{"id":33308,"date":"2019-04-15T09:01:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T15:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/?p=33308"},"modified":"2019-04-15T09:34:24","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T15:34:24","slug":"everest-2019-training-before-climbing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/15\/everest-2019-training-before-climbing\/","title":{"rendered":"Everest 2019: Training Before Climbing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It may seem strange that most Everest teams do some additional training at Base camp before starting their paper climb. Early this week, the course is filled! But first, the news.<\/p>\n<h3>Headlines<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Record Climbers from Nepal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Nepal Tourism Ministry has updated their permit numbers for Everest South Side 2019.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nepal has issued a record 361 climbing permits to foreigners as of 15 April<\/li>\n<li>Top countries on Everest &#8211; Nepal Side: India (83), US (67), China (59), UK (40), Nepal &#8211; \u00a0members, not working (12)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Sherpas Sleeping at Camp 2<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>IMG said eight of their Sherpas have gone to Camp 2 to set up the cooking and dinning tent. This marks the first big progress above EBC this year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Slow WiFi<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I contacted EverestLink about their wifi prices at EBC and heard back from their General Manager:<\/p>\n<table style=\"height: 152px;\">\n<thead>\n<tr style=\"height: 10px; background-color: #b8b2b2;\">\n<td style=\"height: 56px; width: 96px; text-align: center;\"><strong>DATA PACKAGE<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 56px; width: 81px; text-align: center;\"><strong>RATE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>(IN NPR)<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 56px; width: 78px; text-align: center;\"><strong>RATE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>(IN USD)<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr style=\"height: 24px;\">\n<td style=\"height: 24px; width: 96px;\"><strong>1 GB<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px; width: 81px;\">5,000<\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px; width: 78px;\">$45.04<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 24px;\">\n<td style=\"height: 24px; width: 96px;\"><strong>2 GB<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px; width: 81px;\">7500<\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px; width: 78px;\">$67.56<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 24px;\">\n<td style=\"height: 24px; width: 96px;\"><strong>5 GB<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px; width: 81px;\">14,500<\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px; width: 78px;\">$130.62<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 24px;\">\n<td style=\"height: 24px; width: 96px;\"><strong>10 GB<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px; width: 81px;\">20,000<\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px; width: 78px;\">180.16<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>So how much is enough? Remember that 1 GB is 1,000 MB. While most people simply want access to email, text or WhatsApp, and for they would be fine at 1 GB. Others might want to FaceTime or Skype, they will need to bump up to probably 5 GB if they connect every few days. Then for those who want to stream movies or videos from YouTube, break out the hundred bills and buy the 10 GB card.<\/p>\n<p>This will give you an example of how much each of these scenarios will eat up:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1.6 Million Emails \u00a03 KB each (with no attachments)<\/li>\n<li>33,000 Web Pages Lookup\u00a0\u00a0150 KB each<\/li>\n<li>10,000\u00a0Low Res Photos\u00a0500 KB each<\/li>\n<li>1,600\u00a03 Minute Songs\u00a03 MB each<\/li>\n<li>300 \u00a03 Minute Youtube Videos \u00a015 MB each<\/li>\n<li>29 Hours of Skype Video Calls\u00a0169 MB each<\/li>\n<li>14\u00a030 Minute TV Shows\u00a0350 MB each<\/li>\n<li>3 Movies\u00a01.5 GB each (fewer if high def)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Also, I&#8217;m hearing that the speed at EBC is painfully <strong>slow<\/strong>. I have a question into EverestLink to see if they are aware of the situation and what their plans are for a fix.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Driving to CBC<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Rolfe Oostra of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.360-expeditions.com\/everest-2019-on-the-road\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">360 Expeditions<\/a> has an excellent overview of their journey from Lhasa to Chinese Base Camp aka CBC. I&#8217;ve been asked why I don&#8217;t cover the journey to CBC like I did for EBC, well its simply not as exciting .. and, you are in a vehicle most of the time, so I&#8217;m not sure what to report.<\/p>\n<p>The last time I made this journey was in 2007 for Shishapangma. Back then the towns were desolate, the roads unpaved and the accommodations less than minimal. Cleary things have advanced but there is still room for improvement according to Rolfe:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<figure id=\"attachment_33314\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33314\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.360-expeditions.com\/everest-2019-on-the-road\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-33314\" src=\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/FMIZ4801-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/FMIZ4801-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/FMIZ4801-300x225-225x169.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/FMIZ4801-300x225-230x173.jpg 230w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-33314\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Courtesy of 360 Expeditions<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Every year, Tingri the gateway town to both Everest and Cho Oyu gets bigger, more modern and slicker. At least that\u2019s what the brochure in our hotel room promises. Sure, we no longer sleep 12 people on the floor of a dusty hut where the only heat comes from a smoky stove fed by yak dung and now we sleep in comfortable beds but still here are some elements which don\u2019t quite deliver on the promise of all the western style bliss.<\/p>\n<p>Toilets and\u00a0 phones don\u2019t work and the heating clunks on and lasts for 4 minutes before going icy again\u2026but then I tell my gang we didn\u2019t come here for a comfy hand-held tour, but to climb the highest mountain on earth and let\u2019s just make the most of the comforts we do have as soon things will be a lot more primitive still. And just look out the window!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Visit his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.360-expeditions.com\/everest-2019-on-the-road\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">page<\/a> for more excellent pictures and a vivid write up.<\/p>\n<h3>Training for Climbing<\/h3>\n<p>While most people coming to Everest know how to climb in their crampons, scale a near vertical snow wall and rappel, they probably have little experience crossing a ladder wearing crampons. So the next team leaders will put their charges through a bit of an obstacle course. This serves two purposes: 1) review basic skills and brush up on techniques and 2) get the mind focused on what&#8217;s ahead.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adventureconsultants.com\/latest-news\/dispatches-everest-lhotse-expedition-2019\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adventure Consultants<\/a> described their day:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This morning we set up a fixed ropes course in the ice pinnacles near camp, to practice ascending, rappelling and ladder crossing. These are skills we will be using soon when we climb the Khumbu Icefall, and it&#8217;s not the place to try and remember how to connect your ascender or rig a rappell. All the climbers got stuck in and refreshed their ropework skills, tried out new pieces of equipment, and also did the same skills wearing big gloves and mittens.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<figure id=\"attachment_33313\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33313\" style=\"width: 608px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adventureconsultants.com\/latest-news\/dispatches-everest-lhotse-expedition-2019\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-33313\" src=\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/AC-2019-Icefall-Training.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"608\" height=\"810\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/AC-2019-Icefall-Training.jpg 608w, https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/AC-2019-Icefall-Training-169x225.jpg 169w, https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/AC-2019-Icefall-Training-360x480.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/AC-2019-Icefall-Training-230x306.jpg 230w, https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/AC-2019-Icefall-Training-350x466.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/AC-2019-Icefall-Training-480x639.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 608px) 100vw, 608px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-33313\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">AC 2019 Icefall Training<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Thus far, #Everest 2019 is going well, right on schedule on both sides. The actual climbing will pick up this week, especially towards the weekend assuming the weather continues to be good.<\/p>\n<p>Climb On!<br \/>\nAlan<br \/>\nMemories are Everything<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It may seem strange that most Everest teams do some additional training at Base camp before starting their paper climb. Early this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":20887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[147,526],"tags":[448,521],"class_list":["post-33308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-everest","category-everest-2019-coverage","tag-everest","tag-everest-2019-coverage"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/IMG_1146.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}