Day Six – 9th June
So I woke up and wonder if we have a Tory or a Labour government now. It’s weird being so disconnected to the outside world but life is beautiful when it’s so simple. Wake up, eat, walk , sleep, repeat. We had breakfast of porridge and another Morning Glory cookie lol. The weather is still bad so we’re stuck here. But we haven’t had the amount of snow we were expecting. Team four are hunkered in just above us at 14,000 feet. But there is data at that camp. I’m really amazed we still have a full team. Normally people have dropped out by now. Bo said he was going to leave a couple of days ago. And Tim said he was feeling the same. Tim is also on his fifth out of seven summits, like Jo. He’s collected them rather quickly and I think it’s maybe worn him down a little. He has Vinson in December and then said he would take a long break. That would just leave Everest. Anyway now we’re stuck in our bags just trying to sleep more, listen to music or podcasts. I like to keep the podcasts for when the walking is really really tough and I just need to get through it with a little distraction.
Here this time I’m not taking any drugs. No Ibuprofen, Aspirin or Acetazolamide. The guides said they don’t want us taking anything except when we need to counteract something instead of being preventative. I just go with what I’m told. So far I’m fine. Every day Andy gets his ‘monkey’ out and we all put our finger in it. (That’s what he calls it lol) it’s a little device that reads your blood oxygen level and heart rate. We are all good so far and our numbers get logged in Andy’s little notebook.
In Nepal last October I’d been taking the contraceptive pill to not have a period and then discovered Acetazolamide and high altitude rendered it ineffective. Well this time again (here’s the TMI bit) I discovered a period and again didn’t bring any tampons. The reason why? I haven’t had a period since last year so I thought it would be fine. Every gram of weight adds up but I’m learning that I never appear to have periods at home until I climb a mountain and then bang. Anyway it’s only very small and light and lasts just a day and half. I manage with little bits of tissue again. At least I know that’s out the way now for the serious bit of the mountain. I really don’t know why I only seem to get a period at altitude lol.
It’s 2pm now and we just had lunch of cheese and bacon quesadillas which were amazing. The smell of bacon up here just wakes up the senses and feels a bit like home. So we got a new weather forecast and Monday it appears the weather gets even worse so we have to get up to the next camp (camp 4 on the map but our camp three) in the next two days. Then we can bunker down up there. It’s more sheltered, less snow and wind and it has data. This means we are forced now to make the cache first up tomorrow after breakfast and come back down, sleep here and then Sunday make our move with the tents and all our gear and set up new camp at 14,000feet. I’m so looking forward to trying to make some phone calls to loved ones and seeing what my friends have been up to on face book and seeing if we are Tory or Labour. God forbid we are anything else.
For now, we just lie in our bags and wait til dinner time. I wish I’d brought my Kindle. Inside my sleeping bag are the usual suspects, all my chocolate bars, my water bottle, my phone and Go Pro to stop them all from freezing. And also my pack of wet wipes which are totally frozen. I can’t even get one out. It’s a solid block. So they’re right at the bottom of my bag trying to defrost them. Oh and some spare clothes to keep them warm too. I will change my bra, top and leggings tomorrow and leave these ones here that I’ve been wearing a week already to collect on the descent. New undercrackers day. Yay. Then these will be the base layers that I wear until we get the single Otter plane back to Talkeetna where I left a clean set of clothes. We all smell a bit ripe.
It’s 8.30pm now and we just had dinner of brown rice and madras lentil curry. Fantastic. The banter in the ice kitchen at meal times is great fun. We are such a good group, no one is a jerk and we’re all really getting on well.
In bed now and weather not great but we still aim to get the cache up to the cache site just before camp 4 on the map tomorrow.
Night night.