Welcome to the world’s highest yoga class! Does anyone know anyone at the Guinness Book of Records? We have a new entry for them. Tenji Sherpa took the team through some poses in the Big House today, complete with 6inch yoga matt mattresses! I wonder how Shavasana at the end went? Do you think they all just went to sleep?
Our IFMGA & Personal Sherpa Teams head back up the hill early tomorrow morning so they spent their day packing and prepping. This is their 2nd rotation which will be significantly longer with 5x nights on the mountain. The overall goal is to touch camp 3 and get familiar with the Lhotse Face.
Private Team Fahad and Guide Ossy will leave for their 2nd rotation the day after tomorrow.
Coming off the mountain were Private Team Mark W and Big Tendi who came back down to EBC today from Camp 2 for a well earned hot shower and a little R&R.
Meanwhile, Ed our Speed Ascent Climber, having summited Lobuche, also reached Base Camp today.
Our Western Guided/International Team, led by Casey & Tommi will continue to enjoy a few more days of recovery and Kumar’s incredible cooking (the whole camp had fresh pomegranate and vanilla pudding for dessert and some French potato dish that I can’t pronounce, let alone spell, but it sounded phenomenal!)
Speaking of food, it seems our Argentine contingent wants in on the Masterchef action, Nacho is in the kitchen making a special meal tonight. He owns a cookware company called LaFont in Argentina so knows his way around a kitchen but I wonder what he will think about the nuances of high altitude cooking? – for instance, did you know that at high altitude the preparation of food requires significant changes in time, temperature and often recipe? The lower atmospheric pressure plays havoc, gases (for instance in bread and cakes) expand more quickly and water will boil at lower temperatures and evaporate faster – the result, much longer cooking times and the risk of everything getting really dried out. No quick fix either – you can’t exactly just turn up the heat as it will only exacerbate the problem, causing water to boil away faster leaving your dinner extra dry and your elimination from Himalayan Masterchef a surety. It’s a fine art indeed. How Kumar makes his cakes so moist and fluffy is beyond me. Depending on the results, Nacho the Climber/Cook extraordinaire, may win himself a position as CTSS Sous Chef for next year?
It’s gearing up to be a nice night ahead and we have extra cause for celebration – for the first time, all our Everest climbing teams are together in one spot. Movie night in the Big House perhaps? (We’ll throw in the fresh popcorn)
Everyone doing well and while we know climbing Everest is tough, it could be argued that doing Downward Dog at 17,400ft or cooking a superb meal for the whole crew is tougher!?
Cheers
Caroline
