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Here we go again...things are finally starting to move. You may have noticed how little climbing we did in this expedition. Yup...in fact we ended up climbing for a measly total of 7 days, the rest was all resting or non-technical hiking days. Crazy right? That's the way of the North Side of Everest. Enjoy! Love this song...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X20bFDunbRw
One of the nerdiest things I do is plan/set-up memories. They usually work best when reading books. To me, a lot of the books I choose to read become a huge part of my life. I remember exactly when I first read "Lord of the Rings", "The Hobbit", "Godel, Escher, & Bach", "The Feynman Lectures", "Open", etc. Most of those I just picked up and started to read, and in turn, they became staples of my existence. For example, I can remember the first time I opened up "Gödel, Escher, & Bach" - I was taking my then-girlfriend to get her molars removed. I sat there in the waiting room, totally engrossed by the first chapter. And "Lord of the Rings", one of my favorites, was before and during Christmas in 2002.
In fact, I started realizing that a lot of these books were becoming such epic experiences in my life, that I started purposefully saving certain books to be read at specific times. A perfect example being "The Hobbit". I wanted to read it immediately after reading LOTR back in 2002, but I knew that if I read it to soon, I would have wasted it all in one gulp. I also wanted to wait for the hope of a movie to come out later on and also, to leave some LOTR-ishness for the future. I knew I wanted it to be read before christmas; there"s something christmas-y about the LOTR universe for me. So I waited 10 BLOODY YEARS until the movie came out! Finally opened up the book last thanksgiving and spaced out the chapters to make it last until christmas. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life! And, it worked out exactly as planned. Whenever I think about "The Hobbit," or open the book up and smell the pages, I feel like it"s christmas. SUCCESS. Not only did I enjoy the book, but I successfully engineered two independent (and both equally and uniquely memorable) memories of LOTR books.
Recently I have been reading the "A Song of Fire and Ice" series (Game of Thrones). I JUST got to "A Storm of Swords," which is the 3rd book in the series and is hailed as the GoT book that has the most epic action in it. It also leads you past season 3 (if you watch the series on HBO). I knew it was going to be epic so I stretched it out and planned it so I would read it in the right place at just the right time. It turned out being one of the best books I have ever read and the memory was so perfectly planned that I know whenever I look back on it, I will be 100% satisfied.
I know memories should be unplanned and spontaneous, but sometimes memories can end up sucking. So why not do justice to the little ones that you know will end up being huge?
(Does anyone else do this?).
In case some of you missed me on the Katie Couric Show yesterday, here is my segment in its full glory!
(I hate that they only gave me 30 seconds to recall the names. It"s not about how quickly you can recall them, it"s about how quickly you can memorize them, grrr! No worries, the segment still came out Return to most common fees navigationBalance transfer fees are fees you pay to transfer balances from one free credit score card to another. great!).
One thing that has always been memorable for me is the faces of those whom I"ve met in the Nepal/Tibet region of Everest. Whether it was just passing by them or Wave 1: Creating manageable best-data-recovery.com structures As computing moved into the commercial market in the late 1960s, best-data-recovery.com was stored in flat files that imposed no structure. actually climbing with them, they all seem to have some of the most expressive faces I"ve ever seen - always smiling, perfect teeth, deep wrinkles, and weathered skin. I wanted to share my collection of some of them. Here all 16 of the Sherpas from our expedition team this past Everest climb.
One of the most fascinating things to watch on an Everest expedition is the Puja Ceremony. A ritualistic prayer/blessing session led typically by a buddhist monk (or a few). Lots of chanting, bells ringing, incense burning, and alcoholic beverages. To westerners it is a beautiful thing to be a part of and it helps bring the team closer with each other and with the Sherpas. To the Sherpas it is a necessary ritual that needs to be done or else they won't climb up the mountain. It is a way of paying respects to the mountain gods.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbUFGrVFdWk
Here we go continuing with the series....more to follow.... This is a tour of Everest Base Camp. There aren't a lot of videos out there showing what it's like on the Tibetan side of Everest. So, enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SupSwYAp_Ug
Part 1 of my mini-doc series of my past Everest expedition. This is mostly footage I shot with a Canon-5D. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f5G4ryTkW0
....you plan a third attempt. 2015 y'all. Have to. Next year will be Manaslu. I NEED to get an 8000m peak under my belt. And considering I've already been higher than any other 8000m peak (aside from Everest of course), I should be able to summit Manaslu (in theory), the 8th highest peak in the world.
So what have I been up to in the past 2 months since I returned from Everest? A whole lot of everything. First and most importantly was for me to get myself back into the physical shape I was pre-Everest. That meant gaining back the 30 pounds of muscle I had lost over the course of the expedition. That came back surprisingly quickly. I'm now back up to where I was before and probably even stronger. It's amazing what the body can do. I have a big CrossFit competition next weekend, which I hope to do well in. It'll be a great way to measure how "back in shape" I truly am.
As for memory stuff, I am now in the midst of training for the World Memory Championships at the end of November. As for the US Competition next March, I'm seriously doubting whether I'll compete there again. The competition, in my opinion, was a total shit show this past year and unless things change (events, certain rules, and the overall organization and structure of the competition) then I won't be there. It's not worth my time. I remember sitting on stage in the final rounds last time thinking to myself "did I seriously just spend a whole year training for this?". There are bigger things to invest my time into.
As of career stuff, there is a ton of stuff in the hopper. Can't really disclose any of it now, but soon enough. All exciting things, so stay tuned!
My friend Ana Overgaard is making a documentary about me (she's been following me around for a couple years now) and she had a lot of footage from the World Memory Championships in London last year. Once I saw some of it, I just had to put together a short video for the Speed Cards event: http://vimeo.com/70529975
This coming Monday is kind of a big deal for me (and for Memory Sports in general). It's the first seriously televised memory event in the history of the world! You might have already seen a promo for it on TV. http://science.discovery.com/tv-shows/memory-games/memory-games-videos/how-to-memorize-numbers.htm
I haven't seen the show so I'm a bit scared how they will portray me, but it is what it is. The idea of the show is that they'll follow 6-10 of the mental athletes competing in this year's USA Memory Championships (which was this past March in NYC...*SPOILER* I lost stupidly in the final round, if you remember *SPOILER*). It should be a pretty sweet showing though, the producers of the show were very adamant about making the show, and memory in general, seem "cool" and "hip" (which it is, duh)....For example, they had me go to South Beach and randomly stop girls on Spring Break (in bikinis of course) and ask if I could memorize their phone numbers, haha. Should be fun.
Anyways, watch it, DVR it, do whatever you have to do to see it.
It's on the Science Channel on July 15th (this coming Monday) at 10pm.
If any of you are keen, we've just added an Instagram account for Climb For Memory (@climbformemory!). Follow us!
There is this night I slept down in Pheriche (which is the village below the South Side Everest Base Camp that most people retreat to after for good food and thicker air) back in 2011 after my expedition was over. I hadn"t been below 17,000 ft in over a month and a half, and while I was totally acclimatized, obviously any extra air was welcome. I slept so incredibly well that night, that I was hooked on writing about that particular experience. It was like a drug high that I couldn"t explain. I journaled about it extensively, but never in public.
In Zhangmu, Tibet, the same thing happened. We were at 17,000 ft at Everest Base Camp the day before and for the night we were now just below 10,000 ft. A HUGE difference in terms of how thick and abundant the air is. In a Chuck Norris killing-two-stones-with-one-bird kinda way, let me just describe to you what it was like to open my eyes the next morning after the resulting sleep:
As I woke up immersed in a creamy thick-like soup bath of air, my eyes struggled to open, feeling as if they were being opened for the very first time. First, they had crusted over with so much oxygen-induced lubrication that I felt like a baby struggling to use it"s new eyelid muscles as it entered the world. Second, with my brain turning on all its neurons fully ready to fire with all the available oxygen made me suddenly feel like I was a speed thinking genius, capable of doing mental math faster than a trained Vedic math Indian Guru, capable of In order to get subsidies all you need to do is sign up with the affordablehealth.info exchange. out-mind reading any gifted psychic, more witty in word-grabbing than fricking Grandmaster Flash, and more alert at hearing single keys rattling, ants scurrying, hairs falling, butter melting, eyes rolling, single hands clapping, than the most deaf man in the universe.
The feeling of immerging from such a deep and solidly oxygenated sleep was akin to awaking from 1 million sleeps, simultaneously (maybe even more...). Imagine feeling like Neo, being awoken from The Matrix for the first time, or like Leo getting jolted back from his dream within a dream within a dream like in Inception. I felt like I had just peeled off my outer shell and stepped through as a completely lighter, cleaner (although I still hadn"t showered and smelled like hot curry mixed with copious amounts of balsamic vinegar and a tablespoon of pencil shavings), more wholesome person. Every time I took in a deep breath the sludge of air permeated throughout my whole self and my entire body felt like it was glowing like that neon green thing that gets stuck in Homer"s shirt during The Simpsons intro. My fingers and toes tingled intensely like I was being blasted by Chernobyl radiation and my temples throbbed with the sensation that they were being hosed down with a massive firetruck nozzle of flowing oxygen.
That probably still doesn"t make any sense. Maybe try and imagine this: last night you took a pill and it took you to a place you could only imagine. An amazing euphoric place with prancing unicorns, rainbows with 3 ends, leprechauns who provided their lucky charms freely, ogres who offered their bridges as suntanning posts with constantly flowing and free oven-steaming brownies. Hobbits and wizards and elves were there too to feed you grapes and delicious milk chocolate buttons made from the milk of the same cows that are purple and live in Switzerland, whose sole purpose is to provide the milk in all the most delicious milk chocolate in the world. Ghandi and Mother Theresa are there as well, reading all the best Mother Goose nursery rhymes while doing 100% accurate impersonations of all the comedians and actors that make you laugh, like Christopher Walken, Robin Williams, and Arnold Schwarzanegger. To top it all off, a background soundtrack is being played and orchestrated by Frank Sinatra himself, while a string orchestra of 10,000 are playing Katy Perry"s "Firework", all the while bright green (and neon pink) tennis balls are being superfluously lobbed and served non-stop into the sky by the hottest version of Anna Kournikova you can imagine (or Andy Roddick, whichever you prefer), and as the balls land they splash into colorful pools of liquid fruit roll ups and jelly babies.
Then you wake up.
That"s how it feels. Absolutely invigorating and refreshing. I know half (or all) of that is ridiculous, but it really is an out-of-this world experience and difficult to describe. I just remember thinking how great it was to feel alive again at that moment! It"s just amazing how important oxygen is for our body and system. I know that"s an obvious realization, but most people never get the opportunity to remove themselves from our oxygen-rich environment and then re-immerse themselves later. I did, and it was awesome :)
I"ve received such positive feedback on my summit day account that I just had to re-post the whole thing here (it was sitting on the Fusion IO - my sponsor"s - website - www.fusionio.com/memorychallenge). Enjoy.
The Pre-summit push
Lets start out with PRE summit day. Coming off of two nights at Camp 2 (we were only supposed to stay there one night, but high winds kept us locked in place), I was a bit nervous. Our expedition had us running thin late in the season, which meant a lot of my strength had dissipated, and an extra night at 7800m (near the death zone) with no oxygen—we had to conserve it for later—and no food but a soup packet, some crackers, and a few candy bars (to save weight I only brought up a limited number of meals, which I had already eaten), I myself was running thin as well. But I made do. Once the wind died down the 21st, we made the move to Camp 3.
Now Phil and every other source known to man had me believe (and our whole team too) that it was gonna be a short climb up about 500m, two to four hours, to put us in place for our summit push at Camp 3. A short day so that we could rest for the same evening departure for the summit. It took me eight frigging hours, and was probably one of the most challenging mountaineering days of my life. Phil took an oddly-slow six hours, and one of our members (who is typically fast) took an excrutiatingly long 11.5 hours.
What. The. Hell. Happened?
Maybe it was the fact that our Camp 2 was slightly lower this year, maybe it was that extra day we had to stay at Camp 2, maybe it was the weather or air pressure, maybe it was just a crap day for all of us. But the bottom line is it screwed us all. Me especially. I was one of the slowest that day. Mentally, it was painfully hard for me. For some reason, every step I took was so difficult to take. I"d take one, then look up and see I"d made so little progress, each step requiring about 10 breaths.
Camp 2 sits on this rocky spine on the North East Ridge and was just a shifty rock scramble to get out of (took ages), but from there there was a snow ramp and then more shifty rock. Once I reached that point (about 8000m—officially in the "Death Zone"). I sat down and looked out at the Himalayan expanse and just started sobbing. I don"t know really why, but I guess at that moment I suddenly felt completely defeated. I thought of all the people I was going to disappoint, especially myself, but I just couldn"t get myself up and keep climbing. What was the point? Get to Camp 3 exhausted and then not have anything left for the summit? But I had put so much into this to just turn around.
So I sat there. It was stunningly beautiful. Just facing me and sitting higher than this opposite peak Changtse, and diagonal from the sixth highest peak in the world, Cho Oyu, I was literally sitting above all the surrounding Himalayan mountain range. A few minutes later, a team member came by me and offered me some encouragement (and some candy). She got me up and moving again up this second snow slope.
That whole effing slope was the death of me. It must have taken me hours. Part way up it, my team mate had long zoomed around the top corner and my Sherpas had scooted up as well (probably slightly annoyed with my slow pace). So I slumped down and sat there again, this time 100% convinced it was all over. I think I sat there for 40 minutes before I moved at all. I finally tried to search my bag for my radio to phone Phil to talk ,but I was so helplessly weak I just gave up. Luckily I was able to wave down one of my Sherpas, Lakpa Dorje, off at the top of the stretch, who was waiting for me, and he came down. He gave me his radio and I called Phil.
"Phil, this is Nelson, over."
"Copy, Go ahead buddy."
"I"m screwed. Totally screwed. I"m moving VERY slowly and I"m having an emotional breakdown . I don"t know what to do anymore."
"Where are you?"
"At the snow ramp, just above 8000m."
"Okay, Camp 3 is just over the hill. You can do it buddy."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah I know you can."
....
....
"Ok..."
First of all, Phil lied through his teeth. It wasn"t just over the hill. Good GOD it wasn"t. Second, the way he said the last part of the conversation just made me get up and go again. Not sure why. Phil has this way of making everything seem okay in the way he speaks, and I guess it was what I needed to hear right then and there.
So I got up and moved. I also knew I was at a point where my oxygen was running out, so I knew it was important to get to Camp 3 just for a fresh bottle. That helped too. For the moment I told myself, let me just get to the top of the hill and see what"s around the corner. Usually when I can see a tent or two, psychologically it does wonders for my physical progress, and then I"ll make my next decision. Bite size pieces.
It must have taken an hour, but I plodded on. One step at a time.
Turned the corner and—nope. Another ramp up. Oh, and a dead body. Yup. A Sherpa had just plopped down and died a few days prior, and there he was lying on the trail, face up. It looked like a bad joke or a not-so-funny scene from "A Weekend From Bernie"s," but the reality was that this guy was doing the same thing I was—and he died. That thought can sober you up and motivate you real quick, let me tell you. Having to step over him to continue on the trail can also help with that too.
The next corner.
I couldn"t see a tent, but I could see a section flattening out . I knew it had to be a suitable place for a Camp. More plodding up and finally I saw some yellow tents. Then I could suddenly see all of them. It just took another hour or so to get to them. Once I did, I fell into my tent, had my Sherpas undo my crampons, and I sprawled into a corner of the tent as two other Sherpas followed suit. I was exhausted, but safe. I changed my bottle and just lay there, in disbelief of what I had just done.
The feeling I had of getting to that point—Camp 3, 8300m, the highest campsite in the world—was complete, utter joy. I really can"t compare it to anything I"ve ever done before. I can usually put myself through A LOT of pain and stress, but that climb topped everything and anything I"ve ever accomplished. I had pulled something deep from within that I had never seen before. I had done something incredible (incredible to me, at least). I didn"t care about the summit right at that moment anymore. I was just so proud of myself for pushing through. It was truly the most monumental thing I had ever done for myself. And for that I was satisfied.
After getting some melted snow in my system (thanks to my amazing Sherpas), Phil broadcasted to us over the radio that some people had yet to arrive. That made me feel better—I thought I was the last of the lasts. A few hours later everyone was in, so Phil discussed the summit plan for the evening, saying we would leave at 9:00 p.m. Those that had arrived later could leave later so they could rest more.
I guess being charged by my recent performance, I was suddenly pumped to continue for the summit. After all, from Camp 3 the summit literally looks like you can touch it. It"s right there, only 500m above.
The Actual Summit Push
So I got in my zone. Listened to all my "climbing" music, ate a candy bar, and laid there as the sun set and began to get freezing. Oh yes, I was gonna do this thing. I quickly forgot about how tired my body was, having not eaten real food for a couple days, not having slept much, oh and haven gotten the crap kicked out of myself that very same day.
No matter.
8:30 p.m. came around and I reached for my headlamp and started packing my rucksack and arranging my gear. Two headlamps, heavy mitts, candy bars, one liter of water tucked in my down suit, hand warmers in my climbing gloves, electronic foot warmers in my boots, harness—I. Was. Ready.
I dangled my legs out of the tent, seeing some of my team mates already heading up. It was biting cold, but clear star-lit skies with a bright half-moon over head. Lakpa helped me with my crampons (Sherpas can handle cold better with their hands more than the "Inji" can), I threw on my pack, clipped into the rope, and I started moving. It was just after 9:30 pm. I could see the small trail of headlamps filing up the rock wall above. I followed.
At first, slow and cautious—I didn"t want to over do it, given my body was tired (mentally I had convinced it not to be, but I knew the reality), but soon I got into a rhythm so good that I soon over passed a few climbers, including honorary Sherpa Phil. I felt awesome.
The first part of the summit climb is up part of the North Face that leads you up through a vertical maze of rock, then through a few massive boulders called the Exit Cracks. Through these, you get up into the North Ridge. This ridge leads you right up gradually, except for a few noticeable negotiations, to the summit.
So the first part took about two and a half hours. It reminded me a lot of the steep slog up to the Balcony on the South Side, just with way more rock. Once I cleared the Cracks, I stepped into the exposed ridge and WHAM, was hit full force by the wind. It"s very exposed on that ridge. I mean, you are standing where jetliners typically fly! The wind bit through all my gear—so cold. I could feel the snot and moisture from my mask instantly freezing into thick icicles on my beard. I pulled my down suit hood deep over my head, which helped a lot, but suddenly my extremities were getting sharply cold. But I kept plodding along the ridge, getting a quick shock when I spotted "ol Green Boots, the dead body of an Indian climber from years ago who had crawled into a small cavernous rock for safety, but who now lays sprawled out partly on the trail as a supposed "monument" — exposing his neon green boots. Great, another dead body, I thought.
I"ve always had poor circulation in my fingers and toes, and over the years of climbing I"ve figured out ways to fight this problem and make sure I don"t get frostbite. I"ve come close a few times, but luckily only walked away with some frostnip (which heals a LOT better and lets you keep your digits). I"ve always managed to learn new tricks and combinations of gear to prevent this. But up at 8500m, no matter what you"ve learned, it"s hard to fix coldness. There just isn"t anywhere to get heat from other than yourself moving or maybe the sun (which in my case wasn"t coming up for another few hours).
First it was my hands—my hand warmers, which had been toasty all the way up through the Exit Cracks, suddenly were rendered useless. The wind had overpowered their warmth. Every few moves up the rope I had to slide my gloves up and clench my hands around the hand warmers to extract as much warmth as I could from them inside my glove. It worked until I realized the line of headlamps behind me was slowly closing in. Up ahead of me loomed the First Step—one of the three negotiations on the ridge I mentioned earlier. I wasn"t gonna be able to continue like this with all these people up my ass, especially with a big rock climb ahead of me. So I pulled aside (not really much room to go "aside" on a ridge, but I did my best). I asked my Sherpa if he could reach into my sack for my big mitts (these puppies are massive and warm—think puffy down-filled baking oven mitts). At this point Phil and my other team mates were beginning to pass, quickly asking what was up but then pressing on (not really much time or space for a real Q&A up there). I got my mitts on, clapped my hands together a few times and continued on.
Then it got worse. My hands were warming up slightly, but my thumbs just wouldn"t move. That makes using a jumar, beener, and rope very difficult—yeah, you can"t grab stuff without out thumbs (ask your dog, he knows about this). I couldn"t figure out how to move up the rope safely enough. So I kept stopping and trying to warm my hands. All the while, my foot warmers had decided it was too cold to keep working—the batteries had died—so now I was worrying about my toes as well. Not a good combo.
I could have kept going, and maybe my toes and hands would have eventually warmed up on their own through movement, but the bottleneck of people up the First Step ahead suggested to me that I might be moments away from losing digits. I wasn"t going to be moving fast enough to generate much body heat.
Being in this position before, and having to decide the importance of getting to a single point in space or not, vs. losing my life or things important to my life—i.e. my fingers and toes—the decision was easy. Turn around.
Don"t get me wrong, I want and have wanted to conquer this mountain for years, and I will someday, but not today. Not like that. I value the journey more than the single point.
The decision came easily this time. No regrets. I turned around. I came down with the help of Lakpa, who helped me clip in and out of the rope with my frozen blocks for hands. My toes were getting worse by the minute but at least I knew in a couple hours I would be warming them back up in my sleeping bag.
The descent in the dark was terrifying. I kept tripping over past years" ropes and worrying whether my hands were really gripping the rope as tightly as I was thinking they were (I couldn"t feel them). I stumbled a good number of times down the rock face, but luckily managed to straighten myself out safely and quickly enough. I"m sure if it had been in daylight, with the massive drops in full sight, I would have crapped myself righteously. But luckily the depth of my headlamp into the abyss was only 20—30 feet down. But it was still frightening. Really frightening. At one point I slid and a rock shot out from under me. As I turned my head to see where it landed, I saw it "thump" against the back of a face down dead body just a few feet below me. Jesus Christ. A Japanese climber had fallen and died there just a few days ago on his descent. In that instant, my choice for turning around were completely and wholly justified. I mean, seriously, screw this, I thought, what was I doing here?
I was on some other level at the point, zoned in to just make it down to my tent, which I did safely from that point on. Getting inside my tent and my gradually warming sleeping bag was one of the most glorious feelings ever. I was asleep instantly, but just before passing out, I remember giving out one of the largest sighs of relief I"ve ever given out.
After all was said and done, only four of our team members pushed on through to the summit (plus six Sherpas). The rest turned around for one reason or another. It was a tough summit day. A very cold and windy one.
I hate giving excuses, and I know I"ve provided many above for why I turned around (cold extremities, poor nutrition, pure exhaustion), but the fact remains that other people still summited in the same conditions, even worse conditions on previous days, yet I didn"t. So why did they summit and not me? Why didn"t I even after my second try? I"m strong, I prepared extremely hard, I put EVERYTHING I had into this. And still it wasn"t enough. Why?
What I realized on this expedition is that summiting Everest takes a lot of things to go perfect and in your favor. So many things. Everyone is different—mentally, physiologically, and physically. Some people have a higher tolerance for cold and pain, some people are stronger for longer periods of time, some people have better patience, some people are more willing to risk things when it comes down to it. Maybe that"s my limiting factor: to what point I"m willing to push my body and to what cost. Maybe I"m too scared of that point and that"s what stops me. Who knows? Whatever it is, I honestly don"t care. I"m happy with what I"ve done and I"m happy that I am able to come back in one piece to talk about it. The experience to me is more important than the actual summit really. What is that summit anyway?The mountain will always be there, but I might not. So why make it worth anything damaging to yourself?
I"m sorry to those who where rooting for me and for those who supported me. I tried my very best, but sadly came up a bit short. But, I"m okay with that. So hopefully you will be too. The joy and experience this climb/expedition has given me is more than any standing on a summit will ever give me, so thank you. I"m now safe at Base Camp enjoying beer and steak. Now begins the quick process of getting the hell out of here and back to the luxuries of normal life (showers and pizza). I am happy and with a shaggy beard.
I'm back home and feeling good. Well, as good as one can be after an Everest expedition. The official weight I lost was 30 lbs, give or take a few. I initially thought it was 25 or so, but I woke up the following morning and was 6 lbs lighter....what the? And that was a few days after my summit push (which I'm sure I was lighter just afterwards). Pretty scary. I didn't even lose that much last time I climbed Everest, and this time I was eating like an absolute cow (steaks and chickens and all that goodness). I'm pretty sure it had to do with the extended time we spent at ABC as well as the longer summit push on the North Side. I have a bit of frostnip on my thumbs and pointer fingers, as well as my two big toes (just the tips though). They are still numb and the outer layer of skin is coming off. I'm happy with that...no permanent damage.
After all was said and done, this season on Everest was actually pretty normal, aside from the poor weather forecasts we had. In my opinion the weather was just totally bizarre on the North Side. Everything seemed "early" in April, and then the Jet Stream just never really lifted properly as it was supposed to, so we could sneak under it. I remember getting on the plane back to London from Delhi on May 29th, reading the paper, and there was an article talking about how the monsoon hadn't properly moved in yet and that it was still expected to do so in the next few days. Crazy. That's so late in the season. For a more in depth recap of the season, check out Alan Arnette's blog post:
Anyways, the bottom line is that the North Side was brutally cold and windy and my body just wasn't suited for it this time around. Voila. Now I'm home in Miami, sun-burned from the beach already, and starting the process of bulking up again (FYI, I can't lift anything at the gym anymore...it's pretty sad). I'll be dreaming of my next big challenging climb (probably some time next year), but in the mean time, it's back to hardcore memory training for the World Memory Championships come December.
Cheers!
(PS. Pics are coming soon....stay tuned. Video too.)
You can read my SUMMIT DAY Blog Post ... my account of what happened the day before, the hours leading up to the moment I realized I had to turn around, and the glorious feeling of relief when I arrived back at Advanced Base Camp by visiting: http://memorychallenge.fusionio.com/summit/#!/1061
We left Camp 3 at around 10pm and are headed up to the Summit. Should be reaching it around sunrise. Weather conditions are good! http://memorychallenge.fusionio.com/ascent/#!/1035
Camp 1 ... Camp 2 ... Camp 3 ... SUMMIT. The plan is to stand on top of the world on Tuesday, May 21st.
http://memorychallenge.fusionio.com/ascent/#!/1031
If you haven"t been following along on http://memorychallenge.fusionio.com/intro/, make sure you do!
We returned to advanced base camp a day ago after spending 2014Unibetin mobiilikasino toimii niin iPhone-, Android- kuin Nokia-laitteilla seka puhelimessa etta tabletissa. a night at the North Col. We were hoping for a possible early summit but the weather wasn"t cooperating. Please stay tuned to the fusion-io website for further updates.
Hoping for a successful summit push in the next 3-5 days!
Things are starting to move... slowly but surely. Trying my best to speed up time as much as possible. Things are Moving Blog Post: http://memorychallenge.fusionio.com/acclimation/#!/991
I tried to move... attempted 30 burpees for time @17,000 ft. Not sure it was a good idea!
Burpee Bungle Blog Post: http://memorychallenge.fusionio.com/acclimation/#!/999
Feeling much better now that my body has adjusted a bit. Managed to send 2 new blog posts through: "Challenged by Altitude Change" and "Almost like a Beach Day" - North Col tomorrow! http://memorychallenge.fusionio.com/intro/ - click on "GO"
