Our toilet tent
the icefall spilling down these our craig, bob and my tents . mine is the one on the left
Our dining tent
Our tents right at the base of the icefall
We set out after breakfast and it’s only couple hours walk into base camp. The terrain is the easiest day, relatively flat with a little undulation. We arrive at base camp and it’s a wonderful sight in front of us. Every one is busy, people are building wooden platforms for dining tents, some climbers are lying in their tents, Nepalis are bashing ice and rocks to make platforms for tents and people seem to be scurrying all over the place. After another hour of walking we reach our tents. Base camp is that big! We are at the very top just below the icefall. This means we are an hour ahead of the people at the bottom and on our return, we reach out tents first. This is a great position and we are relatively private. Not surrounded on all sides like a lot of other teams. We meet our base camp cook Dawa, and the kitchen staff. There are about 4 or 5 of them and I have no idea what their names are. Plenty of time to find out.
Our porters arrive with our bags and we thank them. Craig tips them and we settle into the dining tent for hot orange drinks and crisps. Later we have lunch of tuna (it’s in a weird sauce I have no idea what but it’s cold and strange), chapattis (I put peanut butter on mine), vegetables and chips. The chips are great.
There is a toilet tent which is small and is over a big hole in the ground. In the hole is a barrel which is for poo only, no pee. We have to pee outside the barrel just on the slate ground so it doesn’t fill up too quickly. The yaks carry these down when they’re full. Jo Bradders isn’t here (lol, in-house joke, sorry Jo couldn’t resist. I did tell Craig the story)
There is also a shower tent. I had a wash with bucket of lovely hot water and we stand on a shower mat. Except this has to be the most uncomfortable shower mat ever. I think it’s actually a plastic front door mat. There are two strings to hold your clothes off the ground. It’s really lovely to have a nice wash, put deodorant on and talc my feet again.
Me and Baab have a tent each and the mattress is really thick and comfy. There’s plenty of room and I do my little bit of house making. I play some music on my boompod and message that I have arrived to my friends.
We don’t have any Ncell phone signal and we don’t have WiFi as yet as I’m really pleased that I spent £400 on a Garmin Inreach phone and I pay £67 per month for unlimited text messages. So at least I’m not totally cut off.
Time for a nap in my sleeping bag now. I can hear the cracking of the ice fall and an avalanche. You get used to these sounds in the mountains. And also the choppers landing right beside us and flying just overhead. I feel so happy to be here, like part of a little mental community.