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Reisavontuur: Gorakshep, Kalar Pattar and Everstbasecamp
| Fotos bij dit avontuur | |
| Avonturier(s): | Booz |
| Continent: | Azie |
| Land: | Nepal |
| Aanvang: | 25 Mei 2003 |
| Einde: | 30 Mei 2003 |
 arrived in Gorak Shep (5200mtr) pretty
early (around 8.00) but since it was a beatiful day it was pretty busy
already in the sunroom of one of the two lodges which Gorak Sheps
consist of. Gorka Shep was the 1952 Everest Basecamp for the suisse
expedition. The lodge I stayed in, was on top of a small sandhill with
in front a large sandy landscape. Really very surrealistic, I didn't
expect that uphere. On this enormous sandy meadow, there were enormous
longhaired yaks walking around, it could easily be a scene from any
startrek movie or something like that. In the sunroom there was an
Indian Photographer who was working for the times and a guy from AP,
both to cover the celebration on the 29th of the 50th anniversery of
the summitting of Everest. Since I was really restless an had enough of
the usually small talk and a pot of milkcoffee. I decided to climb the
Kalar Patar (True Summit 5700mtr) the group with international hippies
left for the climbing an hour before me, so i figured that I would pass
them by anyway, I also decided to take my backpack up so I could make a
shortcut to the Everest basecamp after the climb and go for some
camping there. When I arrived at the summit the group was already
there. The view from here was really great, there were no clouds and
you could see every big mountain that the Everesregion has. Luckily
there was one girl who brought a camera (haha of the 12 people who were
there) after sitting there and enjoying the views I stayed behind with
Bob the english rasta guy. | a 2 in 1 picture from everest (kalapattar side) |  | | Beatifull panaromic (touristic) view from kalarpatar |
I
decided not to go to basecamp today and go back to Gorak Shep with Bob
to just have some fun, so I took my backpack up there for nothing
grrmbbl ... The day after I left with Cristopher and his porters to the
Everest Basecamp. The walk towards is was pretty hard actually, I
really didn't like that walk, over the glacier, up and down, ukalo,
orala (as the nepali say) I was walking far beyond christopher and his
porters so had to look for my own route over the glacier, luckily they
put up loads of stonemen but it still seemed a mess to me. The first
sight on everest basecamp was really funny. Since most of the
expeditions come already in the begninnnig of april to acclimatise and
put up the camp, the tents were standing of little isles of ice up int
he air for 2 metres and everything around it melted it away. everything
is full with rocks and finding your way around is pretty hard (they
should make a map of it) I immediately by coincedence ran into the spot
where Mark had his tent put up, and there was place for another next to
it (it is pretty hard to find a nice flat spot up there) after he
showed me around basecamp. I put up my little tent, and tried to
isolate the spot. In the evening some nepalese guys saw that I had
cigarettes and they became my closest friend right away :-) the pretty
youg guys seemed to be the icefall doctors, these people work for the
SPPC (sagarmatha park organisation) and get a little bonus on top of
their normal nepalese salary to fix and maintani the Khumbu Icefall,
the most dangerous part of the mountain Everest ! I really respect
those people who make it the expeditions a lot easier to cross the
Icefall on a safe way. They put up ladders against drifting ice seracs,
fix ropes the whole way of the icefall to into the CWM (a 5 hour climb)
and they tie ladders together to cross crevasses of which some are
100's of meters deep. A part of the permits money (60.000US$ per
expidition 10 members + 7000 US$ p.p. when it exceeds 10)goes to the
SPCC but the Icefalldoctors dont see much of that I guess. Anyway
thruogh them i came in contact with the Japanese Team who already
summited and who gained respect from the icefallguys because they did
according to their stories nearly all of the rope fixing above CAMP II.
Four of their team-members were flown out of basecamp because of
frostbitten limbs, and the ones left wanted to clean up their advanced
basecamp because they brought everything they brought up the weeks
before to the advanced basecamp (CAMPII-AdvancedBaseCamp)) Since I
wanted to climb anyway and everything was fixed by ropes I agreed in
doing a load for them from ABC down to Basecamp on the 28th but they
had to fix me up with the gear (-Crampons because I lost one by a
stupid iceclimb and it broke off right away, they were rented so didnt
really mind.-Jumars because I didnt have them and never used them
before, and a head light because I lost it in Gorak Shep (I think the
american bitch Brad stole it anyway !) but all of this was not a
problem so on the 28th at 4.30 in the morning I left together with
Mark, who climbed the icefall before, into this labyrinth of towers of
ice and roaring cracks and swirling riversounds. The plan was to take
+/-30 KG a person from the advanced basecamp down, this should mean
that with the 7 persons we were with, we could get al their stuff down
in 1 ferry. the climb up to the icefall to camp would take appr. 5
hours, we then sleep in the tents of the japanese in camp I, leave very
early (like 3.30) into the western Cwm and get the stuff from campII,
and return to basecamp right away ..
To go up into the icefall was
actually pretty hard,but by use of the Jumars on the fixed ropes it was
amazingly easy but really tiring to gain height for the first 2 hours I
was really surprised how smooth everything was going, and the nerves I
had about it disappeared right away. The sun was shining and believe it
or not even though we nearly reached the 6000 mtr it was hot like hell
in the icefall. On my way up I saw a lot of dumpplaces from previous
expedition and couldnt leave it to take some souvenirs (very old
foodtins, icepegs, icefall rope ...grin) Though it was really scary
sometimes to cross the ladders which were over the crevasses. I didn't
really feel that things could be really dangerous out here (maybe it
was the lack of oxygen ?) Instead it felt more like a thrill to be here
(i mean how many people come here anyway ?) When we nearly reached the
end of the fall some Sherpas from another expedition passed us by,
struggling with a dead body in a down sleeping bag. The head of the
body came out of the bag as they passed us, and I was pretty impressed
by that sight. Suddenly I did got a little scared, we waited to they
were down a few hundred meters and then Mark took a pic of them. afeter
another hour or so we reached camp I at 11.00 in the morning. Just
before we saw a MI-17 russian helicopter crashing in the basecamp, just
a few 100 meters of our tents. we didnt know what was exactly going on
then by that time.
In the camp we got some hot Tang (sinas-instant
powder-drinks) and ate some granolabars and smoked a cigarette. tried
to do some chatting with some expeditionmembers and I went into the
tent at 15.00 trying to sleep a little, with next to me a japanese who
kept on coughing his lungs out. that night i 1st noticed the weird
things that happen without oxygen, I never had paddos or LSD but I
guess the effects are quiet simular. you just satrt seeing things that
are not there while you think you are in full consciousness, pretty
weird but easily to accept. At 3.00 After a long and very very cold
night I was woken up by Mark, my alarm clock didnt go off, because my
watch was didnt work anymore becuase of the freezing cold (-20 celsius)
hurrying at this altitude is pretty impossibel so it took me another
hour to get my stuff together and wake up. The walk to ABC (campII)
was pretty nice, soon the sun warmed up everything and it got very and
very hot up there. You walk over an enormous glacier named The Western
Cwm (by Mallory when he first saw it from the Tibetan side) to the foot
of the Lhotse-Face just a few hundred of meters under the Everest South
Col. Because it was such a very nice day the walk was real easy, we
couldnt make pics anymore because my disposible camera was frozen the
night before and Mark didnt have pics anymore left on his cam because
we made the pic to prove we were up there, but we'll get some from the
japanase guys. In camp II we loaded our bags mainly with gear and some
unused ropes and descended after some tea and chocalat granola bars,
every step made here hurted and the Khumbucough (becuase of the dry air
in high altitude), which I thought I wouldn't suffer from started also
to give my lungs a feeling that I had swallowed rasorblades. Going down
being so tired was not really nice, but after all we managed to be down
in Basecamp at around 16.00. I went to my tent right away, so tired was
I and fell in a long and deep coma. The next day the japanese left of
to go all the way down again, we got thanked very much and they asked
us if we wanted to have some of their gear. I got a new pretty cool
scientific super watch of one of them, because he didnt need it anymore
he said and mine froze down (actually it is suddenly working again
since 3 days (?)), kept the crampons, the Jumars and got two real great
Charles -Moser Quatar iceaxes who actually were nearly on the summit
(:-) for the rest we got some clothing stuff and a lot of thank you's.
On the day of the anniversery (29th) we expected a party going on in
basecamp but there was nothing to do actually, we had forgotten about
the helicopter crash already and since it was Marks is birthday we
decided to go back to Gorak Shep to have some beers for his birthday.
Back there in the afternoon we met the group of Suisse we met before
and found out that the one trekker who got injured by the crashing
helicopter was part of the group we met earlier, Kris, a german girl,
got knocked out of her shoes by the crashing chopper, they were jus
about to leave basecamp and on their way down to Gorak Shep. if they
would have been there 2 minutes later nothing would have happend to
her, anyway the impact of the falling amchine was so hard that it
knocked her literally out of her boots and she was uinconsciousness
right away. Along with the 2 dead bodies, she was choppered out to
Kathmandu right away in a coma. Hans the suisse guy got the landing
gear of the chopper against his leg, but could still walk so they didnt
want to fly him out of basecamp. together with the everest basecamp
doctor of the suisse expedition they tried getting a helicopter in
Gorak Shep to fly him out to kathamndu, so he could be treated and that
there was someone with the girl. Of course this was a massive
operation, because no helicopter wants to fly to an altitude of 5200
mtr without being paid a lot of money in cash ( the prices varied from
25.000 us$ to 5000us$) to make things easier there was no telephone in
Gorak Shep because the SIM-card of the satelitephone was not valid
anymore. So they had to make arrangements through an intercom
connection down to Lobuje where was telephone (yeah, its pretty hard to
be injured up here) of course Mark and I had to celebrate his birthday
and decided to try a beer, pretty tough descision at this altitude but
anyway, of course things got really cosy and after a few hours we ended
up in the sunroom (it was dark already and cold but anyway) with 4
bottles of Everst Whisky a drunk Mark and a very healthy American all
californian blond chick called Brad (at least she told me that all the
californians are healthy) in the end we were pissed like hell,
something which isnt really hard when you are at 5200 meter :-) was a
very nice evening cheers Mark :-) The next day I woke up pretty early
considering my giant hangover, and the suisse mentioned that they
arranged a chopper for Hans, but is was only pssible to take one person
and no luggage. They tried to arrange porters but since every porter
alreadyy had a job by carrying down stuff from basecamp they couldn't
find one at all, according to another guy there should be porters
available in Lobuje so suddenly I said with my hangover: well, i can
carry a few bags down to Lobuje for you and then return to Gorak Shep
again if you cant find a porter before 11.00 :-) stupid, stupid stupid.
I had this giant hangover and didnt really feel fit. but anyway they
were pretty happy about it. at 11.00 the helicopter shoed up and Peter
the suisse doctor escorted Hans to the chopper. From beside the other
suisse saw the same thing happening as what had happened in Basecamp,
the chopper could lift, the air was to thin and started spinning, one
of the Suisse couldn't look at it, while Peter kept on filming the
whole thing for the insurance company. finally, the plain got some air
and lifted. Afterwards the others wanted to rush down to Periche to try
getting a chopper overthere. So I carried down 2 baclpacks for them to
Lobuje and returned afterwards to Gorak Shep where Mark was still
sleeping. Surprisingly it went really well, i got rid of my hangover
and was back in 3 hours. We decided to stay this day in Gorakshep and
take this as a resting day, and we would make that up by next day to
leave for Lobuje and go on immediately to Dzongla, a little place at
the east-side of the Cho La-Pas in the hope that there would be a lodge
still open (there are only 2 lodges and we heard they were both closed)
The next day we left for Dzongla, and had a little stop in Lobuje
again. Here a lodge owner had some trouble with his generator and Mark
thought he would be able to repair it. I was just looking to it, and
had no idea wat the problem was. Mark just found out that the part that
goes from the bougie to the carburator was broken and that it couldnt
be fixed. I said to Mark: maybe we can attach a coppercable from the
bougie to the carburator by drilling a whole in the carburator ??? we
both laughed about it, and called ourself macgyvers, the funny thing
about it all was, that it did actual we worked, we laughed our asses of
and the whole village was coming over to watch what we build. Mark also
brought some tie-ribs and we kind of tied the engine together again.
The machine was running but only at very high RPM making a lot of
noise, first we got some daal bhat and milk-teas from the very happy
lodge owner and then we did something really stupid: in the engine
there are like 20 screws you can adjust to give the engine more air,
more fuele or I dont know what more and we started finetuning the
engine ... hahahaha ... within 5 minutes the engine wouldnt start
anymore. oops sorry !!! we told the guys that the motor got drowned in
fuel because of the choking (???) and left to Dzongla ... well we did
what we could didn't we ...
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