Everest Base Camp – Himex Style
I’ve been in many base camps but I knew I was somewhere special when I was told “… and this is our garbage tent.” Welcome to Everest Base Camp, Russell Brice style. In 2011 while climbing Everest, I spent the afternoon with Brice getting to know this man and how he runs his expedition base camps. Let’s just say, it’s different. Most expeditions will promote their excellent base camp facilities and talk of gourmet food, individual tents, and clean kitchens. Today, this is the ante to play the game and let me say from the start that many operators take great pride in their base camps, and rightfully so. With guided expeditions becoming more competitive along with soaring prices, climbers are starting to expect more, sometimes unrealistically so. Everest Base Camp A base camp is just that, the camp where you are based for an expedition. In this sense, you want it to be comfortable, clean and convenient. A place where you can recharge after a difficult acclimatization climb or regroup after a summit bid. A place you literally call your home away from home. Most expeditions will offer dedicated tents for dining, cooking, sleeping, showers and toilets. Then they may add communications, medical and storage tents. Almost all will heat the dining tent with a propane heater and provide power for lights from solar panels supplemented by a generator. The next level up is when there is a “social tent” where climbers can hang out and relax on comfortable chairs or even some kind of sofa, believe it or not. And then the entertainment: stereos, and flat screen TVs with DVD’s for movie night. Finally we reach a crescendo with an open bar and espresso machines. Yes, all this at 17,000 feet surrounded by rock, dirt and ice. Himex Base Camp Brice came over to our camp one snowy afternoon in May 2011 and over lunch invited me to tour his base camp . He never expected me to write this article but with so much attention on Everest these days, I thought my readers would enjoy seeing an inside look at how he runs an Everest Base Camp. As I took the tour with Brice, he took great pride in showing me his version of the expected amenities. It was one of the most impressive camps I had ever seen in over 30 major expeditions. It was set up with military precision and 5 Star hotel cleanliness and service. Cooking, Eating, Sleeping and More Each climber had a private 3 man sleeping tent that provided more than enough room to spread gear out and sleep comfortably on thick mats. They were lined up in a straight line suggesting a laser was used to align the tents. The kitchen was a very large yellow canopy that covered stainless steel tables, dutch ovens, and food prep stations. The dirt floor was covered by a nylon tarp. So far nice but not unique amongst the top operators, I mentioned to Brice. His response: “The dirt floor is covered by a nylon tarp then insulation followed by outdoor carpet. Actually this is quite different from other operators. Others have a stone floor as it makes it much easier for cooks to tip water / fat etc on the floor rather than taking it outside. By having carpet means that cooks cannot do this, so hygiene is improved and it makes it safer and more easy for the cooks whilst cooking.” The dining tent was another large and long yellow canopy that Brice had custom made for his expeditions. A long table was covered in a plastic table cloth, plastic flowers adorned the table next to well organized condiments all sitting on top of indoor/outdoor carpeting. Comfortable chairs with padded cushions lined the perimeter of the table; a sturdy heater in the corner stood by for the cold evening. Several light bulbs hung from the ceiling to provide light, powered from solar panels. Brice prides himself on not using a generator unless absolutely necessary such as for charging a film crew’s batteries overnight. Sherpas arrive in mid March, well before the members, to set all this up so when the members arrive they can focus on, well enjoying base camp. The toilet tent was the nicest I had ever seen, and I say that with sincere appreciation. Another large yellow tent, actually there were two tents – a mens and a ladies – with sit down toilets (a urinal in the mens), and carpeted floor. A sink for hand washing was in each restroom. Another separate, rather large tent provided room for propane heated on-demand hot water showering. A chair and hooks were conveniently located inside the tent to accommodate changing clothes. The Sherpas also had it nice with more yellow tents smartly lined up housing four to six persons per tent. Oh, and about that garbage tent. Well, you guessed it, another large yellow version that housed all the kitchen scraps and trash generated by modern climbers stored in plastic bags outside the reach of ravens, yaks and yetis. As with all Everest Nepal side expeditions, this trash is taken down valley and burned or buried like in a modern city. The Dome But the Pièce de résistance for Brice was his social tent aka the Pleasure Dome, White Pod or Tiger Dome (winning!). Again, many expeditions will use a dome from Mountain Hardwear for a similar feeling, but there is more to this than nylon. The Dome, made by White Pod, was literally an extremely large round domed tent maybe 50 feet across and 20 feet high with clear plastic floor to ceiling windows serving as a window to watch the world passing by. You entered through a small wooden entry room, a foyer so to speak, to prevent the cold and snow from spoiling the interior ambiance. The day I visited, most of his members were at the higher camps on Everest so the base camp staff were taking