Everest North Side Expedition
St. Petersburg Everest - 2003 Jubilee Expedition

Dispatch Five: April 08, Marina Ershova: Hello! Today at 9:00 we have started from Tingri and about 14:00 we have arrived at the Everest BC. On the way we have done a short stop at the very famous high-altitude Rongbuk Monastery. We have written our names on the paper sheets with prayers and local monks have done a church service for our expedition. Base Camp is located a little upper on the valley near the glacier, on the altitude about 5200 m.

Here are already about ten big and small expeditions. We have met some persons acquainted on our previous Himalayan expeditions. The Chinese expedition leaves a lasting impression - they have about 80 persons and more than 40 persons will work on the mountain. This reminds our Soviet period, when crowds of our climbers and tourists went up to the summits to install there busts of Lenin, Stalin and other leaders of the world proletariate :-) The weather is excellent. There is no snow at BC, but the river is still frozen because even in daytime the temperature is around minus 5. Mt. Everest is black, there is not too much snow on its upper slopes. A strong enough wind blows and we are in down jackets and pants. Our kitchen personnel - a cook and two kitchen boys - has met us very well: all tents were installed and for dinner we had a splendid steak with roasted potatoes! I do not know how long such things will continue, but soups, meat with potatoes, etc... all this is very typical for Russians and we would not like to change our cuisine. For the first time on such altitude all members feel well enough. Of course, some of us have a headache but it is normal for the first days. Tomorrow we will have acclimatization in the area of BC but yaks are already booked for the day after tomorrow. So we plan to go to ABC on April 10 - it may take two or three days. In general, we are on the place, all is OK and real mountaineering will begin very soon!

Dispatches