พฤษภาคม 19, 2008 - 8:47pm — MountEverest2008
Panting Like a Dog
Camp II
It seems like just yesterday we were sniffing the flowers of a Khumbu spring. Fast forward to tonight- I'm thankfully cocooned in my -40F sleeping bag, sleeping on ice, listening to the occasional avalanche, and gasping for oxygen at our Camp II locale at 21,500ft. Yep, we are now very much in the thick of it again.
Today's climb went well. We navigated our way once more through the Icefall and reached Camp I in 5.5 hours, well shy of our earlier times. After a short break we persevered to Camp II. Each section on it's own is doable... combine them and you have a long, hard day. I was pretty much toast when we arrived at Camp II. A mid-afternoon nap helped me feel better though.
I'll take a shot at describing what a day climbing feels like. Imagine you just ran a 100 yards as hard as you could. Now examine your breathing at the end. You likely are panting like a dog, your whole chest heaving up and down. You're spent and in a mode of trying to catch your breath. Now imagine sustaining that condition for several hours- that's kind of what climbing at high altitude is like. During the climb, I'm almost purely focused on breathing. In fact, one doctor up here recently mentioned that 95% of a climber's energy is spent on breathing.
Same topic, if you don't get enough oxygen, you can be in deep trouble,fast. For example, today, just below Camp II, we saw a rescue mission taking place. A Sherpa had become seriously ill with HAPE or HACE and was being quickly carried down the mountain by a rescue crew of about ten. He looked to be in really bad shape and unfortunately, the nearest helicopter evacuation point was all the way down at base camp. Whereas transporting the victim from Camp II to Camp I think would be pretty straight forward, I cringe to think of how the rescue team would handle the vertical ice walls and crevasses of the Icefall. If it wasn't crystal clear before, it is now- we do not want to get injured at high altitude.
Tomorrow we rest and get our summit gear ready. The following day we'll intend to climb to Camp III.
The team is doing well other than some headaches and digestive problems. We had a tough day but with a little rest we'll be ready to continue our summit push.