in for. But then you stepped outside in the morning…
Onwards and upwards.
Sagarmatha National Park is home to the famous Sagarmatha Mountain. Or as we call it – Mount Everest.
At well over 4500m, the going was getting tough. It was starting to get hard to breathe
An extra day had been programmed in Dingboche in order to do an acclimatisation climb. So it was up to 4,800m and back down again to prepare for the following day’s “real” climb.
It was starting to get cold.
And the mist was coming in.
The target was to reach Nangkartshang Peak, but the wind was too strong and there was a danger of being blown of the mountain face. It was decided to turn back – just 300m from the summit.
The team were strong, but it was getting tougher as it got higher. The tearooms were getting more and more basic. The only heating was a yak poo boiler, which everyone used to dry their clothes and socks. Dear reader, you should be grateful that Apple has not yet developed the iSmell app.
You had to sleep fully clothed, in a sleeping bag, under a duvet and still you were cold.
The idea of getting up in the night to go to the communal loo is the stuff of nightmares. What little plumbing there was completely froze overnight, and just like Vegas, anything that happened in the toilet, stayed in the toilet until four in the afternoon when the water thawed for just long enough to flush. Our readers will be pleased to note that we do not have any photographs of the lavatories.
And you couldn’t breathe. The air was so thin that you kept wake up gasping for breath in the night – even with the windows open. And of course, not getting a decent night’s sleep only added to the exhaustion.
But the food was good.
Because it was all cooked in the same few pots, everything tasted of garlic. Even the porridge. Now it is a well known fact that nothing can’t be improved with the addition of a little garlic. But at the risk of sounding like Peter Kay – garlic porridge?! Porridge with garlic in it….
But moral was high. No turning back now.
Just like sailing across an ocean, no matter how cold and miserable you are, no matter how much you want it to stop, you have to keep going.
As they say, there’s Slow, there’s Dead Slow, and there’s Everest Base Camp Slow. This was Everest Base Camp Slow – and with plenty of stops.
But then we got the first view of Everest!
It’s the pointy one in the top right hand corner just poking out between the other two.
It’s quite hard to explain which one it is. Here’s Ju pointing to it.
Woo woo woo!
Here’s a scene from “Everest! – The Musical.”
There’s not really going to be a musical about Everest, but hopefully the thought that there might be will make the whole trip tax deductible.
The porters never cease to amaze. This girl fell ill, and one of them carried her several miles up to the next helipad – overtaking us on the way.
And the yaks up here were the real thing.
The ingenuity of the Nepalese knows no bounds. How to boil a kettle at 5,000m.
That’s one use of a satellite dish that Mr Musk hasn’t thought of.
Not far now.
One Final Push.
Everest Base Camp!
Never has anyone been so cold, so exhausted, or so smelly!
But a real sense of achievement.
Not another musical surely! – Ed
All that was needed now was get the helicopter back to Kathmandu, where a shower was waiting – a HOT shower, we could change the socks which were now able to stand up on their own, and eat something that wasn’t daal.
It was such a relief not to be walking back!
Sorry that has been such a long blog dear reader, but it was a long climb! Thank you for sticking with it until the end.
There’s just time for the Arty Farty Competition. This time all entered by Lyn.
The first is called Monastery Scrolls
Next up is Mountain Mist
And finally Lucky Charms
And the winner is – Lyn!
Before we close, t is only right that we play tribute to the many climbers who have attempted Everest and not made it back. There is a memorial area set aside on the way to Base Camp.
It has been a pleasure to make such an amazing trek through some of the most spectacular scenery in the world with such a great guide as Bikram and his team of porters.
And with such a special group of friends.
Thank you all.
It is most definitely a ONCE in a lifetime experience.
Ju & Lyn
EPILOGUE
And that is the tale of how we climbed 7/8 of the way up Everest. We are now back on Domini in Thailand which means that from Southampton we have sailed about 7/8 of the way round the world.
Which is how we became founder members of the 7/8 Society.
X
What? – No gratuitous photos? Ed
Oh, go on then.
Alright – that’s enough – Ed
PS – If you want to see our track you could try this
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1eNXOAV8CojUua0CDSR5oneKUaOigznw
And that really is THE END
Domini 