I have now been here five days.  Five or six days acclimatization is about the norm.  With each passing day my heart rate has been going down and my oxygen saturation level has been going up.

I, in fact several of us, have these nifty little meters you place over your finger.  It shines a light through the nail and measured the amount of O2 in your blood.  We call that your “sat’ rate.  It also tells you your heart rate and the combination of the two and the trend is a good indication of your overall altitude health.  When I got here five days ago it was in the low 70’s and my heart rate was about 110.  At home resting my heart rate may drop into the high 40’s when I am really well trained but usually is in the 50’s.  Today I was back up to about 85 sat and 85 HR and it may trend higher over the next couple of weeks but staying at this altitude won’t speed the process any longer.  I don’t know but I bet that even an 85 sat rate would probably get you put in the hospital at home.

Today we had our first team member leave the expedition.  I hope it is only temporary but he seemed pretty resigned to throwing in the towel.  He came into breakfast yesterday looking like a chipmunk.  One whole side of his face was swollen.  Turns out he had an infected gum.  It hurt to look at him.  The docs at HRA assured him that the antibiotics they were giving him would resolve it and he could go higher.  This morning he chose, instead, to hike the two days back to Namche to see a dentist.  He has time to get it seen to and still make it back but he was talking about flights home, etc.  I hope he returns.  He is a real fine man and I feel for him.  He would have been one of my early picks for “most likely to succeed”.

I once turned around on a summit day 800 feet from the top.  Someone later told me they couldn’t understand how I could spend all that time and money and then quit so close.  That was still 80 stories and it also happened to be at 22,000.  What I wanted to say was “you couldn’t walk up 80 stories at sea level” what I said was “guess you had to be there”.  I have never heard a fellow climber criticizing another for turning or pulling out and these are some of the most competitive people you will ever meet.  It may be partly because you climb long enough and you’re the one turning or going home.  More over until someone has had diarrhea in a blizzard, in a tent, freezing your raw butt off a million miles from home I don’t think they have the right to judge someone who chooses “out now”.

Tomorrow we leave at 4:00 am for Camp 1 at about 19,500.  We want to be above most of the ice fall while it is still cold and before the sun hits the ice.  They don’t call it the ice fall for nothing!  Camp 1 is usually windy and cold.  I expect it to take six hours to reach and to be pretty wasted when I get there.  We will spend two days there and then move to Camp 2 at about 21,000 (I think).  I expect to spend about three days perhaps taking one day to touch Camp 3 at 23,600 which would be a personal record for me having only gotten to 22,800.  At 23,600 the climb profile for a strong western climber is to go on O2 above there.    All that will be predicated on how I feel.  The objective at this point is to slowly establish a good acclimatization base.  It is possible if all goes well I will return to BC after five days ready for a summit bid when the weather permits.  With that in mind my post will be more limited the next few days.  After all my objective is to climb this thing not start a new career as a writer.  No worries there.

Some of our team left yesterday for their first rotation and I hear they have already made it to Camp 2.  I have a great team that I will try to share more about in the future.  This subset of our group is particularly strong and moving fast.  I am moving at “old man” speed.  In Africa they say “poli, poli”, slowly, slowly.  There is more I would love to share but I think it might be appropriate to wait for a future time – maybe after this is all over!