Dear Friends,

 

Tomorrow we begin the Khumbu Climbing Center’s 12th annual training program for Nepali climbers. We had a meeting tonight will all our instructors to address some last minute details and clarify the schedule and plans for the next few days.

 

I spent the day with Andy (Tyson) scouting for some additional ice climbs since we have a few climbs that are not in good condition. That means that the ice is not very thick or not there. We use ice axes and crampons to climb ice and if it’s thin, it’s easy to damage tools or worse yet, have the ice break off. So, we went out looking for some options.

 

I have to say that Andy is young, fit, fast, and full of energy. We covered a lot of terrain over several hours today, all of it straight up, straight down, or straight across a steep hillside. We even had the joy of bush whacking through thick rhododendron forests. If you haven’t had the pleasure of being stuck in place on a steep, snow-covered hillside, hung up on branches above, below, and all around, you’re really missing out. Highly recommended for character building purposes.

 

We now have more in our guest house as students have arrived. The main dining area is more crowded and noisy at times but the advantage is that the room becomes much warmer. It’s gets so warm that we can comfortably strip down to only 2 layers or so. Woohoo.

 

It’s about 9 pm and the students have gone to bed so a few of us are relaxing, catching up on email, listening to Bob Marley, and getting ready to head to bed ourselves. Pemba has the best music selection in Khumbu.

 

All the best,

 

Steve