My travel diaries
Wednesday 9 May, 2007 - Advenced Base Camp, Everest North Side
I still have a splitting headache when I wake up this morning, and I still have difficulty forcing down my breakfast, but somehow I feel better. Perhaps it's just that I'm getting used to it.
At 10 o'clock we go out onto the glacier for some skills training. There are three things we are practising: ascending with jumars, traversing with a safety cord, and abseiling down. I'm a bit behind the others, and Tim and I are the only ones who didn't practise this yesterday, but I soon get the hang of it. All three of these skills will be used on the fixed ropes up to the North Col in a few days' time. The jumar, also known as a jammer, is a device with a handle attached to your harness by a length of prussic cord, which jams onto the rope. It opens when you squeeze the handle, allowing you to slide it up the rope as you're climbing, but as soon as you let go if it, it jams against the rope preventing you from falling. Traversing with a safety cord simply involves attaching yourself to the fixed rope by sliding a carabiner along it which is attached to your harness. Although it doesn't jam against the rope in the event of a fall like a jumar does, on horizontal sections it will prevent you from falling downwards, and on steeper sections the furthest you will fall is to the bottom of the length of fixed rope you're currently attached to, which is usually no more than 50m. The abseiling is something I'd never done before our training at Base Camp a few days ago, although I've been lowered down a face by a belay many times. The difference with an abseil is you are lowering yourself down. I find it quite straightforward, however, and quite enjoy doing it.
Although I pick up the skills reasonably easily, I get tired quite quickly at this altitude. Quite how I'm going to cope with 400m or so of jumaring up to the North Col only time will tell. The exercise has clearly done me some good, though. I'm feeling fine again until about 3 o'clock, when I decide to get some rest in my tent. The headache returns and once again I feel a bit crap, which goes to show that a little light exercise is good for you.
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