Day 10 – Settling in at Base Camp

Saturday, 12 April 2014 – Everest Base Camp, Nepal

My health seems to be deteriorating. I didn’t get much sleep last night, and this morning I have a headache, a cold, and a bad cough. Not surprisingly, I’m still tired.

There are a couple of nice day hikes from Base Camp for elevated views of Everest and Lhotse. Both summits are invisible from Base Camp, hidden behind Nuptse and Everest’s West Shoulder, but you only need to trek a short distance up Pumori, the mountain opposite, to see right into the Western Cwm.

It’s only a short hike up to Camp 1 on Pumori. Or if we prefer, we can trek back to Gorak Shep and walk up to the famous viewpoint of Kala Pattar, a shoulder of the same mountain. But until I’ve got over this illness I’ll be staying in camp and resting. I hope I’ll be able to shake it off in a couple of days.

It’s a cold morning, with little sun to recharge the solar panels. There is much talk of technology. We have two main methods of communicating with the outside world. The first is the Nepalese NCell phone network, meant to provide 3G connectivity for those members of the team who bought NCell SIM cards when they were in Kathmandu. The second is the BGAN/Inmarsat satellite system.

The leader of another team tells Phil that both systems were working well until a couple of days ago. Then Asian Trekking, a Nepalese trekking agency, pitched up with giant satellite dishes. Now the 3G and BGAN no longer work, but there is a third option: Asian Trekking are selling internet packages at $7,000 USD for the season. I try not to make a connection between these events.

I have a lazy morning reading, shaving and sleeping. At one point we are summoned outside to meet our thirty-strong Sherpa team. I know many of them already from previous expeditions, but our team is much bigger this year. Half of our Sherpas are new to me. The new guys have worked regularly for the American operator Mountain Trip, but Mountain Trip do not have a team on Everest this year, and they are very happy to be taken into the Junkies’ fold for a season.

We all stand in a big circle beside the stone platform that is being erected for tomorrow’s puja. One by one Dorje introduces the Sherpas by name. Then it comes to us, and we each have to introduce ourselves.

‘I’m Mark from England. This is my fourth time with the Junkies. I have twice summited with Chongba,’ I say, pointing towards him as he grins back, ‘on Everest north side and Manaslu.’

After lunch Phil demonstrates the new Summit Oxygen apparatus we will be using on the summit push. This is a new brand that hasn’t been available before. The old system that I used on Manaslu and Everest had several drawbacks. The regulator gave inaccurate readings – I wasn’t sure how much oxygen I was breathing. It had a bottle-shaped oxygen reservoir that swung around my chest as I walked, and got in the way. One of its valves, for taking in ambient air, was always icing up. The outlet valve dripped water onto the zipper of my down suit, freezing it closed.

Most annoying of all was the rubber mask that came with it, which often formed a suction gag against my face. This might have gone down well at Ann Summers parties, but on the North Ridge of Everest – where you need every gram of oxygen you can get – it was less than convenient.

Phil says the new system doesn’t suffer from these deficiencies. I have a love-hate relationship with oxygen apparatus. When it works it’s great, but often I’ve felt I wasn’t getting much benefit from it. It’s been too unreliable, and I’m hoping this new kit will be better.

At dinner this evening we have a discussion about Mallory and Irvine, who disappeared on Everest in 1924. Nobody knows whether they reached the summit, and we speculate about what happened to them. A research team found Mallory’s body high on the North Face in 1999, and his injuries suggested he had died in a fall. The researchers had hoped to find a camera on the body, which could have confirmed whether the pair reached the top, but they were disappointed. Irvine’s body has never been found, and many Everest historians believe he must have been carrying the camera instead of Mallory.

But Phil believes that the Chinese team who climbed Everest in 1960 did find Irvine’s body. He thinks they kept his camera to hide the evidence. The Chinese ascent in 1960 is now regarded as the first ascent of Everest from the north side, but Phil thinks they didn’t get there. I tell him I think he has bought a conspiracy theory. I have read their account of the ascent. It’s a bit weird, with lots of Communist propaganda, but their description of the summit route is plausible.

Phil also believes he may have seen Irvine’s body during one of his many climbs of Everest from the north.

‘There was a piece of tweed on my right as I came down from the Exit Cracks,’ he says. The Exit Cracks are a series of rocky slabs at a point where the route leaves the North-East Ridge and diverts down the North Face.

There is a chance Irvine’s body is lying on the North Face in roughly that location. But Phil’s sighting also tallies with the position of the 1933 Everest team’s high camp. Eric Shipton and Frank Smythe made their summit attempt from there, and Smythe described seeing a UFO on the way down (I suspect he was using faulty oxygen apparatus, powered by some local herb). It’s more likely Phil saw the remains of their camp instead of Sandy Irvine’s body.

Later in the evening a lama (monk) arrives from Pangboche. He has come to conduct our puja in the morning, and after dinner Dorje tells Phil he has agreed to let the lama sleep in the communications tent.

We are still without 3G or satellite connectivity.

‘Can he bless the BGAN while he’s in there,’ we ask.