Disabled
mountaineer Gary
Guller will attempt to summit Mt. Everest,
the highest mountain in the world at 8,850m,
in Spring 2001. While any attempt at Everest
is one of the greatest challenges one could
undertake, Gary's attempt will be especially
personal. In 1986, Gary suffered a spinal cord
injury in a climbing accident. His neck was
broken and the nerve roots going to his left
arm were pulled out of the spinal cord.
Despite experimental surgery, the paralysis
was irreparable and he made the decision to
have his left arm amputated.
May
2
- 5 Resting at Base Camp is a routine business;
we hope you will forgive us if we condense 4
days into one dispatch. May 2nd was a slow day!!
The Sherpas - almost to a man - had headaches
resulting from the demolition of the barrel of
chhang which Mike bought them on his birthday.
Once they had fallen out of their tents they
became extremely industrious, tidying the Base
Camp.
GG
here - only Sherpas can do this after a party;
all of us non-Sherpa people can only manage
watching and wishing that our bodies were up to
the task of relocating the tent sites before
they were all swallowed up by the shifting
glacier, ha! Whoops, added my two cents worth
before reading Mike's next dispatch below. A
sure sign of high altitude-after-chhang
lassitude, I suppose... Plus, I truly feel that
my brain was burnt as much as my face from the
intense sun higher up at C2. My face is peeling
like a snake, now completing the cycle so that
only my red baby fresh skin is shining through,
well maybe "baby fresh" is a little
over the top, but I'm sure everyone gets the
idea. Anyway, the Sherpa are in good shape and
loving Susan Tedeschi - the mess tent
practically rocks with the music! Back to
Mike...
One
of the effects of living on a glacier is that
the area around tents melts whilst the ground
underneath generally stays firm. When climbers
get back from a spell on the mountain they often
find their tents surrounded by puddles, or in
more extreme circumstances, the tents become
perched on mushroom-like ice structures.
Janis
left Base Camp on 3 May to begin his journey
back to the States for his graduation from Med
School on 18 May. The team wished him bon voyage
as he began his trek back down to Lukla.
GG
here again. We will surely miss the doc being
around. I'm sure though he is excited about
getting home to his fiancι and showing her all
of his new habits he developed up here at base
camp... ha! We got you, Janis!
The
weather has been bad, ranging from high winds to
snow. As I type this, the temperature must be
well below -20°C (-5°F) in the wind. Mike and
Kipa recall similar weather in '96. Instead of
being bad and changing to a spell of good
weather, it tends to be averaging miserable the
whole time. GG and Tunc here... No one told us
in the brochure that it was going to be cold and
windy, ha!
Our
government liaison officer is with us now and
what a fantastic individual he is. His name is
Bijaya Manandhar; his responsibilities are to
make sure all expedition details are correct, to
speak often with the ministry as to our
progress, and generally to try to keep us all in
line. Bijaya took one look at us all and just
smiled and shook his head.... We are all just
innocent little boys really. Yeah, Yeah......
Mike:
One of the highlights of the period was an
invitation from our Canadian neighbors, Tim and
Todd, for afternoon sushi. A very enjoyable
experience. WASABIIIIIIIIIIIIII! We hope that
our return up the mountain will be on or around
8 May. We need to get back at that time to make
sure that we stay acclimatized - and although
there are high winds up the mountain today, we
are confident that we can rest there prior to
making an ascent.
GG
here once more, I promise... A couple of even
more important and very useful bits of
information. We had the most spectacular buffalo
cheese burgers the other night.... scrumptious!
More seriously though... we also had the finest
chopped onions on them! Not my dream of Ruby's,
but it did hit the spot. I closed my eyes and
pretended the best I could. We will continue the
waiting game where patience is the vital
ingredient.
Lastly
from GG, thank you all for the very supportive
e-mails in my attempt to stand on top of the
world. I will try my very best, dig very deep to
get to the top of Everest. Of course, as we
approach the final push, I'm extremely nervous,
excited, scared, ready to go, happy, healthy,
cannot wait to say hello to the ladders again...
right! I'll do my best. The e-mails I'm
receiving make it all so worth it. Joni, I love
you.... see you all soon! More in a couple of
days. I'm going to my tent and put on some
tunes, get warm and sleep.... Our answer in the
morning to the Sherpas when they ask if we had
good sleep: "Just like a Sherpa baby,"
we say.
PS
Tunc did not wear all black today, but if no
ones tells Johnny Cash, we'll keep it quiet!
The
plan is to depart EBC to C1 on 8 May and begin
the push to the summit of Everest. We're looking
to reach the top around 15 May, but it all
depends on the weather...
