20th april: about altitude, middle camp,sharks and mushrooms..

[Romke]

Today will be our first tough day as we will go up from the luxury of 5200m BC to the intermediate camp or middle camp at 5800m.
In the morning we finally get the RBgan internet working, but my credit runs out faster than I can get the 2nd batch of pix uploaded, thanks to all the spam in my inbox..
Lorenzo and I leave 20 minutes after the rest of the 7summits.com Fat Bastards Club but we soon catch up, passing several yak trains on the way.  We meet up with several other teams either going up for the second time, or coming down from ABC. We are the latest team of the season but time can only tell if this is an advantage or not.
The first part we have done before a few days ago, and we go slowly but steady on the moraine alongside the Eastern Rongbuk Glacier. Lorenzo and I scout out the best and safest route, while John leads the close pack of Fat Bastards with a steady pace.

Yesterday, most of the Russian climbers have already gone up and half of them missed camp as it is a bit hidden behind the regular middle camp. The 4 went passed it and only realized several hours later that they had gone too far and too high..

So we take care, but have no problem finding it, right beside 3 enormous ice sculptures emerging from the glacier. They look like giant (20+m) shark fins pointing the way towards the summit ridge of Everest, just visible above the moraine, partly hidden in an orange coloured clouds: Alpenglow in the Himalayas...

I am again impressed by the cooking skills under harsh conditions, but for a mushroom allergic like me it is clearly not my lucky day: mushroom soup, mushroom pizza and pasta with mushroom sauce. At least the canned fruits for dessert were safe to eat ;-)
We sleep 2 persons per tent and get to test out the huge and warm sleepingbags we will be using for our high camp. If we stay this warm high up, we will never leave our tents for summit day

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Back by popular request: the song of the day!
Robbie Williams - Feel
"I got too much life, running through my veins, going to waste"
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[MournesMan]

The FBC must be getting slower with all that food and weight they are putting on - even in altitude you quickly caught them up!

Gosh, mushroom everything for dinner!! Great for a mushroom junky like me!!!  Sign me up for next year - the food on this expedition is better than you get in a 5-star hotel!!!!! 

I thought expeditions were hard!  :lol)

For the Russian folks - next time get the Sherpas to send you down some coordinates and program them into your GPS devices - we can't have you wandering around lost on the highest mountain on Earth!! 

Take care and continued success,
Colin Fox