Second Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: In the second dispatch from the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition, the research team sets up at Base Camp, and prepare to begin their climb to the summit. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release. For the complete story, download the Expedition Update in PDF.

EVEREST BASE CAMP: If your idea of fun is getting up at six in subzero temperatures, chronicling your every physical symptom before breakfast, enduring a day of medical tests – arterial blood sampling, stomach tubes, demanding excer-cycle routines, unknown fluids dripped on your tongue, and various pokes and prods – all at an attitude so high nothing but lichen and headaches grow, then welcome to the Caudwell Xtreme Everest Base Camp of 2007.

“Oh, I tell you – it’s unbelievably cold. It’s horrid.” So says communications director Kay Mitchell, via satphone from Base Camp. “It warms up a bit during the day, and then it starts snowing again — right now it’s absolutely freezing. Temperatures are dropping to –20˚ at night, and I am getting extremely cold feet despite my boots which are supposed to cope with temperatures down to –40˚....”

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... Soon, the actual climbing will begin, with the Sherpas carrying tents and research equipment above the Icefall to Camp One, at 19,000 feet. Research labs are also planned for Camp Two at the Western Cwm (21,300 feet) and possibly as high as the South Col at 26,000 feet. At this point there is even talk of hauling a research exer-cycle up to the south Col, though it seems hard enough just to climb that far, let alone ride a bike once you get there!

But before the climbing can start, the Sherpas must hold their traditional Puja, a ceremony asking Sagamartha, the goddess of Everest, to bless their efforts. Mountain filmmaker Michael Brown of the MacGillivray Freeman team describes the scene: “We had the cameras rolling at 8:00 am, just as the sun came up over Everest's west ridge. The Sherpas propped up a tall pole on top of the chorten [temple] to support long strings of colorful prayer flags. These flags flap in the breeze, presiding over all of the various camps and add a festive atmosphere to Base Camp. For the Sherpas, Tibetan Buddhists, these flags are also sending prayers into the wind across Mount Everest and around the world.”

Although it’s an important ceremony, the Puja is not an altogether solemn one. “It is also okay to have a lot of fun,” continues Brown. “It’s all part of the bonding necessary to start an expedition properly.” As the ceremony reached its conclusion, the Sherpas and team members tossed handfuls of tsampa (barley flour) into the cobalt blue sky. Then Nigel Hart from the Caudwell Xtreme team brought out a guitar, shakers and a kazoo, and someone else a stack of song books. Lots of chang (rice beer) made the rounds, and the Caudwell Xtreme team and the Sherpas took turns singing songs and dancing. Said Brown: “In my eleven Himalayan expeditions I have never seen a Puja quite like this one!”

But that's not all... download the Expedition Update for the complete dispatch from Xtreme Everest 2007.