#cfveverest

Picture taken at Pumori Advanced Base Camp today's acclimatisation scramble in the snow, mud and ice. Everest still looks huge and so much higher. Next pic is dinner - salmon, risotto and veg of an indeterminate green nature - unfortunately dinner becomes a lot more basic further up but at base camp there's a good supply chain. I deliberately chose to come with a team with good food supplies as it's a struggle to eat at altitude and all these little things will mean success or failure for me on the mountain. Thanks for all the good wishes on health, I feel much better now. Up at 3am tomorrow for our first trip up the infamous icefall, only want to go halfway as an acclimatisation trip so we hope to be back before the searing heat of the Sun kicks in at all round 8am. Imagine ice cliffs to go up and down and crossing crevasse ladders in crampons... This is starting to get exciting, and good timing too as a week ago my health would have been too bad...

This is part of the icefall I had to traverse to get to Camp 1. We had a practice at 3am Tuesday them went for it at 2am Wednesday before returning at 5am today. I have done many outdoor things which are supposedly scary but this really does scare me. We travel through and over large ice cliffs which move a bit each day. There are very deep crevasses which you jump or cross on ladders if wide. I have had to traverse 4-5 ladders tied together wearing crampons which can catch on the ladder. The ladders move a bit so you hold on to ropes and attach yourself to them so if the ladder falls or moves you may survive. One of the toughest things I have ever done is to stare into the abyss and force myself to put one foot in front of the other as the ladder wobbles. Sometimes we get it easy and simply abseil down an overhang, you are in control here but aren't touching the cliff and if you let go of the rope there's no safety net. I had a minor incident with a crevasse. I had a choice of jumping or using a snow bridge a little lower that looked solid with footprints. I stepped down to the snow bridge and it began to collapse underneath me. I rammed my crampons back and pushed my arms forward to wedge myself in, I didn't really feel like testing the safety rope by falling into the crevasse. I then used an ascender device to climb out and back on to the pathway. This was a relief and I was out of breath for quite a few minutes. Interestingly whilst very scary initially you do learn techniques to cross the crevasses, team work helps as you can get your team mates to help balance the ropes you use to help you across. It is no longer as daunting as the first times but we have 6 more trips through the icefall and I will be happy when they are over! I will attempt to get some pics to share but when you are focused on staying alive these aren't always at the forefront of your mind! I don't know if this blog will 'post' or not, the tumblr app hasn't worked for my last few blogs and I have tried re-writing them so let's see... Thanks for all the good health wishes, I did an update but it never came through from what I can see with limited interernet here...

The icefall. Look carefully at this sea of ice which descends down from Everest. It is one of the most dangerous parts of the mountain to get through. I went halfway today at 3.30am to acclimatise and ready myself for it. It is prepared by ice doctors who specialise in preparing the route for everyone. As the ice moves everyday what is safe one day is not the next. We travel at night as it is safer and it avoids the intense heat of the day. The ice climbing was fine, as was jumping small crevasses, it was hard not to get out of breath, especially for me as we are at a height where small differences start to matter. The challenge wasn't the ladders strapped together going up at a 45 degree angle. It was the near to horizontal ladders over big deep crevasses that challenged me. It is rare in life I find something I am scared of but I am scared of crossing some of these ladders. You have to focus on moving one foot at a time forward whilst not falling off either side. Then the crampons can catch so you can find yourself over a yawning chasm unable to move the foot you need to move... I wanted to take some dramatic pics and I may still but for today at least my mind was focused on safety! For some reason my tumblr blogs haven't been posting, sometimes I rewrite them, sometimes they won't load. Apologies for that. After a tough week I am however now better or I would not be able to continue, thanks for all your thoughts in different forums. I have to cross the ladders 8 more times. The first of those begins tomorrow at 2.30am as we move up to Camp 1 to spend a night there. Wish me luck!

First glimpse of Everest in the distance, wind blowing snow off the top with some force, exciting to be here! (Mike i know how you like Ama Dablam so have included the second picture for you!) We walked up to around 12000 feet today on an acclimatisation walk. Feeling quite good, getting enough rest even if sleep comes an hour at a time. Came across this slightly lost baby yak which I have decided to take to base camp with me, anyone want to adopt him?

Small twin otter plane to Lukla, skimmed the mountains through the clouds and landed on the runway above. Up at 5am and had to wait until 12 to get plane. The yak picture is the high street in Lukla. Now at around 2,800m or approximately 9,000 feet. Relieved to get here as the weather's been bad and few other ways to get in...

Arrived safe and well in Kathmandu! First picture is of me with Sierra and Mike, 2 documentary makers who are accompanying me some of the way, and with their producer Meredith in the US are putting together a documentary of the trip to help raise the profile of CF. I was impressed that they both drank the local rocketfuel and ate the coloured egg at the blessing ceremony we all went to! The second pic is some last minute calories whilst we have good cakes available. We are hoping to fly to Lukla first thing and get going on the trek to base camp before starting to live there for a while. Feeling relaxed and hoping the next couple of weeks will be restful and good acclimatisation for the real challenge that lies ahead. Huge thanks to Vertex for helping make all of this happen and being generally great people too!