{"id":71,"date":"2008-03-26T15:51:36","date_gmt":"2008-03-26T21:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wordpress\/?p=71"},"modified":"2013-03-14T20:12:40","modified_gmt":"2013-03-15T03:12:40","slug":"the-final-leg-of-the-journey-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/26\/the-final-leg-of-the-journey-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"The Final Leg of the Journey Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/dispatches\/live\/images\/DSC_0005.php\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/dispatches\/live\/images\/DSC_0005.php',   there<\/a> &#8216;popup&#8217;,&#8217;width=800,height=664,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0&#8242;); return false&#8221;><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/dispatches\/live\/images\/DSC_0005-thumb-200x166.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"166\" alt=\"gear.JPG\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right; margin: 0 0 20px 20px;\" \/><\/a><\/span>The Road Back to Mt. Everest began over a year ago. It had two parts: raise awareness and money for Alzheimer&#8217;s research and climb five mountains culminating with Mt. Everest on April and May of 2008.<br \/>\nHow time files!<br \/>\nTomorrow I get on a plane and end up in Kathmandu on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>This past year has been one of excitement, disappointment, victory and lessons. I have learned so much about Alzheimer&#8217;s and the devastating impact it has on so many. I have experienced it first hand through the fading memories of my Mom.<br \/>\nThe climbs turned out just like I wanted. While I did not summit some, I learned valuable lessons on all and today my confidence is at an all time high for climbing big Hills.<br \/>\nThe last minute turmoil in Tibet caused us to switch to the south side and we will be climbing from Nepal on the South Col route, the same route I climbed in 2002 and 2003.<br \/>\nThere have been many rumors and misinformation about Everest this year. The mainstream press picked up the story a week late and consequently the stories were old and inaccurate news. The websites often printed rumors or had misleading headlines. Confusion reigned.<br \/>\nIn addition to my real-time dispatches, you can get a general overview of what is happening this season from the links in the right column on this page. My experience shows these sites are the : [MountEverest.net](http:\/\/www.mounteverest.net\/), and two emerging blogs: [The Adventurist ] [The Adventure Blog](http:\/\/theadventureblog.blogspot.com\/).<br \/>\nWe have our climbing permit. We have not been officially notified of any climbing restrictions from Nepal due to the Chinese torch climb on the north. However, I am expecting some kind of &#8220;guidance&#8221; once we get to Base Camp. And we will deal with it.<br \/>\nI was looking forward to climbing from the north but the Chinese effectively closed that option with their restrictions designed to allow them to take the Olympic torch to the summit without incident. However the resulting violence in Lhasa has been ever so sad and not what any country or Olympic Game should symbolize.<br \/>\nMy team is solid. There are Scott and Angus from Canada, Al from Colorado and Ryan, our leader. I have climbed with Ryan in Pakistan and Argentina. I know and trust him.<br \/>\nMy bags are packed. I have the Cure Alzheimer&#8217;s Fund flag in my summit pack. My last minute phone calls made.<br \/>\nI leave confident in mind, body and spirit.  But most importantly I leave with a sense of purpose and commitment. I will make it&#8230;<br \/>\nRemember:  Memories are everything.<br \/>\nClimb On!<br \/>\nAlan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[147,10],"tags":[448,435],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everest","category-everest-2008-climb","tag-everest","tag-everest-2008-coverage"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","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=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}