Base Camp

"Sepu base is 4,751 meters above sea level or 15,600 feet. High enough for everyone to feel it. Frank, Carina, and Kate have never been so high discounting a pass we drove over. The locals believe the castle housing the gods and goddesses that live in the mountains is below the waters of the lake, which Ace unfortunately pissed in this morning. Now that we've angered the local deities, who knows how badly things might go for us on the mountain."
- Mark Newcomb, 15 September 2002

"Tomorrow it will be one year since the first time Mark and I climbed together. One year, two weddings, and a great deal of fuss. I was never going to get married, and then I go ahead and get married at 25."
- Carina Ostberg, 15 September 2002

"Day three at Sepu Base, and we're settling into the rhythm of the place. Today we hope to do some organizational stuff, but nobody seems motivated. Carlos seemed to think I was getting too specific and being tight on the food. We got in a little argument. I was simply trying to say, let's bring up approximately what we think we'll use over five days. Apparently Carlos wanted to bring up a lot more. It is occasionally good to deny the tendency of Western society towards excess - I'm against having a "cupboard" full of food as if we were at home in our American kitchens."
- Mark Newcomb, 17 September 2002

"Today was the first day we got all the way to Camp 1. I could definitely tell I've never been that high before. But I did recover quicker than last time we went up on the mountain. I washed my hair when we came back down. It feels like hair again, not a second hat. It is SO nice! The only good thing about having dirty hair is that it's not in the way when you sleep."
- Carina Ostberg, 18 September 2002

"For me a light load is a daypack. My two cents worth is we ought to not carry anything. I think we should just go up and explore the route without carrying the tents and all that other stuff and not wear ourselves down. I feel that if we are gong up there for the first time on the route we should go as light as possible. If Mark wants to carry loads, then that's great but it might not be fair or easy on the others."
- Carlos Buhler, 18 September 2002

continue >