Ready to Launch

September 25

Yesterday was an uneventful rest day with our typical mix of clouds, rain, snow, and some watery sunshine.  I’ve been sleeping great and waking up just before sunrise for the past couple of mornings and today was no different.  That first hour of the day is peaceful and gives me a chance to sort through my thoughts before everyone wakes up.  We had a little snow last night which always gives Base Camp a good look. 

Today is our last rest day before heading up the mountain on our summit push.  Besides the usual daily tasks, we have a mid-morning training on the oxygen system that we’ll use on the upper mountain.  Pasang does a great job with the instruction, and everyone gets their rig adjusted properly with their complete head and face covering worked out so as not to expose any skin. 

Once we have our gear settled, Pasang reviews the method for swapping oxygen bottles and adjusting the regulator during the process.  

We each take a turn with the demo bottle in our backpacks and practice this procedure.  Afterwards, he measures our blood oxygen saturation before and after we each take a walk around camp wearing everything with an oxygen flow rate of 2 liters/minute.  My numbers were 92% before and 99% after, which seems pretty good to me.

After lunch, we each packed up freeze dried food and snacks for the climb.  In this process, there’s a tradeoff between carrying too much weight and not having enough to eat for 5-6 days of hard work.  In the end, I’m satisfied that I won’t starve but I may lose some body weight by the time we get back down.  It’s probably the right balance. 

The day is ending much like it started with some light snow.  Tomorrow we will launch for our summit bid, following the schedule described previously.  Remember that in the mountains, no news is good news.  We have a very strong team of climbers, guides and climbing Sherpa, and I have no doubt that we will be successful.  Matt and I are planning to chopper out of Base Camp to Kathmandu as soon as practical once we’re back down.  This may mean that we leave on the same day or a day or two later depending on weather, helicopter availability, etc.  I will do my best to post something short right away and then more details with photos later.

Namaste

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