Simonson

According to the Tibetan calendar, today was an auspicious day for hanging prayer flags and having our puja. This ceremony is very important as far as the Sherpas are concerned. For the rest of us, a little extra good luck never hurt. When in Rome...

Over the last couple days, the Sherpas have constructed a large stone altar about five feet high, four feet deep, and five feet wide with a shelf on the front and an alcove for burning juniper on the side. Down the middle is a hole to receive the metal flagpole that we had brought from Kathmandu.

Oblations

Before the puja started, Pemba baked a large cone-shaped tsampa (toasted barley flour) cake, complete with icing which depicted several motifs including the swastika, an ancient Tibetan symbol. This was positioned in the middle of a large basin and surrounded by candy, fruit, cookies, and other snacks. On the altar were several cans of Pabst beer as well as other snacks, incense, and a knife, each with a pat of butter on them. The basin of treats was parked next to the altar along with a couple cases of Pabst beer.

The puja started with everyone on our team seated around the altar. We invited some of the climbers from the Japanese team, who had just arrived here at Advanced Base Camp. They welcomed our invitation and joined us. Pemba served everyone a cup of Sherpa tea (black tea with milk and sugar) while Pa Nuru got a good fire going of juniper. Once plenty of fragrant smoke was coming from this, Ang Pasang and Purba (a Sherpa from another team) started chanting out of their Tibetan prayer book.

Puja Altar

After a while, the ceremony started to pick up pace. A plate of rice was passed around so everyone could grab a handful to throw some at the right moments. After more chanting, the flagpole went up with five long lines of prayer flags tied off in different directions. Soon the rice-throwing degenerated into tsampa throwing which was followed by rubbing tsampa in each others faces as part of the ceremony. At this point, everyone looks like they have been in a flour-throwing fight. Soon the snacks were passed around, then the beer. We all sat around for an hour in the hot sun and drank beer and talked about our big project coming up.

It's a nice ceremony, not too "heavy," yet it is a real bonding moment for the team and the Sherpas. We had a gorgeous day and everything went smoothly (it was snowing a few hours later), so we can't blame a bad puja if we have a problem later!

Tomorrow the Sherpas will start working on the route to Camp I. We'll take one more rest day, then we'll start carrying to Camp I also. It will be great to get up on the mountain and come to grips with this climb!

— Eric Simonson, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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