Tragedy on the mountain

As some of you have heard by now, there was a large avalanche in the icefall today. It came down off the left shoulder of Everest just as we were entering the "football" field, which is just below camp one. Marcus and I were each pushed down behind large blocks of ice by our Sherpas which shielded us from the brunt. These guys are truly amazing!  They saved our lives! We are shaken but ok. Unfortunately there are some still up there who were not so lucky today. As I write this I feel emotional and don't know what to say. One thought is that we were SO lucky! But the overwhelming feelings are for the poor families of the people that didn't make it. I'm so near to this situation right now that I can't think straight. Of course we are all asking ourselves that serious question of "why are we here??" I don't want to try to answer that question in this state of mind but it is the big question floating over our whole camp today.
I'll close with these thoughts; I feel so grateful! I do know this is part of climbing these big mountains and I'm willing to accept the risk. But I do love and appreciate my family and friends more than this adventure. I have a wonderful life and I'm SO lucky today. If I didn't have all of you in my life none of this would matter. I just wanted you all to know what happened and that I'm ok. Thank you for being part of my life.
As a buddy of mine reminded me in times like this.."Stay calm, say a prayer, move forward."
Peace and Love, Jon

Jon was near an avalanche but he is OK

Just in case you hear something on the news . . .

Jon called to say that he and Marcus are OK.   They were in the icefall when an avalanche fell off the west shoulder of Everest onto the icefall between the Football Field and Camp 1.  Now he's safe back at base camp.

CNN says that up to 10 people are missing.

Jon and I are counting our blessings.

Susan

Putting the scene in perspective

I'll try to send this picture in high res so it can be blown up. It's WONDERFUL that we have wifi here this year but its not the greatest.
Even though our faces are not seen well here the best part of this picture is. You can see why they call it an "icefall". In this picture the flow line is visible from its origin on the Lohtse face all the way down the hill where it turns left and passes base camp. If you are able to blow this up you can see most of BC in the lower left corner. The highest mountain (with the dark black face) in the upper center of the photo is Everest! The intended route up will be the right hand side of that dark triangle. Where that dark south rib comes down and meets the iceflow is called the South Col. This will be our high camp at 26,000 feet.
If you check my Spot-tracker activity from today you'll see where I took this photo. A few of us climbed 1200 feet up the opposite side of the valley in order to help with our acclimatization and to get a good look at our adventure.
Tomorrow we'll rest and hopefully head up through this maze in the next few days.
I miss all of you and home but this place is amazing. I was standing in camp looking up at the icefall today when one of my team members quietly said "I just can't take it all in"...... Simple statement but so well said..

Time to learn the balancing act

Base camp is such an interesting place at this point in the season because everyone's thinking about the icefall. We all realize that our chance at this hurdle is rapidly approaching. Some of the season's first climbers go tomorrow.
As you see in this picture, we have a couple of ladders set up here in BC where we can practice. Some like to set their heal first, some balance on their toes first, maybe step one rung at a time, or maybe two feels more natural. What I find interesting is that so much time is spent on learning the ladders when it's such a small piece of the puzzle. Not many of us come right out and say it but I suspect this is most everyone's biggest concern while on this mountain. So many conversations over the last few days have drifted until someone mentions the ladders and then everyone listens up.
Looking at this setup where we're two feet off the ground doesn't look too bad but what we're seeing in our minds is a 300 foot drop into blackness beneath the rungs. Even the most experienced guys up here will offer advice like "just try to focus on your boot placement and don't look down too far." It's an exciting time! I'm scared a bit and at the same time I can't wait to get back up there.
There's some great ladder crossing pix on the IMG website if you want to get a feel for the fun :-)
The background in this picture is the actual icefall itself, or at least the bottom part of it. I'm sure most of you realize that these pieces of ice that look like popcorn are the size of buses or even as big as houses.
I was having lunch today with an experienced climber from Mexico who's going to try to climb this hill for the third time. When the icefall topic eventually came up he said "the trick is to keep your head down and not think about those blocks of ice hanging over you...but for God's sake keep an eye on them just in case they decide to fall on you" :-) I guess it's like everything else in life, it's just a balancing act..

Whether we use old or new forms of travel we all need blessing before entering BC

In photo one we see a decorated "pilot" yak. This guy was so proud of himself I just had to take his picture as he led his team past us, back downhill for another load. He carries at least 10x the load each of us do so we've come to have great respect and gratitude for these creatures.

The next shot I found intriguing: a herd of Yak and Nak moving through the field near Pheriche as a helicopter hovers above waiting to land. Both chopper and yak now compete to provide transportation services to BC. The old versus the new, side by side..

Third photo: I think I heard mama yak explaining to baby yak to look at the mountains - the mountains where she'll spend her life helping others fulfill their dreams..

No matter how we get up this hill we all need the blessing of the local Lama before we proceed. It was an hour long ceremony where he chanted quietly as he looked us over. Eventually he blessed each of us by touching foreheads and draping our necks. Even though we couldn't understand much of what he said the blessing somehow offered a sense of peace.

As our friend Mr. Thoreau said "go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined". It's awesome to get the chance to follow his directions. What a life . . .

Jon

Base Camp has arrived

We made it to BC - our home for the next few weeks. In the pix attached you can see the interstate trucking service that we used to get our duffels up here. Much more reliable than Mack trucks but they're also a little bit opinionated. When they decide to pass us on the trail we simply step aside and hope they don't swing their head too much.
Also is a picture of the us arriving at the official BC gateway. Left to right, Andreas, me, Marcus (who will stay with me throughout) and then Bret. Andreas and Bret will leave today for their long trek back to Lukla for a flight out to Katmandu.
We're feeling good overall and plan to start our first trips up through the icefall in the next week or two. In the meantime we're practicing on the ladders in BC, fixing our gear, acclimatizing and resting.

Missing all of you and home but feeling great... All my best to all of you who mean so much to me! Jon

Everest Base Camp

Jon and the group of Classic climbers made it to Everest base camp.  He called from his sat phone and said that it's going well but it is exceptionally cold. They'll be there a couple of days and then head back to Lobuche.  The wifi at base camp is not up and running yet so he does not have access to email to send pictures to the blog.

IMG posted some pictures of base camp.  If you click the top picture on the April 9th post, you can see Jon at the back of the dining tent on the left.  Click "Next" and it scrolls through a lot of good pictures of base camp and the mountain.

http://www.mountainguides.com/everest-south14.shtml

Here's the link to track his location:

Jon's SPOT location

Susan

Moving to Everest Base Camp tomorrow

You can get more information about Jon's expedition at the following link:

http://www.mountainguides.com/everest-south14.shtml

International Mountain Guides (IMG) has several different teams that are on different rotations.  IMG offers 3 types of services:

1)  Everest climb                   1:1 Western guide

2)  Hybrid Everest climb       1:1 Sherpa guide and 4:1 Western guide

3)  Classic Everest climb       1:1 Sherpa guide

Jon is in the first "Classic" team.

Last night, he called from his sat phone to let me that all is well.  They are at Lobuche base camp and are heading for Everest base camp tomorrow (tonight our time).

Susan

You can track his current location with the following link:

Jon's SPOT location

Lobuche

This is Lobuche and it's just over 20,000 ft, same as our Denali (McKinley) in Alaska. It doesn't look that high because I took this picture from 14k ft yesterday. We'll climb this first as a warm up, if you will. The idea is to get the body to realize that we're headed uphill and get the kidneys to jumpstart the making of red blood cells. This in turn will enable us to move much more quickly through the icefall. We want to do anything we can to minimize the time in these dangerous areas so we do what we can to increase these oxygen carrying red cells. I thought you might be interested in the thinking behind climbing a "bonus" mountain on our way to the big one.
I'll be on the back side of the moon for the next three days with no communication. I'll check in once we hit Everest BC about 4 days from now.

Jon

You can track my current location with the following link:

Jon's SPOT location

Tengboche.. Or Thyangboche; Hillary's first base camp

We moved up to Thyangboche at about 13k feet yesterday. There's a monastery here which has attracted trekkers and mountaineers for 100 years. In the pictures attached you can see that this is the exact spot where Ed Hillary and John Hunt made their original base camp in 1953. It's special to us that we are here today to stand in the middle of his camp and try to imagine what his thoughts must have been. Surely it crossed his mind that everyone who had ever tried what he was about to do had failed or was dead. He was one man who deserved his knighthood!
I also included a picture of a monk named Tashi who runs this monastery. When Susan and I met Tashi last year, we were impressed with his sweet gentleness. He explained to us today that this is not a big prayer day so he and the others will only meditate/pray for two 3 hour sessions. He's dedicated his life to this place. Way out here in the mountains, several days walk to anywhere, and he sits and prays...year after year after year. This world is full of amazing people that we'll never know or hear about..