Michael at 04:58 AM (PDT) on May 9, 2005
So we keep having to remind ourselves that this is supposed to be hard. We’ve spent the last few days socializing, playing cards, eating noodles, and lounging around. Living at over 17,000 feet never seemed easier after living up at ABC!
A couple of days ago we walked down to the Rongbuk Monastery, visited the cave monk in the old Monastery on the way (got to feel where the hand ofBuddha touched), and ran into a group of people bicycling from Lhasa to Kathmandu. It was great to socialize with some new people (some good looking females) for a couple of days as it turns out they were friends with Jamie McGuinness.
On the hike back (about 8km to the Monastery from camp) you can buy rides on the backs of little (~200cc) motorcycles that some Tibetans own. They charge about $3 a ride. We double up (3 people including the driver) on dirt roads. So far no accidents and we made it back to camp.
Today Ambrose and I went down to meet with a Serbian Expedition. We got some good Plum Brandy. You can check out their website at www.vojvodineanexpedition.net. Then we joined the Indian Air ForceExpedition, whom all say they know nothing of the helicopter we all saw from ABC near the summit, yes no one believes us at first until they realized somewhere between 50 to 100 people saw it and there is much speculation here. I saw it through my binoculars and it was a single rotor normal-looking helicopter definitely above 7500m and seen near the summit (8848m). You can read more about it on www.ExplorersWeb.com. We got some incredible Indian food with the Indian Air Force group while Ryan and the rest of the Arun group had spam and potatoes.
The current weather forecast is not looking good until after the 15th and maybe later so our summit push is still a bit up in the air. We will most likely be in ABC around the 14th.
Jamie has also been making some good posts and sometimes includes info onus. His last post has some great pictures of the North Col and above. His site is http://www.projecthimalaya.com and Karin has added a link on the right side of the blog.
We look forward to seeing you all back in Seattle in a few weeks!
Michael & (Ryan, Ambrose, and Scott)