Day 5 – Advanced Base Camp (ABC) – day of rest!

Spectacular morning, up early after another rotten night. Did my Heart rate rest & VO2 max simulation tests and both good for a first day at a new altitude - 5,600m height level. Also feeling very good, especially as I had another rotten night. Quite surprised I had difficulty sleeping after such a big day, but it's those dam dreams. Had to wake up to stop them, so ended up playing mine sweeper on my iPhone until I was exhausted and sure I would sleep deeply (2:00am!) The dreams are just silly problem solving issues – mostly related to carrying loads. And they are not my loads but simple ones of anyone in a village or on the trail. It's probably related to the new altitude but might also be related to having too much sleep. I'm going to try to stay awake later, but that's a bit difficult as the dinning tent gets very cold and hence we all disappear to our tents and sleeping bags as soon as we have eaten. Yep we do have a dining tent at ABC – this is shared between the 4 groups. I think the Germans will be moving to their own tent today,leaving me with the Japanese lady – Kono and the two Americans - Scott & Nicole. Major will be with us for another 5 to 6 days. Above ABC I will be getting any food support. I'm hoping to get all my gear to a place called depot camp, 200m higher where the penitentes start. This is where I believe the mountain “starts” and from thereon I will receive no further assistance. If though there are fixed ropes (over crevasses) then I will clip into these.

A perfect day at ABC - talk about location, location, location

Peaceful yaks

A big fellow that had my barrels on the way up

Horses are also used for some smaller loads and to carry the Tibetan yak herders gear - they live a very rough life

So a rough plan is as follows:
Puja tomorrow – requesting permission from the Gods to climb
Then get all my gear to Depot Camp
21 April establish Camp I
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Note that I will not be able to upload directly onto the Blog while on the mountain (already have enough to carry), but will be calling Raymond via Sat phone with updated for him to publish. Photos will be added when I return to ABC

Have just got BGAN to work from inside ABC tent – comms all good!