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Ladder Training and Patience
Base Camp - Tuesday, April 18, 2000
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Tejas

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Good morning Mountain Zone, this is Vernon Tejas with Alpine Ascents reporting from Base Camp of Everest, in Nepal. Ladders — and lots of them. Crossing crevasses in the Khumbu is done by walking across ladders (click for video of ladder crossing) that have been strategically placed over the chasm below by very deft Sherpas who are paid to go into the Khumbu Icefall and rig it in such a way that we can safely pass. We crossed several of them yesterday but the one in particular that sticks in mind is the one that had three ladders lashed together over a 75-foot drop into the ice itself.

When you're crossing ladders it's very important not to look down in the crevasse itself, but to focus on your feet and the next rung. These ladders are actually going horizontal across these crevasses and you take one step at a time and try to find the sweet spot, where there's no crampon spikes to lock back and forth on the rung, so you want to actually saddle it where the spikes are on either side of the rung. It's a little balance and coordination thing, with a little bit of intimidation. But we did it and all of our members seem to be able to handle that quite well.

Today we're planning on hiking to Pumori Base Camp, which is a beautiful mountain, Pumori is, and it hangs above our camp, where several miles away, climbers who are going to climb Pumori are camped and we're going to go take a hike, an acclimatization hike up there today. And that brings us to the big thing: patience. It's very difficult for us to sit here while our body slowly adapts to the higher altitude. The acclimatization process takes time, and of course all of us climbers want to start climbing almost immediately, as soon as we get to Base Camp. But today, I will patiently take a little bit of a hike, over to Pumori Base Camp, and let our bodies adapt to this new altitude.

Speaking of new altitudes, overnight our altimeter setting has changed. Why has it changed, even though our position hasn't? We're working with altimeters that work off of barometric pressure, so maybe you can try to figure that one out. How does our elevation change, even though we're staying in the same place?

That brings us to numbers; I'd like to report that our team is acclimatizing well. We have an average O₂ of 82 percent and our average pulse for the team right now is 77. Wind direction this morning is changing from where it's usually very calm and clear, we have 18.5 kilometers per hour coming out of the east. It's 22 degrees Fahrenheit, that's -5.5 centigrade. And our altimeter is now reading at 5355 meters above sea level.

Please stay tuned, and we'll check you later. Ciao for now, bye.

— Vern Tejas, Alpine Ascents Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent

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