Everest South Side Expedition: Everest 50
The fiftieth anniversary expedition. (French)

Friday, April 11th: The puja celebrated by the Sherpas took place this afternoon, under a shining sun. It was a beautiful ceremony, magical, one of the best Jean Michel has ever known.  For the Sherpas team, very religious, Puja is very important : is the moment when gods of the mountains are asked to allow men to climb. Thus, they have prepared this ceremony very carefully, taking time to set an incredible stone altar from the very beginning of the installation of the camp.

When the ceremony took place, all the members were  gathered on line vis-à-vis this altar as well as the whole of the objects which will be useful on the mountain.

Once piolets, crampons, and other furniture were coated with the sacred butter of yaks, the long litany of the prayers carried out by a lama of sherpas team could start. Tserap Jambu, the sirdar, had adorned embroidered hat and traditional clothes. The smoke of the branches of juniper which were consumed raised very quickly in the blue of the sky.

Team members have then been blessed and everybody, including spectators, shared tea, chang (rice alcohol), tsampa (a kind of flour of cereals) and local beer. Then a mast was hoisted at the top of the altar with kilometers of flags of prayers (garlands of multicolored fabric patches with prayers to the favor of the wind) set at its top and tended above the camp.

The rice and flour throws marked the end of the puja. After those two  hours of meditation, everyone was embraced with much emotion and even the Sherpas started to dance, extremely rare demonstration as long as the top is not reached.

Week-end program : everybody optimizes its acclimatization and takes care of wounds, little by little. All of them have visited the doctor for a little check up and they are all ok, even if some symptoms due to the acclimatization are still there. Those who feel ready to go further can already go to the future Camp 1, at 6100 m. At the top of 600m of uneven ice barrier, Camp 1 sets the entry to Chomolungma’s garden : from there silently stretches the long Western cwm between Nuptse and western shoulder of the Everest.

Monday April 14th: The weekend was all right for everybody but the computer which as definitively refused to work. All communications will be done by telephone for awhile. After the Friday’s medical check-up, Daniel Blanchi, Maurice Thiney, Gilles Pollini and Dominique Tripier-Mondacin are back to Pheriche, at 4.300m, in order to help their acclimatization. They will go up quietly to base camp tomorrow. for the experts, oxygen saturations vary in the group between 76% and 90% for best acclimatized, which is satisfactory.

The mood is not yet fantastic, but mountain is there and gives its objectives.

Saturday, a first team of 8 people left to Camp 1 to locate the chaotic route of the Ice Fall. Patrick Bérhault was the first one to deposit his sleeping bag in one of the two tents already installed at Camp 1. According to him “It is a little dangerous up there”. On Sunday, a second group followed with Jean Michel, to test their breath in the ice blocks. Mountain is very dry, which is good for the evolution, but consequently the Ice Fall is very chaotic. During the last half an hour of walking, it is necessary to follow a route particularly tortured taking the traditional scales posed horizontally above the cracks (many this year). To cross them, it is a matter of training: balance with the arms using the two ropes fixed at the other end of the crack and advance prudently roped by maintaining the ropes well tended on both sides of the scale. As for now, steps are not yet well assured, but in a few days everything will be assimilated. This Monday, it is day free at base camp. The weather is, as every day, nice on mornings with a tendency to cover after midday and the amplitude of the temperatures between the night and the day borders  40ºC under tent: it can even make +30ºC by good weather!

This morning, team awoke with 10cm of snow, which disappeared very fast under the sun. All Base Camps have been assembled, under the initiative of a neighbor expedition, for a collective photograph Spring 2003. The impression of people is not as significant as what was imagined. An helicopter came after to leave material for Everest50. Oxygen masks are here and, good for taste buds, pork meat and chicken where also on the cargo! This to improve the ordinary day, which thanks to the furnace manufactured by the Sherpas, provides fresh bread each day. Material charges to equip Camps I, II and III are now full and ready to be transported. The long task of equipment can start and for this, Sherpas show of an effectiveness and an invaluable know-how. The good wills will be welcome to help them to carry and assemble the camps.

Dispatches