大象传媒

Base Camp Tour

• Rob
• 29 Apr 07, 10:26 AM

I thought I’d put together a little tour of the essential side of Base Camp life (yes including how to pooh) so here it goes:

Welcome to Caudwell Extreme Everest’s section of Base Camp. Behind me is the centre of our area, with the 大象传媒 tent (red) in the background and the lab (green) a little further behind. Circling this area we have all the accommodation tents split into nice homely areas like Bolder Alley and ‘The Ghetto’ (where I live). There are normally about 40 of us staying here plus about another 35 Sherpas, so we’re not a small outfit.

This is my tent, my home from home. As I said before I live in the ‘Ghetto’ and am surrounded by many of the climbing team, with Graham and Dave perched at the top of the slope above me. I have a river side pitch which is nice in the afternoon but not so good at night as all of Base Camp seems to trudge up it on the way to the Ice Fall at 4am. Still I get to stay in my nice warm sleeping bag whilst they brave the cold and the dangers of a moving waterfall of ice.

Living for three months in a tent requires an element of routine. So every night after dinner I fill my water bottle with hot water and stick it in my sleeping bag to warm it up. I have stuff stacks for different kinds of clothes, underwear, t-shirts, etc. But there is also the trial of washing – as you will see from other blogs this can be a struggle. I have a new washing line system that finally dries rather than freezes my clothes – the secret is hanging it inside the tent!

Now the question you have all been asking – how do you go to the loo on Everest? Well the answer is separately. To have a Pee the boys have a little latrine with a lovely view of the Ice Fall. The girls have a tent to hide their modesty.

But poohs have to be done separately – no peeing and poohing at the same time. For this task we have a delightful barrel, complete with toilet seat. Not the most pleasant place in the world but spare a thought for the guy that has to carry this lot down the hill. At the end of the expedition our excrement is weighted to make sure teams don’t dump it and pollute the area. Nasty.

Finally we get to the place we spend most of our time (well when we’re not all working). The Mess tent. Here we eat, drink and watch movies. It’s big enough to seat 40, just, and get freezing at night. We all sit in here, dress in all the warm clothes we have and watch movies when the sun goes down. In the morning it rains inside as the frozen condensation melts off the ceiling – a novel breakfast experience. This prompted the invention of the 大象传媒 Breakfast Terrace, situated just outside it is a lovely spot to have breakfast in the sun free from precipitation.

And that is the end of our tour.