My travel diaries
Friday 4 May, 2007 - Everest Base Camp, Tibet
A lazy day spent acclimatising at Base Camp. I spend the day moving between my tent, the mess tent and sitting outside on a camp chair reading my book and gazing up the valley to the north face of Everest. While the view continues to be as amazing as it was when we first arrived, weather conditions render this latter activity frustrating. When the sun is out, which it often is, it's certainly warm enough to sit outside and soak it up, but it's impossible to forget that we're at an altitude of 5200m, causing average air temperatures to be around 30 degrees celsius cooler than they would be at sea level. As soon as the sun passes behind a cloud it quickly becomes cold enough for the proverbial brass monkey to start feeling uncomfortable, and there are frequent snow showers.
The day is characterised by a series of surreal conversations in the mess tent. It starts at breakfast when we begin talking about how accessible Everest is now becoming: the hotel at Rongbuk Monastery, not only 4x4's but buses now driving to Base Camp, the Chinese building a paved road here, a French pilot touching his helicopter down on the summit, and Tim swearing he saw wheel marks near the junction of the East Rongbuk Glacier, way beyond Base Camp (though this may simply have been the effects of altitude on Tim's brain). There follows a bizarre conversation about building a tunnel underneath Everest to the Nepalese side of the mountain (the Mont Blanc tunnel being cited as evidence it can be achieved) so that tourists can see both sides of the mountain when they come here. Mark then suggests building a 3800m elevator from the middle of the tunnel up to the summit so that people can stand on the top without having to do any walking. Ian, the surveyor, seems to be the sole voice of reason questioning the viability of the scheme.
"How are you going to drill the lift shaft from the bottom up?" he asks. "In the mining industry they use a type of drill called a 'mole', which drills from the top down to create the shaft."
"We'll do it from the top down then," says Bunter, undeterred, "using a helicopter."
Chris then describes the Jungfraubahn in Switzerland, a railway line running within a tunnel cut into the north face of the Eiger, which contains viewing stations looking out from inside the rock, giving travellers a sense of what it might be like to actually climb the fearsome north face. This is used as further evidence their madcap scheme might actually work.
But it gets sillier. Their next idea is to build a series of tunnels linking up all 14 of the world's 8000m mountains, a scheme which would require cooperation between the Chinese, Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani governments, who would presumably set aside their differences over disputed borders to push through this amazing development.
"I can see there's going to be a few difficulties with quadrapartite international diplomacy," says Mark.
"Or even getting the four countries to work together," adds Bunter.
As if this isn't enough, at dinner that evening a serious briefing by Mic about the logistics of our trek up the mountain, which we commence tomorrow, is interrupted by a discussion about whether yaks go 'moo'. The issue is finally resolved by Sangye who, when asked his opinion, assures us they usually just go 'ting-a-ling-a-ling."
The yaks are actually able to walk all the way up to Advanced Base Camp at 6400m, which means we don't have to carry the majority of our heavy kit on our backs. However, given that there's no grazing for them at that altitude, to avoid having to carry a week's supply of fodder up there as well, when they've deposited all our kit they turn around and head back to Base Camp until we require them for our return journey. Somebody asks how they will know when to return. Mic then comes out with some cock and bull story about taking a baby yak up with us, tying it up and leaving it there, where it gets more and more stressed about being separated from its mother. When it's time for us to leave, we untie it and it runs swiftly back to Base Camp to rejoin her. The yak drivers will see it there and know it's time to come and collect us. Crazy Australian humour.
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