Camp “Lassitude”

In the Ascent of the Rum Doodle, one of the characters is constantly suffering from some form of lassitude: camp lassitude, tent lassitude, weather lassitude, climbing lassitude, etc. On our fourth consecutive rest day at EBC, I can better appreciate the parody. I’m getting very restless and antsy to get climbing again. On the other hand, having been through the Khumbu ice fall before, I’m a touch apprehensive and am not looking forward to our 2:30 AM wake up call to get climbing by 4:00 AM Wednesday morning.

Tomorrow’s climb will be to Camp 1, where we’ll spend one night. The following day we’ll continue on to Camp 2 for two nights. Saturday, we’ll make the big push up to Camp 3 (23,600 feet). This stretch is, by most accounts, the most difficult haul of the expedition as we trudge up the steep Lhotse face. In addition to the steepness, the air gets thinner and thinner. At EBC (17,600 feet), the oxygen in the air is about half of what it is at sea level. At 23,600, it’s down to about 40% and at the Everest summit (29,035 feet) it’s one-third of sea level. We spend one night at Camp 3 without oxygen to trigger our bodies into making more red blood cells to carry more oxygen. We’ll then head back down to Camp 2 for one night and the following day all the way back to EBC.

Because I’ll be high up on the mountain for five nights, they’ll be a break in my blogging. Stay tuned!

//Don