Today was our second full day at base camp!
I woke up after having an amazing night’s sleep! Last year I had a sleeping bag that was way too cold, and it really negatively impacted my sleep. This season I am using a -29° bag and I am taking more magnesium – and the difference is insane! It’s also great that I am sleeping well so early on!
Base camp is at 5300m and since we only just arrived, we are not acclimatised (we will never be fully adjusted to this height, but increasingly as the expedition progresses) and often this can show in poor sleep. Our heart rates naturally drop when we sleep, but at higher altitudes, these dropped rates are often not enough to pump the limited oxygen around the body. Sooo… we end up waking up in shock, very out of breath and head pounding- my friend Robert (who was on Everest a couple years ago) calls this a pasthma attack (panic + asthma).
Anyways, I had breakfast then went out for a walk down to “the rock”. This took about 1 hour round trip, going nice and easy, listening to good tunes. It was nice to look around at all of the camps (ours is one of the last, so higher up) and watch the people training in the icefall.
I came back in time for lunch, which was: sausages, chapati, potato, carrots and some other mystery vegetable. Dad and I washed it down with some creatine water 😋
It then started to snow and get very cold! I went back to my tent, replied to some emails and laid down and listened to music. It doesn’t sound like much, but base camp has about half of the oxygen as sea level, so just living is so much more exhausting. Abruptly getting up and walking after having been sitting down, gets us all quite out of breath!
Song of the day: Angels – Robbie Williams
