Holbrook

Saari

Erickson

Mark Holbrook aka LRG (Little Red Guy)
Life at Base Camp is settling in nicely. It is amazing how many ways you can organize all the crap in your tent. I'm sure that I have packed, unpacked, and repacked my duffels and the tent layout at least five times. But now, it is finally becoming home. I have everyday things hanging from a cord system around the top of the tent, and stuff like vitamins, glasses, a hat, and tunes laying in a hammock system. The right side duffel has all my technical gear and the left side duffel contains clothing and jackets. Most of the stuff I can find even in the dark. The one thing that I wish was different would be the size of my pee bottle. I brought a liter-and-a-half size bottle thinking it would be plenty, but so far I have had to stop midway in stream. C'est la vie.

Acclimatization Hike

Today we took the first acclimatization hike to about 18,200ft. I went very slow and enjoyed all the mountain views. I'm still worried about making sure I am not going too fast, too far! Hopefully, after a good night's rest and good weather, we will be making turns on a side peak that tops out at 20,100ft. Right now the snow is falling and it seems questionable as to whether conditions will let us make those turns. Wish us good luck and lots of karma!

Hans Saari
Tomorrow we are going to go skiing. It seems hard to believe after so much preparation and time spent thinking about this expedition. Skiing will be a good opportunity to test the stability of the snow and remind the legs how to turn. Today we blasted to 5,700m and it felt great. Shishapangma only gets bigger as we move closer to it. It looks like the couloir is good and filled in. Yahoo! Hopefully Alex and Andrew will rejoin the group by the end of the week. I wish the best to Andrew.

The cooks have figured out that this American group likes to eat french fries and anything else fried, and we drink more water than a herd of water buffalos.

Kristoffer Erickson
Life in Base Camp has been a different story for myself, morning headaches, bronchial discomfort, and the constant feeling your falling behind the rest of the group in the whole acclimatization process. I've had to stick close to camp, resting and hoping to adjust to the new-found home elevation. The time spent kicking about camp provides enormous amounts of time to think through the last year of my life, spent planning the trip here. I think of the project at hand, its relative difficulty, the family and friends I care for at home — everything takes on new meaning.

I've been told by at least a hundred people that what we're attempting is insane; climbers have turned back at a lower elevation without the thought of trying to strap on boards and slide to the bottom safely. I only hope I can maintain my health and that the conditions on the mountain continue to develop into a stable safe line for that one day when everything needs to come together. As the morning dawns upon camp and the rest of the team is hiking towards the neighboring peak to make turns, I find myself a little stronger than yesterday and more ready to get after what has become a revolving point of my life for the last year. Until next time!

— Mark Holbrook, Hans Saari and Kristoffer Erickson, MountainZone.com Correspondents

EXPEDITION DISPATCHES