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Illness Strikes Gorak Shep
Gorak Shep - Sunday, April 9, 2000

DISPATCHES

Berg

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Hey Mountain Zone, it's morning in Gorak Shep and it's time to head down. We're all feeling the effects of having been up here a couple of days. Everyone said that the trek up to Base Camp yesterday was definitely the biggest day. It took its toll. It may not be what you expect. Well, it's just Base Camp you might be thinking, but the trip up to 17,500 feet is a big deal for everyone. It doesn't matter if it's a climber, a trekker — when you first arrive at Base Camp your body is feeling it and everyone in our group felt it yesterday. We had a great sense of accomplishment and really a wonderful time up there, but now back to Gorak Shep. We're all feeling like that thick air down at 14,000 feet is what we need.

We didn't all make it to Base Camp yesterday. You probably noticed from the photos — Gary Kenyon has had this problem with leg cramps and he took himself out of the trek pretty early in the way up the moraine there and he said, "I'll see you guys back at Gorak Shep." And we were really happy to see Gary sitting on a big rock just out of Gorak Shep when we returned, with a video camera, filming our return to Gorak Shep. He had spent time up at the Rob Hall Memorial and had a great day.

Dick Nichols, the tough old coot from Arizona, has been fighting this Khumbu cough the whole way up and I knew that he wouldn't just sit down here and not at least try to go to Base Camp, but his breathing was not going well at all and he told me soon after Gary turned around that he wanted to come back as well. Not that he wanted to come back but he needed to. And I gave him some oxygen and showed him how to put the regulator on. He took a few hits out of it and said, "Boy this is good stuff." But being the tough guy that he is, he didn't use the oxygen, he just came on back and took it easy here in Gorak Shep and he's heading down the valley right now with the rest of the crew. He got the Khumbu cough, which happens to a lot of people, but he's going to be fine.

Gladys, this morning, after her successful trip to Base Camp, she decided to, after a pretty rough night with stomach distress, probably related to altitude as much as everything else — she's really weak. We put her on what we call a Sherpa ambulance. She's going to get a ride down to Pheriche today. She looked pretty tired as she took off but this is something we do all the time and she was happy to take advantage of it. The Sherpas will have her transported down to Pheriche in the thick air — The Himalayan Rescue Association Clinic if she needs it, in just a couple of hours and we'll be a few hours behind her after we stop and have lunch at Dugla.

So, it might not be that interesting of a dispatch to describe all of our health problems but you know it does take its toll being up here and just dealing with things as they come up is part of what we do. And the perspective I have on it more than anything else this morning is, that this yak driver, this fella named Kami, from Namche, a really familiar face to me, I've seen him up and down this valley for years and years. He's working for us and yesterday he was feeding his yaks. I don't know if I explained it to you, but this early spring trip up the valley at Base Camp is a pretty big deal logistically because the yaks are weak after a long winter and we have to carry food up here for them and it's a hard trip for the animals. The yak drivers work very hard to get this thing pulled off.

Porters carry food up for yaks to eat and Kami was feeding his yaks yesterday and one turned his head quickly and grazed Kami's eye with his horn, the yaks horn. Jeff Boscamp, our doc and I took a look at it just moments after it happened and realized that Kami was extremely lucky. We figure in the globe of his eye, which was effected by this little swipe, that just a millimeter or two more and the cornea would have been effected and probably been a very serious injury. But antibiotics in the eye and a little bit of encouragement and Kami's off down the trail today. His vision is just fine. It's a tough life where he lives and he's just laughing it off saying, "Very lucky, very lucky."

So, you know, there are a lot of very serious things up here. The travel, the stresses of the Westerners here and the hard life that the local folks live, but we travel as a party with the supplies we need and the care for one another. We need to take care of each other. The expeditions above do the same thing and it allows us to get through this valley usually in very good health and always with a sense of care for one another.

So that's on my mind as we head down the valley. Speaking of care for one another, that thick air is just what we need this morning and I'll check back in with you from Pheriche where we have some of that thick air.

— Wally Berg, Alpine Ascents Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent

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