Everest North Side Expedition:  Adventure Peaks

 Current Tibet Date/Time

Getting caught up on Adventure peaks:

Report One: On Thursday 27th March 5 of the above team left Heathrow for Kathmandu, the start of their Everest Expedition. Peter from Australia will meet the team in Kathmandu.

The Team will again be led by Dave Pritt, Director of Adventure Peaks who summited Everest last year along with 2 team members. Also part of the team again is Patricia McGuirk from Ireland who is attempting Everest for the 2nd time, last year Patricia reached the North Col at 7000metres.

The Team will spend 4 days in Kathmandu whilst final preparations are made, they will meet their team of climbing Sherpas, cooks and porters who they will spend the next 60 days with. Once permits have been obtained they will leave Kathmandu crossing the border into Tibet bound for Everest Base Camp on Tuesday 1st April.

The journey will take 5 to 6 days to reach basecamp which is situated on the Rongbuk Glacier at 5200 meters, along the way they will carry out acclimatisation walks. Unlike the South side, the team along with all their Sherpas and cooks and vast amount of equipment will be driven right to basecamp.

The Team will hopefully be one of the first teams to arrive to enable them to establish good campsite locations which will be home for them for the next 6 to 8 weeks. The Team over the next 8 weeks will be emailing progress reports home which will be updated on this site, you can now follow their progress and read their stories. We wish them all a safe successful expedition and hope they reach the top of the world.

Report No 2 - 8th April 2003: Most of the team met up at Heathrow in plenty of time for the 8:30pm departure to Kathmandu.

We were met by a driver from Hotel Thamel at the airport and transported to the hotel in the Thamel district of Kathmandu, near the heart of the Tourist district.

All services for the expedition were being handled by Ishwari who proved very efficient which meant that there wasn't much preparation left to do so Dave remained to finalize a few things while everyone else visited a couple of the local Temples.

We were scheduled to leave for Tibet on the Tuesday as we couldn't sort out Chinese Visas until the Monday. We headed out of the city for the day with a chance to stretch the legs for the 1st time in the local foothills. We ascended to the village of Nagakort which on a clear day offers amazing views of the Himalayas.

A few final checks of equipment on the Monday and then we were ready to depart. The lorry with all the gear left in the early hours and the rest of us went by private bus at about 7am.

We arrived at Zangmu on the Chinese border about lunchtime and quickly passed through all the check points. We had to stay the night in Zangmu as transport permits had not been finalized. The rooms were very damp and the village was very dirty so we were glad to leave the following morning for Nylam.

We arrived here on Wednesday 2nd April and stayed for two night. The village is at 3700m so gave us a good chance to acclimatize. On the Thursday we had our 1st proper acclimatisation walk up a local peak at 4300m. We were joined by all the cooks and Sherpas. Everyone was feeling strong and spirits were high.

On the Friday we drove to Tingri, a very nice traditional Tibetan village at 4250m. We again spent 2 nights here. The Sherpas and Cooks stayed for just the one night, heading to Base Camp early to set up camp. On Saturday 5th April we had our 2nd acclimatisation
walk up a local peak above Tingri at 4900m.

We all then traveled on to Everest Base Camp for lunch on Sunday. It was good to have a decent meal after several days of Chinese food which proved very repetitive. The food at Base Camp which is all cooked and served by our cook and cook boys has been fantastic in the 3 days we've been here. We each have our own basecamp tent to spread out in and have a great communal mess tent complete with tables, chairs, table cloths and CD player. Washing is carried out either by having a bowl of hot water, or by using the new high tec shower which is a high power garden sprayer, luxury.

Base Camp is filling quickly with many large expeditions including 3 expeditions with very large film crews. Also attempting the mountain this year is Dick Bass, the 1st person to climb the 7 summits. If he summits, he will be the oldest person to summit at 73 years.

We will be heading to Advanced Base Camp for the 1st time on Friday 11th. Anil the Sirdar and 2 of the Sherpas will be heading up to ABC on Wednesday 9th to set up ABC early in time for our arrival. We hope to ascend to the North Col for the 1st time on the 15th or 16th April.

A further report will follow after this. Conan Harrod

Report No 3 - 15th April 2003: The team are currently at Advanced Base Camp (ABC) which is situated right under the North Col and North Ridge, they arrived there on Saturday. Yesterday and today saw the fixing of the fixed rope to the North Col at 7000metres by 2 other teams, our sherpas will be involved in the fixing higher on the mountains as all the teams sherpas assist in this task together.

The team will do there first carry to the North Col tomorrow (Wednesday 16th) with the hope of erecting 4 tents. They will return to ABC for a couple of days rest before returning back to the North Col to try and sleep the night at 70000metres.

All the team are well.

So we know have 2 camps set up, 1 at Basecamp and 1 at ABC, each camp has a cook tent and mess tent with cook and cookboy. The team in effect have 2 homes, with 2 beds, 1 at each tent.

Life at ABC is extremely hard, everything is a real effort moving at 6400metres, and of course its extremely cold.

Adventure Peaks is committed to keeping the mountain clean and to aid this all rubbish and solid toilet waste is taken back down to BC to be destroyed.

There are many teams this year, including 2 TV camera crews.

The team now have all there communication set up with radio links to BC and ABC and the satellite phone and laptop enable the team to contact home...

Dispatches