Eighth Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: In this dispatch, the first of two parts, the climbers of Caudwell Xtreme Everest reach the summit of Everest, but it's a success in spite of obstacles. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release.

Summit Success
Teamwork and a dramatic high-altitude rescue

“We’re on top.” The words came down to Base Camp at half-past six in the morning of May 23 to the waiting researchers at the Caudwell Xtreme Everest communications tent, who had gathered around the radio all night long. Expedition leader Dr. Mike Grocott, and his fellow physicians Sundeep Dhillon, Chris Imray, Dan Martin, and Nigel Hart, had reached the 29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest, along with Dave Rasmussen of the BBC and ten Sherpas. The next day, four more team members would also reach the top--Roger McMorrow, Jeremy Windsor, Mick O’Dwyer, and Return to Everest co-director and director of mountain photography Michael Brown--as well as five more Sherpas, bringing the total to 25 members of the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition to attain the summit.

Photos show that the climbers reached the South Summit of Everest (28,704 feet) just as the sun broke over the horizon, casting a giant shadow far to the west toward Pakistan. Said Mike Grocott, “It was a wonderful moment cresting the South Summit and seeing for the first time the iconic view of the Hillary Step and the Summit Ridge – and feeling for the first time that success was almost ensured.”

Three hundred feet higher, past the technical challenge of the Hillary Step, the team reached the mountaintop. “At last it was possible to climb no higher,” wrote Chris Imray. Colorful prayer flags from the season’s earlier climbers bedecked the icy summit, but the bitterly cold wind kept time on the top to a minimum.

Though the plan had been for high-altitude medical testing to take place on the summit itself, including the taking of arterial blood for analysis, high winds and low temperatures made conditions for this testing too difficult. The first team had to retreat to the shelter of the stone ridge known as the Balcony some 1,300 feet lower to complete their tests.

“It’s the highest altitude that arterial blood has ever been taken, and I believe it’s the only arterial blood ever taken on Everest,” said communications director Kay Mitchell. “One of our Sherpas, Pasang, got the samples down from the Balcony to Camp II in two hours, which is absolutely phenomenal.”

In a statement from the mountain, Mike Grocott said, “Reaching the summit was the culmination of four years of extensive planning and determination to improve the medical world’s understanding of hypoxia.”

Drama on High
The successful ascent was not without its extraordinary circumstances. While the original strategy was for the team to spend a couple of days conducting medical tests at the South Col, then strike out together for the summit, a high-altitude rescue changed their plans. Two days before the summit attempt, a Nepali woman climbing with another team was found unconscious on the ropes just below the Balcony by members of an American commercial climbing company on their way down from the summit.

Usha Bista, the debilitated climber, was not far from the spot where the British climber Dave Sharp died in 2006, after some 40 climbers passed him by on their way to the summit, and again on their way down. The incident caused an uproar in the mountaineering community, who cited it as further evidence of the ethical decay of climbing in the commercialization of Everest.

This time would be different. When American climber Dave Hahn radioed for help, Michael Brown at Camp Four sent a Sherpa with oxygen up to the Balcony, then went up himself to lend a hand, temporarily giving up his summit hopes. There he helped Hahn take the climber down to Camp Four at the Western Cwm, where the medical professionals could attend to her injuries.

That same night Usha was carried still further down the mountain to Camp Three, and the next day she was carried all the way down to Camp Two, where support staff of the Caudwell Xtreme expedition administered further treatment. (Later, she was taken down to Base Camp where a helicopter evacuated her to Kathmandu.)

The possibility of upset in climbing plans had been anticipated by the Caudwell Xtreme expedition from the outset, as they recognized they were uniquely qualified to give medical assistance high on the mountain should it be called for. And, by the code of medical ethics known as the Hippocratic Oath, they were obligated to assist the woman in spite of their own goals and plans.

“The doctors were a huge help in stabilising her,” Hahn was quoted in the London Times. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t think she’d survive.”

The satisfaction of the rescue was tempered almost at once by the death of another Nepali woman climber, Pema Doma, who fell to her death on the Lhotse Face just as Usha was reaching the safety of Camp Three. The death underscored the danger of climbing the world’s highest peak, even as Usha’s rescue exemplified the heroism of some members of the mountaineering community.

(Check back soon for the conclusion of the summit story from Caudwell Xtreme Everest.)

Seventh Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: In this dispatch, the climbers return to altitude in their attempt to reach the summit of Everest, as part of the Caudwell Xtreme Everest project. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release.

You’d think after two months at base camp the routine would be getting old for the researchers of the Xtreme Everest Expedition. Up an hour before daybreak to fill out the symptoms diary, on to the lab for testing, finally a much-coveted cup of black tea just before the Sherpas’ gong announces breakfast.

But this past week, things have been picking up. The hours just after dawn have been animated by a certain anticipation, and from some camps arise the sounds of success, as communications director Kay Mitchell tells us. “When you wake up in the morning you sometimes hear cheers coming from different places in Base Camp, and you know that someone else has summitted.” For most teams camped out at the head of the Khumbu Glacier, this is the whole point – reaching the 29,035-foot summit of Everest.

This has been a period of relatively clear and stable weather, not uncommon this time of year in the Himalaya, the perfect window of opportunity to reach the summit. Teams from both the North Base Camp in Tibet and the South Base Camp in Nepal are almost daily making their way up the final mile of elevation to stand on the world’s highest peak. While there have been a handful of casualties, thus far the calamitous tragedy of 1996 has been avoided, when 8 commercial climbers and guides perished on one day.

For the climbing team of Xtreme Everest, the early success of others is welcome news. “The more people that get to the top before us, the fewer people we have to fight at the ropes when we make our attempt. If lots of people get up and get back down again now, that frees the route for us next week, which is good.”

Research Takes Precedence
The high altitude research team that Xtreme Everest has assembled for the upper camps is back in place, after a week of “fattening up” at Dengboche. Expedition leader Dr. Mike Grocott, and climbing team leader Dr. Sundeep Dhillon, are joined by a dozen other physicians (and at least as many Sherpas) to conduct research in low oxygen at the two high camps – Camp Two, at the “Eli Lilly Research Lab” (the labs have been named after key sponsors), and the highest lab, the “Rolex Institute Laboratory” at Camp Four, the South Col. Their subjects? Themselves.

The plan is for the research team to complete their research at the South Col (26,000 feet) and retreat to Camp Two, then mount the summit attempt from there. However, the South Col is traditionally the launch point for the early morning climb to the summit, and it may prove tempting to head for the top early – if health is good, if the weather is good, if conditions are right. They will even do arterial blood sampling and other tests at the summit – if they make it that far.

With them at the upper camps is mountain photographer Michael Brown of the MacGillivray Freeman Films team, who has already climbed to the top four times on earlier expeditons; his colleague Rick Ryan remains below to film the scene at Base Camp during the summit ascent. The rest of the IMAX film crew left the region last week, trekking back down to Lukla and flying out of the country from Kathmandu. They will return to Nepal next year with a full film crew to complete their shot list of colorful and dramatic locations for the 2009 release of Return to Everest 3D.

Thoughts of Home
But despite the impending summit attempts, going home is a subject that becomes increasingly common in the thoughts if not the conversation of the 40-some researchers in the Xtreme Everest base camp.

“I have to say I am looking forward to the end,” Kay admits. “It’s been an absolutely amazing experience, but it’s an extreme environment, and you do get tired. I mean I do eat quite well, but you just never feel 100 percent.”

The physical stress of life at nearly 18,000 feet has been leavened by the constant arrival of “new blood,” so to speak – the 13 trek groups that have shown up with regularity at about two per week to take part in the research. “It’s great to a new group come in every few days to inject new life. And they’re awesome, they really are awesome -- it’s a struggle to get to base camp, and they’ve all put in a huge amount of effort. We’re extremely grateful for it.”

Meanwhile the research continues as the final trek groups arrive. The last of the volunteer trekkers has left Kathmandu on their way to base camp, and one by one the lab staffs at Kathmandu, Namche and Periche will be packing up their equipment and zipping up their results for evaluation back at the University of London. And then they will set off on the trekker’s trail up the Khumbu Valley, headed at last for Everest Base Camp themselves.

What will the researchers at Base Camp do, once the last of the trek groups leaves, once the mountain is climbed, once the research is over? “Most of the lab staff is going off to climb Island Peak,” Kay says, “which will be a good reward for all their hard work. They’re getting quite excited about that, and on their days off they go off and do lots of ice climbing practice.”

A sooner goal is the party at base camp, once all the research teams are reunited. “It’ll be great, a big reunion.” And hopefully, a celebration of summit success as well.

Stay tuned for breaking news from the Xtreme Everest Expedition, coming soon!

Sixth Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: In this sixth dispatch, life at base camp enters a holding pattern, waiting for the return to high altitude of the the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release. For the complete story, download the PDF Update.

The weeks continue to tick by for the Caudwell Xtreme medical researchers stationed at Everest Base Camp—and for a while there, things were beginning to look bleak. “We ran out of treats about two weeks ago,” said communications director Kay Mitchell, “and things were getting pretty grim. We had placed an emergency order a while ago, but then one of the other climbing teams heard we’d run out of treats and came over with a rucksack full of goodies. That was very, very welcome.”

Though the incident seems humorous, it brings home an interesting point of study for the Caudwell Xtreme Everest team. “At such altitude, your appetite isn’t always very good, so you need things that tempt you to eat,” points out Kay. “That’s not saying that the Sherpa food isn’t good, but we have to eat a lot because we lose weight. That’s part of being at altitude.”

While this seems like a selling point for trekking to Everest Base Camp – gain altitude, lose weight – there’s a down side to it as well. “At altitude your muscles just waste away, and that’s the battle that the climbers are constantly fighting. They have to stay up high to acclimatize, but they also have to be careful because they’re losing weight and becoming weaker.”

But does chocolate taste different at altitude? Is that a subject for future testing? “I don’t think there’s a lot of difference, really, but I’m not a chocoholic. Maybe you should ask Araceli,” laughs Kay. Araceli Segarra, that is, of Everest fame and now Return to Everest—known for her love of chocolate. ...

“The Best Climbing Partners We Will Ever Have”
One of the unusual aspects of this Everest season is the attention that the Sherpas are receiving, which is long overdue according to most veterans of the mountain. “The Sherpas love what they do and take great pride in their role,” Michael Brown told us earlier in the expedition. “I think that the best we can do is honor and respect their role in our expeditions. They are the best climbing partners we will ever have.”

As well as fulfilling their usual support role for foreign expeditions – from Japan, New Zealand, India, Italy, and many other countries including the U.S. and U.K. – the Sherpas are mounting their own expedition to climb Everest, known as the Super Sherpa Expedition. Among them are Lhakpa Sherpa (all Sherpa use their tribal name), who holds the record for quickest ascent time, less than 11 hours from base camp to the summit and just over 18 hours round trip, and Apa Sherpa, who holds the record for 16 Everest ascents, and counting. (Note: As we go to press we’ve just received word that the Super Sherpa Expedition succeeded in reaching the summit on May 16, Apa for the 17th time.)

While the MacGillivray Freeman and BBC media teams film Xtreme Everest, and film crews are a common sight at Base Camp, the Super Sherpas are filming their own ascent in HD video. Such technological sophistication would have been unheard of even 10 years ago, when the IMAX Everest was released; that it is possible at all is because of the increasing control the Sherpas are taking over their own cultural destiny, thanks in large measure to the annual injection of funds and support they receive from the climbing industry in Nepal.

“It is so appropriate to be featuring the Sherpa story in our film,” says Barbara MacGillivray, “because of what, up to now, has been a blatant oversight of their contribution. All the spectacular successes of Everest mountaineering are nothing without the physical, spiritual, and personal characteristics of the Sherpa rope layers, load carriers and trail blazers.” ...

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Stay tuned for more action
For the Caudwell Xtreme team, the research into low oxygen in the blood continues, no matter what the weather – they have another 5 trekking teams to host before the end of the month, and then there is the push for the summit itself.

“The plan is to go up any day now,” Kay Mitchell tells us. “The reason that our team has been hanging back is because they have to go up to the South Col and complete their science and come back down to Camp 2 again before they try and summit.”

Which raises a question increasingly on the minds of those at Base Camp this weather-troubled year. Should they not attain the summit, what would constitute a successful expedition from a scientific point of view?

“The policy of the expedition has always been Safety First, Science Second and Summit Third. The only science we’re doing at the summit is taking some arterial blood samples and possibly doing some breathing samples as well. So if we manage to get some science done at the South Col, and no one gets to the summit, that would still be a successful expedition for us.

“Particularly if we get everyone down safe.”

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Fifth Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: In the fifth update, the IMAX team arrives at base camp to continue their filming of the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release. For the complete story, download the PDF Update.

After the two-week trek up from Kathmandu, the MacGillivray Freeman film crew arrived in Everest Base Camp safe and strong. Araceli Segarra and Jamling Norgay led the Return to Everest team back to the familiar grounds of the 17,600-foot encampment, which they last saw eleven years ago. But time had wrought its changes.

“Base Camp is different than what I thought it would be,” said producer Shaun MacGillivray. “In 1996 there were maybe seven or eight expedition camps here, but now there are as many as 1000 people in at least 30, possibly 40, expeditions. It feels like a city.” And like a city, small businesses have cropped up – there’s a massage tent for weary climbers and even a bakery for fresh bread. ...

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The trek was not without an emotional recall of the tragic 1996 climbing season that left eight people on the mountain dead. Not far from Gorak Shep – the last overnight before the trekkers reach Base Camp – the team came upon a small chorten (temple) where fresh prayer flags flew in the crisp wind. They had been placed there by Jan Arnold, widow of the New Zealand climber Rob Hall who died near the summit in 1996. Jan had come to Base Camp on a personal pilgrimage with their daughter Sarah, now 10, who never got to see her father. The scene in Everest where Rob’s call from his last camp is patched through to his pregnant wife remains powerful in the minds of all who have seen the movie.

After meeting the family on the trail, the MacGillivray Freeman team filmed Araceli and Jamling at the chorten as they emotionally recalled the tragedy that killed Rob and seven others on Everest that fateful year.

City on Ice
Once in Base Camp, the trekkers found that the end of the trail was no less dangerous than the rugged path they followed to get there. “On our arrival there was a huge avalanche to greet us, which I’m sure Kay arranged,” joked Shaun. “But it’s kind of dangerous walking here. You have to really make sure that your feet are well planted or you’re going to slip because of the ice.”
Kay Mitchell of the Caudwell Xtreme Expedition elaborates: “It’s sunny in the morning, and the snow starts to melt and get icy. Then in the afternoon it snows on top of the ice and becomes quite treacherous.”

Of the 30-plus groups at Base Camp, the Xtreme Everest expedition is by far the largest. Kay counts over 100 multi-colored tents in their icy village, split between the scientific researchers and the volunteer trekkers who come though for three-day stays, plus the Sherpa tents and group facilities. Kay tells us that from the research encampment to the trekker’s tents, “It’s a short skid down the hill. One of us is going to end up with a broken ankle sooner or later.”

Jamling, meanwhile, is right at home among his fellow Sherpa. “Jamling has taken it as a challenge to eat at every one of the expedition kitchens, and he seems to know everyone here,” Barbara reports. “It has been wonderful hearing all of Jamling's stories, and fascinating to learn that the largest trekking and mountaineering companies here are now owned and run by Sherpas--another big change since 1996. With this new prosperity, they can now give back to their community with education and medical facilities.”...

Meanwhile, the MacGillivray Freeman team is shooting Base Camp life and the dramatic surroundings, and they are excited about the IMAX footage they are getting. “In 3D, it will feel like the mountain is basically resting on the audience’s laps,” enthused Shaun MacGillivray.

Sometime in the next few days the Xtreme climbing team will renew their summit attempt, hoping this time to set up a research tent as high as Camp IV on the South Col, then return to Camp II for a night or two before attempting their summit push. It will be a challenging few days, and if the weather cooperates, the culmination of their scientific endeavor as well as their personal dreams.

But wait, there's more. Download this Update for the complete news from Xtreme Everest 2007.

Fourth Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: In the fourth dispatch, the full IMAX team arrives and begins the trek to base camp, where Michael Brown continues filming the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release. For the complete story, download the PDF Update.

The full MacGillivray Freeman Films team arrived in Kathmandu last week, 13,000 feet and 100 miles away from Everest Base Camp. Led by Return to Everest director/producer Greg MacGillivray, the group included Greg’s son and co-producer Shaun MacGillivray, director of photography Brad Ohlund, assistant cameraman Robert Walker, Doug King of the Saint Louis Science Center, and John Caudwell, sponsor of the Caudwell Xtreme Expedition.

The team was also joined by Jamling Norgay and Araceli Segarra—stars of MacGillivray Freeman’s 1998 IMAX Theatre film Everest—who are reuniting for Return to Everest.

“Jamling and Araceli look just like they did in 1996,” reports Shaun MacGillivray. “It looks like they haven’t aged a bit. And Araceli still loves chocolate just as much as ever!”

After several days of scouting the city for locations suitable for filming next year, then trekked to Namche to meet up with cameraman Jack Tankard, who has been filming with Michael Brown at Everest Base Camp. Jack brought the IMAX camera with him, so the big screen could be filled with images of the trek up to Base Camp through the Khumbu Valley.

Setting Off For Base Camp
These days most people begin the trek to Base Camp in Lukla, at about 9,300 feet, following a brief but dramatic half-hour flight from Kathmandu. Barbara MacGillivray reports by email:

“We flew into the most gut-wrenching holy-moley airstrip that I’ve ever seen. We landed just short of the end of the world’s shortest uphill runway. We were late starting the hike because our baggage was delayed, but once on the trail the views just got better and better. The hike the next day lasted for about 6 to 7 hours going all the way to Namche through vistas that at times looked like scenes from Lord of the Rings.”

Arrival in the colorful mountain town, the capital of the Sherpa region of Nepal, allowed the film team to take their first shots with Araceli and Jamling overlooking the town, just emerging from the winter snows. Araceli, who became the first Spanish woman to climb Everest in 1996, has not returned to Namche since, but Jamling is a familiar figure.

“People are overtly deferential to Jamling here,” writes Barbara. “Everyone knows him and loves him and he makes things happen.” Things happen for him, too: in Kathmandu Araceli had followed her nose for chocolate to a bakery, and in Namche she pulled out a surprise chocolate cake for Jamling, in honor of his birthday.

Barbara also noted some of the images of the trek, people and landscape of Nepal that will make their way into the upcoming Return to Everest film. “Today was hugely successful with filming in IMAX a real Sherpa house, very old, part of the hotel here in Namche. Plenty of smoke, shafts of light, wonderful old wood, a Sherpa tea service and lovely old lined faces.”

“This is a visual feast,” she concludes...

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Caudwell Xtreme Pushes On To Camp III
As the MacGillivray Freeman Films IMAX team makes their way up the trail, the Caudwell Xtreme climbers continues to push their way above the Khumbu Icefall toward Camp III, acclimating to the altitude in preparation for their mid-May summit push. Yet the weather continues to be a concern. “The Icefall isn’t particularly safe this year,” Kay Mitchell tells us from Base Camp. “It’s been very unstable, and there are lots of avalanches higher up, and we’ve had lots of wind and snow, which has made communication quite hard.”

Return to Everest co-director Michael Brown is with the Xtreme climbing team on the mountain, continuing to capture the beauty and drama of climbing Mount Everest. “Mike Brown is like a kangaroo,” says Kay Mitchell admiringly. “When he climbs he just screams up there, it really is phenomenal. And he’s carrying that camera, it’s 45 kilos!”

Experience must count for something: this is Mike’s seventh time on Everest, and he’s obviously in his element. He tells us he’s paying particular attention to filming the Sherpas – “I think that the best we can do is honor and respect their role in our expeditions. They are the best climbing partners we will ever have.”

But wait, there's more. Download this Update for the complete news from Xtreme Everest 2007.

Third Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: In the third dispatch from the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition, the team makes their first forays into the Khumbu Icefall, first and in some ways most dangerous obstacle on the path to the summit. The expedition is being covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D" IMAX release, and camerman Michael Brown tells us what it's like to return once more to the icefall. For the complete story, download the Expedition Update in PDF.

“Today was the day when we entered the Khumbu Icefall, and therefore started the climbing of Everest proper.” So writes Roger McMorrow, breathing systems researcher for the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition. “It felt good to put on the crampons, large climbing boots and harness. To hear once again the crunch of ice underfoot was a delight.”

But entering the Khumbu Icefall is never a delight, pure and simple. The climbers make practice ascents through the Icefall to test their skills, their equipment, and their commitment. This is the perhaps most dangerous obstacle on the path to the summit – aside from the extreme altitude itself. And this is the first challenge that faces those who would climb to the upper reaches of Everest, whether for personal accomplishment or professional need.

For Michael Brown, mountain photographer and co-director of MacGillivray Freeman’s film Return to Everest 3D, it’s a bit of both. “Our team is carefully planning our trips through the ice fall, to keep them at a minimum,” Mike tells us, who has already climbed Everest three times. “All told I have been through this ugly place on 22 adrenaline-filled journeys. And this year there are three or four places that make me really nervous.”

The route through the Icefall changes every year – and even within any given climbing season, since it is created by ice from the highest ridges of Everest spilling over sheer mile-high walls, tumbling in slow motion that can, at any time, turn catastrophic.

“The places where avalanches have been are sometimes marked by huge ice boulders making the debris flow,” continues Mike Brown. “The boulders are big enough to stick above the fresh snow, as big as refrigerators or TV sets.”

“As we climbed I could clearly see the routes of my three previous climbs of the mountain. The wind was tearing at storm clouds that tried to cover the summit again and again only to be ripped away. Everest is huge and defies the imagination with its vastness. It is not an easy climb, and we are about to try it again.” ...

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Movies to match the mountains

But it’s not all suffering and deprivation for the trekkers at Base Camp. The first evening after they arrive, Kay sets up the DVD player and shows them a movie – Everest, the IMAX film produced by MacGillivray Freeman in 1997. “It’s a great way to show them just what the climbers are going to be going through without having to stay up late, or concentrate, or interact. We’re planning to do it for every single trek group.”

Ironically, as Kay tells us, “The reason I’m involved in this project is because of that blinkin’ movie!” She saw Everest in London when it came out, and the next morning told a colleague at the hospital where she worked, “I went to this movie last night, and it was brilliant, and I’d really like to go to Everest.”

Her colleague told her he was going to organize an expedition there, and if she was really interested she could be his base camp manager. “I said oh, yea, that’s really going to happen – so I pestered him for about three years, and there years later here I am!” Her colleague? Hugh Montgomery, the research leader of the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition.

“So it’s all the fault of IMAX,” sums up Kay Mitchell, “that I’m standing in the snow in the middle of base camp!”

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

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.

First Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: As we promised in our earlier posting, here's the first dispatch from the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition taking place now, as covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D." For the complete story, download the PDF.


NAMCHE BAZAR, Nepal – “I am sitting in the Sherwi Khangba Lodge in Namche Bazaar,” writes Kay Mitchell of Caudwell Xtreme Everest from Nepal. “Almost the whole team has walked up from Monjo today. It was a beautiful walk, with lots of trees, butterflies, birds singing – the sun was out! I took lots of photos, which is always a good excuse to have a breather, and the mountains look fantastic – we even got our first glimpse of Everest.”

At least a dozen expeditions set out this month from Kathmandu to Everest Base Camp, with the goal of reaching the 8,850-foot summit of the world’s highest mountain. But this expedition is different: the ultimate goal is not just simply to reach the top, but to conduct “the largest human biology study ever performed at high altitude,” in the words Dr. Michael Grocott, director of the expedition.

A project of the University of London’s Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme environment medicine (CASE), the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition will measure human response to low oxygen levels through a series of medical tests over the course of the journey from Kathmandu to Base Camp and on up to the summit.

In addition to the 24 members of the expedition itself, over 200 volunteers have signed up to take part in the Xtreme Everest Medical Research Trek this spring, and will undergo voluntary testing along the way. The large scale of this study group makes it possible to achieve important statistical information about how the human body responds to low oxygen levels – an understanding that could have impact not just on mountaineers, but on the treatment of patients undergoing life-threatening pulmonary illness at any altitude.

“One in six people are admitted to an intensive care unit in the United Kingdom each year,” correspondent Kay Mitchell reports. “Despite very different reasons for admission nearly all of them will suffer from low oxygen levels, and 20% of them will die. The main aim of the our study is to measure how the human body changes as we are exposed to lower and lower levels of oxygen – and how to improve treatment, and increase survival.”


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