大象传媒

Camp 1 to Camp 2

• Graham
• 29 Apr 07, 05:48 AM

As you climb Everest so life in each of the camps becomes more unpleasant and extreme. Last night Dave Rasmussen the cameraman just could not sleep at all and tossed and turned and had to listen to me snoring all night.

We left camp one early to miss the incredible heat of the Western Cwm, but perhaps left too early, the temperature was -20 degrees Centigrade. My fingers were slightly damaged by frost bite on the summit in 1993 and I just couldn’t get them warm and indeed I couldn’t feel them for the first two hours of climbing.

As we climb up the snowy valley we use three main devices clipped to our climbing harness. There is an abseiling device, a figure of eight in aluminium, with which we slide down ropes. Then there is a Jumar, a ratchet device which we climb up ropes. Finally there is a snap link Karabiner which we slide along ropes as we jump across crevasses. If the ice fall collapses frankly this would only be useful to find our bodies.

The sun hit us at 8am and the temperature rocketed and we were soon toiling along in immense heat. The Western Cwm is like huge parabolic reflector and the sun just bakes you even though the air temperature might still be below zero. We got to the camp at last and collapsed into the Mess tent. In here the temperature climbed to +35 degrees Centigrade, a range of 55 degrees wearing the same clothing.

Poor Dave suffered another sleepless night, we have to stay here over a week filming the scientific experiments so I hope he settles in soon. After that we climb the steep and icy Lhotse face to the hell of Camp 3, then up to the South Col for 2 nights at Camp 4. At 7900 meters this isn’t the best place to go camping but it is where the science is happening.