Morning in Base Camp: May 31, 2009

Base Camp at 5:20am


Fixed Rope Training at 8:30am

Ang Dendi Sherpa, Me, Dorgee Sherpa (I look so tall!)

In all religions, prayer is fruitless. Clearly, the Pisang lama pocketed our money and ran without properly negotiating with the rain gods and the mountain gods because this morning we woke up to a half a foot of snow at base camp and a storm that wasn’t abating. At 5:30am Dorgee Sherpa popped his head into my tent “Good morning, Katoon! Weather no good. We go back to Pisang?” he asked, hopefully. There was no way I was turning around now. “Maybe we wait one day until snow stops, ok?” I responded. Dendi Sherpa popped his head in too. “But what will we do?” he asked, while gesturing out at the snow. “We wait in our tents until no more snow!” I replied with a grin. I don’t think he liked that answer much, but two hours later when he was tired of sitting in his tent he showed up with harnesses and ropes. “Ok, get dressed. We go rock climbing and training.” Dendi is a skilled mountaineer who can’t sit still and I was excited to spend the rest of the day practicing climbing on a fixed rope, doing glacier training on a man rope, and tying knots.