My travel diaries
Saturday 5 May, 2007 - Japanese Camp, Everest North Side
At last, it's the start of our trek up to Advanced Base Camp after four days of sitting around acclimatising at Base Camp. We have a slow start in the morning waiting for the yaks to be loaded with all our kit. While we're waiting I wander over to the Base Camp memorials to those who have died on Everest. Several dozen cairns of differing shapes and sizes have been built on a small hillside rising above the camp. A bewildering number of people have been killed here, and a few sobering moments follow as I wander among the memorials stopping briefly as I recognise the names of famous climbers, far greater and more experienced on mountainsides than I'll ever be. These include Joe Tasker and Pete Boardman, the two British climbers who went missing on the northeast ridge in 1982, and Marco Siffredi, a French snowboarder who made the first ever descent from the summit by snowboard in 2001, only to disappear attempting to snowboard a harder route the following year. Incredible as these feats of mountaineering were, and tragic as were their deaths (Boardman and Tasker were both in their early 30s, and Siffredi was just 23), I can't help feeling there is an element of hubris here somewhere.
The yaks are loaded and we leave Base Camp at 10.30. I amble slowly behind the others, pausing on a rock to admire the view and wait for the yaks to overtake. Since they are carrying our tents and the majority of our personal kit, there is little point in arriving at camp ahead of them, and the slow pace helps me to acclimatise more easily.
The path initially runs on moraine alongside the main Rongbuk Glacier. I meet up with the others sunning themselves in a sheltered spot behind a rock at about 12.30. As they leave to continue steeply up the branching East Rongbuk Glacier to our left, I pause a little longer to enjoy the scenery and appreciate the moment. I follow along about half an hour later, and after another hour's walking at bistari, bistari ('slowly, slowly') pace, I reach Japanese camp at 5500m. This is the point where we turned around during our acclimatisation walk four days ago. It's a picturesque location looking across the main Rongbuk valley from high up.
During a light snow shower later that afternoon, some of the yaks decide to take a rest right outside the door of my and Mark's tent, including one particularly splendid white one. They look on unperturbed as we walk around them clicking our cameras. "Not another bloody photo!" the white yak moos at me (not really).
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