April 5 Kathmandu 4,000 feet warm and hazy

Today was my last day to get all my shopping done. I was up at 3:30 AM. They call it jet lag but for me it is jet advance because I am 10 hours and 15 minutes ahead of Columbus. Don’t ask me why Nepal adds 15 minutes to the clock. I don’t know of anywhere else in world that does that. The days here are about the same length as Columbus. That is because Everest is about the same distance from the equator as Miami. On the other hand Everest is almost exactly on the opposite side of the world – in more ways than just geographically. Fortunately, I have a super duper climber’s watch that tells me my altitude, barometric pressure (used to predict changing weather) and several other generally useless functions. But what it does do is tell me time in two locations. That is real important to know if you want to keep peace at home. I always call my wife and kids from the summit. When I climbed Kilimanjaro and called my wife she informed me my daughter was with friends her cell phone was dead and here was the new number. I was too hypoxic, dehydrated and just plain dumb to think I could remember that. I can’t do that at sea level. I rung the number “hey sweetie (pant pant) Dad’s on top of Africa (pant pant)” it was about that time I realize 1) I had dialed the wrong number, and 2) it was 2:00 in the morning. Sir, if you are out there and happened to be reading this I really was calling you from Africa and I really do apologize.

Finally, my newest new phone is working. This thing comes from a company that is from Abu Dhabi and the satellite only works over southern Asia for those of you that thought I was pretty stupid for not checking it before I left. That does make for some interesting features including a function that calls Moslems to prayer and give directions to Mecca. I don’t know about all that but it sure made me do some praying.

The big question of the day now is “will we be able to fly in the morning?”. Four members of our team left this morning only to be turned back by weather. It has been an unusual weather year in Nepal. They have had a very dry winter which is not good for climbing. It means there is very little snow on the Lhotse face between Camps II and III. This can mean climbing very steep sections on blue ice. In normal years there is enough snow that eventually steps get kicked in making it somewhat easier. However in the last two weeks the weather has changed and a lot of snow has been falling. Unfortunately this is holding up the flights to Lukla, the closest strip to the mountain. Out of twenty flights that were supposed to fly today, only the first landed. This makes the fifth day some people have waited to fly. Most of those people are trekkers and not climbers. Unfortnately for many of them they are on a tighter schedule and usually the climbers get preference on the early flights.

Five of our team went to the airport this morning but I understand they are on their way back to the hotel. I and Bill Burke, a fellow climber from way back had opted to go tomorrow. Now we may all be together after all. It is all part of the game. We had a Sherpa in 2006 who use to say “no hurry chicken curry”. I never knew what that meant but I knew what he meant if you know what I mean. Unfortunately I lack the patience gene and being around patient people makes me even more impatient. I am better than I used to be but I’ll let you be the judge if I am still sitting here tomorrow.