Everest 2012: A Matter of Perspective

Trekking around Base Camp

It may be Friday the 13 but that is not all bad around the world, here especially if you are at Everest Base Camp! Lot’s of good posts today as the climbers get their comms systems running and batteries recharged, cheap literally and figuratively. Today is first day of the new year in the Tibetan calendar.

Appreciation

Let’s start today’s coverage with a simple comment from 70 year-old Bill Burke who is attempting a double summit – first from the south then travel to Tibet for a push on that side. As he treks to EBC -south he made this simple comment that touched me:

I can’t believe I’m back in the Himalayas. I feel so blessed to be enjoying the breathtaking beauty of the Himalaya mountain range. In Tengboche, we got our first look at Mt. Everest. Every time I see this mountain for the first time, I get goosebumps. I just can’t believe I will soon be climbing this mountain again.

Meetings

Form the home team of Mike Moniz, climbing with IMG and attempting a triple climb of Everest, Lhotse and Cho Oyu, made this comment on his blog about meeting his personal Sherpa, I can relate to this!

Today, Mike met his clmbing partner on Everest and Lohtse, Chong-ba Sherpa. Known as “The Yeti”, Chong-ba has summited Lohtse six times and Everest twice. Rumor has it that he has super-human strength. Of that, Mike said “I like that in a climbing partner!” It sounds like a great fit.

Puja Complete

Yesterday, I wrote at length on Puja’s. Adventure Consultant’s Ang Dorge Sherpa ( a wonderful person and phenomenally strong Sherpa) wrote this for AC, please click to read his entire post from a Sherpa’s perspective:

Friday the thirteenth is, for the superstitious, an unlucky day in Western society. However, according to the Sherpa calendar today was a very auspicious day for the expedition’s Puja celebration. This was confounded as we woke up to brilliant blue skies – a great morning for this important occasion. The Puja is for Chomolongma (Mount Everest) to ask for permission to climb and to apologise for stepping on her. During the Puja Dawa Jangbu (our Climbing Sirdar) is Chorpen which means he is the Lama’s secretary! While the Lama reads the prayer, he will burn juniper, hand round rice etc to keep the ceremony flowing as it should.

Blessing the Medal

Speaking of blessings, Kenton Cool is taking a 1924 London Olympic medal honoring the first serious attempt of Everest by a UK team on his summit bid this year.  You can read the whole story at this link from the BBC. In addition to having his team blessed by Lama Gehse, the medal also got a nod! Kenton posted this video of the event along with a few great landscape shots on his Facebook page and YouTube

Points of view

As I read the many, many Everest 2012 posts each day, I am struck by how people see the same thing id very different ways. For example, today the owner of a  commercial operator describes a town in Tibet as ” beautiful downtown Nyalam, Tibet” while a member on another teams comments about the same town as “Its one one main street is lined with feral looking restaurants and some basic hotels which charge an arm and a leg.”

On the Road in Tibet

Grant, Axe, Rawlinson does an excellent job of describing a day in Tingri Tibet as he searches for help with his communications equipment. This is Axe’s second trip to the north side so he has a bit of experience. It the Blog of the Day so please visit to read the entire post, it will make you glad you are wherever you are and not with him 🙂

Today we arrived in the small village of Tingri on the Tibetan plateau at 4340m elevation. Tingri has been described by some people as the arm-pit of Tibet. I am not sure I agree with this. I think backside would be more appropriate. There is certainly enough faeces of the human, dog and horse variety flying around the main street to indicate we are very close to a backside. Some people also call it a one horse town. I also disagree with that statement as I saw at least 4 horses pulling carts on my short walk before. It was nice to see the local dog population thriving in numbers (if not in health). I took some stones with me in my pocket in-case they got tired of me staring at them and decided to eat me.

Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything

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3 thoughts on “Everest 2012: A Matter of Perspective

  1. Great Post, Alan — I have been following your Posts year on year. Physically I may not be there but mentally Iam very much there !

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