100 Pushups - Week 5, Day 1, Column 2

Week 3 passed without too much trouble. I wouldn't say it was a coast, but I got to the end of the week 3 training plan on column 3, and was feeling confident about attacking Week 4.

No such luck. After 2 failed attempts to complete Week 4 Column 3, I was still falling 10 short on the last set. With others catching up fast, I had to admit defeat, swallow my pride, and drop down to column 2 or be stuck there for another week.

This was much better. I was finally making progress again, and the last set of each day was still tough, but achievable. Once I battled through the last set on day 3 with triceps pumped and pecs a-burnin' (the last 5 or so were just... NASTY!) it was time for an exhaustion test to determine which column to start on for Week 5.

I was ready for this, dammit. All the hard work on week 4 should mean that I'd be racing away, right? Must be good for at least 15 more this time round, surely? Right? Riiiiiiiight?

Wrong. After leaving a completely blank rest day in between, I managed a measly 40. That's only five more than I could do at the start. FIVE? FIVE?? Nooooooooo! You're kidding me! All that work just for an extra FIVE??

Well, it's not so bad, I guess. It still puts me right on the cusp between columns 2 and 3 for week 5, so my self-satisfied feelgood factor (and my fragile masculine ego) isn't completely crushed.

I'd been eyeing up week 5 for a long time, in much the same way as people who walk to the North Pole like to keep an eye on polar bears that are hovering just out of range. It looked hard. Even the programme itself says, at the end:

Week 5 was a tough one, and if you've made it this far, you're getting close to reaching your goal.

Well, having tackled Week 5, Day 1, Column 2 last night, I can confidently say, without a shadow of a doubt - it's brutal!. I could feel the lactic acid kicking into my triceps and pecs earlier and earlier with each set. I needed 35 on the last set to call it complete, and by 25 I was shaking, grimacing, grunting, howling and getting slower and slower. I just about did it, but by God it was close. I took solace in the words of Tim Ferris in The 4Hr Body when describing his preferred strength training regime (one set to complete failure):

To Failure doesn't mean giving up at your first moderately-hard rep. It means pushing like there's a gun to your head.

According to Tim, it's the last rep that makes all the difference - that last rep that you can't complete no matter how hard you push, THAT's the one that triggers your body's muscle growth response. Every rep leading up to that should just be considered a warmup for it.

Kind of makes sense. But my GOD it hurts! :)

I also noticed a couple of things that I need to keep an eye on:

1. My right wrist has been getting more and more painful as the training goes on
2. As I tire, my dominant right shoulder tries to compensate for the weaker left side, and I end up leaning over to the left with my right shoulder higher. I should probably do some work to correct that imbalance

I must say, though, that it's having a noticeable effect on my body composition. Having lost so much weight in January (12Kg in 2 weeks) when I got Giardia in Nepal, and my body started to digest its own muscle (see before and after shots - check out the left upper arm skinniness!) it's great to have some definition back again. I have pecs again! And Lise's verdict ?

(with a coy grin) Yeah, it hasn't gone unnoticed...

Yay!

100 Pushups - Day 1 - Initial Assessment #may18_100

I did my first exhaustion test this morning - 35 pushups in one go. Not bad... according to the training plan that means I start from week 3. It puts me at the head of our little #May18_100 pack, but that just means if I don't stay at the head of the pack, I have teh major FAIL !

I took a video, but it was dark, grainy, and missed off my head, so there's just my tracksuited bum bobbing up and down, like a dodgy late night movie on channel 5, probably starring someone called Shannon (see Bill Hicks' classic "hairy bobbing man ass" sketch) so in the interests of taste and decency, I've decided not to post it. I'll see if I can get a better take at the weekend.

HOW many pushups??

Due to a combination of cajolery on Twitter, I seem to have ended up accepting a challenge - the Hundred Push Up Challenge, no less.

Simply put, you follow the training program with an aim of doing 100 pushups in one go at the end. In our case, we seem to have settled on a slightly less intimidating target - whoever does the most on May 18th, wins.

There's mitigating circumstances, and I'm getting my excuses in early - I cracked a rib playing football a couple of weeks ago - but P Biddy has even beaten me in those stakes:

if I'm starting w/a chronic autoimmune disorder that has put me in a wheelchair, I think you can start w/a broken rib!

- and besides, I'm in, I can't back out now.


Apparently videos are required. This perturbs me. But in for a penny, in for a pound, and all that. I also feel like there's an inexorable link between Brits Doing Dumb Challenges and charity, so for every push up I do on the 18th, I'll donate a pound to .... erm, a charity I haven't decided upon yet.

Candidates that spring to mind are:

- Marie Curie cancer care
- CHANCE
- Shelter
- ...?

All suggestions welcome. Wish me luck!

Everest Base Camp trek day 13 - Lurching up to Lobuche

We stood leaning on our poles, gasping for breath in the cold morning air at the top of the steep hill directly behind the lodge, right at the start of the trek from Dingboche to Lobuche.

"How high have we climbed now?" asked Lise, in between gasps for oxygen that just wasn't there.

I checked my watch.

"10 metres," I panted, "only 390 to go..."

"Al..." she replied, "....don't do that."

The mornings were becoming increasingly hard, as Lise's panic breathing (Cheyne-Stokes Respiration, apparently) was getting worse, the temperature was dropping and the air was getting thinner. To start the day with a hill like that on top of everything else, just seemed malicious.

Once over the brow, we had a long section of gentle ascent, with spectacular views of Thobuche and Cholatse just the other side of the small Pheriche valley. We started to defrost as the sun hit our backs, and the morning became quite pleasant.

After a couple of hours, we stopped at the small village of Thukla for a tea break at the appropriately named Yak Lodge, where Lise tried to make friends with the yaks in the field, to no avail and to Bagbir's obvious consternation. We sat in the sun, chuckling at the fact that we were drinking tea in the sunshine at almost the height of Mont Blanc. Then we set off upwards.

The guidebook had said "...the hill immediately behind Thukla can be tough..." so I was prepared for a slog. What I wasn't prepared for, however, was the wind. As we struggled in the altitude just to put one foot in front of the other, the biting, icy wind seemed to cut right through all of our carefully layered clothing and make a complete joke of my midweight gloves. The hill seemed so steep and relentless, the air so thin and cold, the wind so vicious, we were having to dig deep into our reserves of will to keep going.

"I can't feel my fingers!" Lise gasped.

"Me neither," I replied, "...or my toes!"

Bagbir looked concerned. "Please brother, every time we stop, make like this," he started punching his fists together, wiggling his fingers in-between punches. We followed, and managed to get just about enough sensation in our fingers to realise how cold they really were.

Onwards and upwards we trudged, stopping every few metres to catch our breath and shake our hands, starting to think that if we couldn't rewarm soon, then frostbite was becoming a very real possibility.

At long last we reached the top of the hill, but still the wind blew. As we stumbled across the plateau into the field of Everest memorials, I was struck by the sight of so many piles of stones, each one for someone who'd gone to climb the mountain and not returned. The cold, the exhaustion and the feel of so many lives lost all piled on top of me, and I choked back the tears as I leant on my poles.

On the other side of the field the path began to descend slightly, and we were at last out of the wind. Before too long we saw the welcome sight of the blue-roofed lodges of Lobuche. Exhausted, frozen, and dizzy with the altitude, we flopped on the benches in our lodges dining room, and two bowls of tomato and garlic soup appeared in front of us. We ate in a shell-shocked daze.

After soup, we had the energy to head up to the room and sort out our packs. On our return, we saw a familiar face in the dining room:

"Bruce! How are you?"

It was comforting to see a familiar face, and to be able to chat freely in English. Lise and Bruce nattered for ages, I read my book and joined in now and again whenever I could shake the altitude stupor.

After dinner, we got out the travel Backgammon set again. I was determined to improve my abysmal record against Lise since we'd picked up the game for the first time a couple of nights ago - won 1, lost 6, a fact which gave Lise some repeated amusement. After the first game, however, Bagbir came over looking interested.

"Would you like to play?" we asked.

"Yes!" He nodded.

There followed an hour long session of increasing deviousness and undisguised joy at "blotting" each other off the board, at the end of which I was 2-1 up. Lise chatted to Bruce about altitude problems and her panic breathing.

We figured it was a good time to call it a night, as the next day was going to be hard work. Just as he left, Bruce handed us four Diamox, saying, "as I say, never take medical advice from some bloke you just met in a lodge, but if this helps you get a decent night's sleep... well, the worst it's going to do is not work, put it that way."

It worked. Lise got a decent nights sleep at last.

Everest Base Camp trek day 12 - Rest Day in Dingboche

"Human beings just aren't meant to be at this height," said Lise, sitting in front of our room at the Hotel Family, Dingboche, and gazing up at Yet Another Stunning View Of Ama Dablam.

She'd had a bad night, waking up several times in a panic, convinced that she couldn't breathe - a common effect of altitude.

Today's rest day was therefore agreed to be a genuine rest. A gentle 2hr amble up the valley in the morning took us to 4600m, where we scrambled up the start of the huge moraines leading up to Ama Dablam. Another effect of altitude, of course, is that everything looks closer in the thinner air, and though the mountain had looked close enough to touch, we could see that it would be several hours more before reaching the rock. We returned for lunch.

A peaceful afternoon followed, with lots of reading and sorting gear out for the ascent to Lobuche (4950m) the next day. There would be no more hot showers until we returned back to Namche, so we made do with wet wipes.

Everest Base Camp trek day 11 - Carry On Up The Khumbu

A cold start, with all of our water bottles partly frozen and ice covering the window.

"What kind of nutters," asked Lise, pacing around the dining room to keep warm, "come to the Himalayas in January? I mean, seriously..."

"Seemed like a good idea at the time...." I shuddered.

"You know it's minus four in here?" The wall thermometer said as much.

"Well according to my watch it's a nice balmy 14 degrees"

My watch - a snazzy Suunto job with compass, gps, altimeter, barometer and all the works, was great at everything except the temperature. It had told me it was 18 degrees in the middle of a Cairngorm winter blizzard, and was something of a running joke. In the middle of the night, however, I had checked it just to see, and it had said -2. Draw your own conclusions about the true temperature...

We ate our bowls of porridge hungrily, eager just to get started and stop freezing our nadgers off. I asked the lodge owner for some hot water, ruefully offering my nalgene flask with its half-litre of solid ice in the bottom.

In a slight daze, we set off for Dingboche, our fingers and toes chilled in the early gloom, desperately waiting for the sun to hit our valley. Songs began to play in my head, acoustic power ballads by Frank Turner - the kind Lise refers to as "dog on a string music" - and I began to feel strangely emotional.

The early part of the hike was easy enough, but by 10 o'clock the steady ascent was starting to take its toll. As we entered Pangboche, a pretty, laid-back village in a flat part of the valley, I was feeling dizzy, achy, and sick. I had to sit down.

"Please brother, rest," said Bagbir, his eyes once again studying me for signs of AMS. "I think, if you are not feeling good, maybe we stay here tonight?"

I knew that would put paid to our hopes of reaching Base Camp and ascending Kala Pattar. We would have to cut one of them, or - dangerously - our one remaining rest day.

"I'm OK, just a little light-headed," I said. "In terms of general co-ordination, I'm fine - look!" I danced a little jig, knowing that if I showed signs of becoming uncoordinated Bagbir would probably insist on taking us back down - and he'd be right.

I finished with the classic Bruce Forsyth slap-and-step-forward-with-a-grin. Lise and Bagbir looked at me in silence for a painfully long second.

"I think," said Bagbir, very slowly, "maybe we try one more hour....?"

So on we went, taking lunch in Solame seemingly right at the foot of Ama Dablam. Bagbir had told is that a Korean team had summitted it just a couple of days ago, and just below the top I could see what looked like tracks. Unfortunately neither the camera nor the binoculars could get quite enough zoom to be sure. Bagbir said they climbed on the other side anyway.

As we continued our relentless plod up the Khumbu valley, we found ourselves in a broad flat plain at around 4100m surrounded on all sides by mammoth peaks. Lhotse looked all the more frighteningly huge from this closer distance. We could see Everest's yellow band over the Lhotse-Nuptse wall, Thobuche to the left, with Pumori just visible in between.

"It feels more like we're properly in the mountains now," I said to Lise.

"Yeah," she agreed, "this place is amazing!"

Eventually, we began another gruelling ascent up the final 250m to Dingboche, with the huge scree heaps leading to Ama Dablam on our right. As we topped out, Dingboche appeared to us, plenty of lodges spread out through dusty fields.

We checked in to the Hotel Family, and immediately liked what we saw - a large-but-cozy dining room, a twin room with space, comfy mattresses, and even a private toilet. OK, so it was an Asian squat-style toilet, but I'd been practising my aim, and hell, compared to the last place, this was like the Hilton.

I changed up to clothing level 2 - fresh, thick, Patagonia base layer tights and winter-lined Craghopper trousers. Lise, meanwhile, had well and truly nested, a defiant cheeky grin poking out from behind layer upon layer of fluff - fleece, hat, sleeping bag, blanket, nearly all of it at least partly pink.

"I'm happy," she announced, "I'm not moving!"

Later, as the light began to fade, we moved into the dining room to order dinner. Bagbir took our order.

"How are you feeling now, brother?"

"Good, thankyou!"

"For dinner?"

This was a big test. I'd been pining for potatoes for the last few days, but since I'd got sick, every time I'd ordered them he'd politely suggested that plain rice "maybe better" - sometimes politely suggesting several times until I got the message.

I took a deep breath. "I'd like... the fried potatoes with vegetables and cheese!"

His eyes met mine, again searching for signs of my condition.

The universe held its breath.

"OK"

It was my turn to be happy.

We sat around the stove in the center of the room, warming our hands, swapping small talk with the others - an amiable mix of trekkers and their guides all swapping tales. At one point, a sudden loud bang from the stove made us all scatter with assorted expletives, as a piece of fuel - dried yak dung - exploded in the heat.

We talked to a young sherpa, guiding a solo Japanese client, who was worried about his ascent up to Lobuche (4950m) tomorrow without the usual rest day here. "My boss, he not have time," he said, "he say no."

We felt a little concerned for their safety. It was a sobering reminder that the sherpas put themselves at just as much risk as their clients, and if a client was insistent on ignoring the standard acclimatization schedule, what could they do?

As the evening drew to a close, we turned to bed. Chastened by the previous teeth-chattering night at Deboche, we'd worked out a plan. Before turning in, we filled our Nalgene flasks with hot water drum the kitchen and wrapped them in Lisas thick socks.

I wore my thick base layers and fleece, pulled my microfleece sleeping bag liner around me, climbed into the sleeping bag, wrapped my down jacket around the feet, pulled the provided blanket over the lot, and topped it off with my midweight gloves and beanie.

I woke up several times in the night to take layers off. Still, high class problems and all that.

Everest Base Camp trek day 6 - Phakding to Namche

I'd worked today out from the map - it would be 3hrs trek to Jorsale with little altitude gain, then we'd probably have lunch there, as after that it would be 3hrs hard slog, 800m up to Namche at 3450m.

And that's how it turned out. After a gargantuan bowl of porridge, we set off at 8am under a clear blue sky. The suns heat grew slowly stronger as we followed the beautiful Dhud Khosi river up the valley, its constant gentle white water gush mixing with the tweeting birds and the clang of yak bells to make a soundtrack so relaxing you could sell CDs of it in a Brighton hippy shop for fifteen quid a time.

Counterbalancing that, however, was our own heavy breathing as we trekked up, down and across wobbling metal bridges to swap sides of the valley.

After about an hour, we began to catch glimpses of jagged snow-capped peaks beyond the already pretty high valley. Bagbir pointed out the name and height of each one as it appeared, and with each successive appearance we felt more like we were actually there - really, genuinely there at last, in the Himalayas of which we'd read so much.

Although the heat was strong in the sun, the air itself was cold and the altitude was already starting to have an effect. Every time I thought I was doing fine, we'd meet an "up" section that left me humbled and gasping at the top. The dry dusty air was starting to give me the infamous Khumbu Cough, and I was careful to make sure I drank enough water. This, however, had it's own side effects.

"Bagbir, I need to go again.... is there a good spot nearby?"

Bagbir, of course, knew all the best spots, and pointed them out to me in the same easy going way he pointed out the rhododendron trees, or the waterfalls.

In Monjo, we stopped at a teahouse for some sweet black tea, sitting on a terrace in the baking sun with a stunning view down the valley, and mighty Kungde in the distance.

"My cousins place," said Bagbir,
with a proud grin.

"Have you got cousins all the way up?" we asked.

He just smiled and nodded.

After Jorsale, the trail got steeper as we ascended towards Namche. Conversation grew thinner with the air, but when we took rest stops, we talked to Bagbir about his impressive 11yrs of experience, starting out as porter, then cooks assistant, then sirdars assistant, then full sirdar. He'd been part of a 2008 Everest summit team, and had got to the south col at 7000m, but had to turn back as his client - who went on to the summit - had used too much oxygen lower down. He couldn't stop shaking his head with a nervous chuckle as he described ascending the Khumbu icefall in a state of utter terror, crossing massive crevasses on tiny ricketty ladders to the constant creaking and cracking of the shifting ice.

About two-thirds of the way up, we came across three local women selling oranges, where we stopped for a refresher and got our first clear view of Everest in the distance.

Eventually, legs and lungs aching in equal measure, we rounded a bend and Namche lay before us, many levels of almost identical-looking white houses with blue or green roofs on steps cut into the hillside, in a manner that made me think of Spanish villa resorts. The views were spectacular - Kungde, Thamserku, and the holy mountain Khumbi Yul Lha framing the village on three sides, with a glorious view down the valley on the fourth.

We checked in to "The Nest", a very new lodge at the bottom of town with a large alpine-style dining room, a broad menu, and - oh joy, oh rapture - a hot shower.

That evening, over dinner, we couldn't help admiring the language skills of the lodge owner as he joked in Japanese with a large group.

"How many languages do you speak, Bagbir?" asked Lise.

"I think... maybe.... 15, 16?"

"Wow! How did you learn all those?"

"No education, just by guiding"

I felt suitably humbled.

Everest Base Camp trek day 5 - Lukla or Bust

By 12 o'clock, our 7:15 flight was looking increasingly unlikely. Every hour, they delayed it one more hour, and this was the last day we could get out there in time to get to Kala Pattar and back with still one day's leeway in case of delays on the return.

"I reckon we go for plan B," I sighed.

Lise was not giving up so easily.

"Maybe we can get a flight tomorrow and just not go as far as Kala Pattar?"

"It's been 3 days now, and there were people on our first day who'd been stuck for three days before that. We've got no reason to think it'll be any different tomorrow, and then we'll shave another day off the trek, and then another, until we're just going to Namche and back."

"Well we still have to wait until they officially cancel it at 2"

This was true. So we were going nowhere either way.

The exasperation, lack of breakfast and lack of sleep the night before was catching up with me. New Years Eve in Thamel is a deafening affair even six floors up, and no respecter of early morning flights or musical tastes - I had laid awake dreaming of calling, in Marcellus Wallace's fine words, a couple of hard pipe-hitting so-and-sos to go to work on DJ Utzi with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.

"I'm going for a walk," I said.

I set off for yet another tour of the departure lounge - two small but exorbitantly overpriced kiosks selling Pringles for a fiver and an array of postcards taunting me with lurid close-ups of the mountains we weren't going to get to see, plus one smoking room with air so thick it might have been on fire and an array of middle-aged men outside it seemingly performing the 1812 Overture scored for phlegm-hawkers, wheezers and coughs.

On my return I found Lise talking to Bruce, an amiable English chap we'd exchanged a few pleasantries with earlier, who was also waiting for a Lukla flight. He was pretty experienced in the region, and suggested a couple of alternative shorter plans - e.g. from Gokyo, go back via the Henjpo-la and down the other valley.

By 1pm, we were told by the information desk that the flight would certainly be cancelled, but they just wouldn't make the announcement until 2. We sat there dejected as Bruce went off to the ticket desk to change his ticket, leaving us with "So I'll probably see you in Pokhara then!"

After a few minutes of shared sighs and slow head shakes, I rang Yalamber to pick us up once more.

"Just come back through security," he said, "I'm already at the check-in desk"

As I rang off, Lise came over with Bruce, and a slight smirk. Bruce said,

"I've just been offered a chopper for $250..."

Lise and I looked at each other.

"What do you think...?"

Half an hour later we were being rushed through a side door with the chopper profferer heading onto the tarmac with our luggage, but a security guard insisting we go back through security and out through the gate.

Yalamber was looking genuinely worried for the first time.

"I don't know this guy," he said, "check the bill, make sure it's right, OK?"

We were waved through security without even a cursory inspection - the guards were getting to know us by now - and five minutes later, having swiped our credit cards on a windswept flimsy fold-up table by the runway, and checked that the bill was indeed what we'd agreed, we climbed into the 4-seater helicopter and hung on for dear life as it took to the air.

Bruce had warned us that it would be a bumpy ride, so I took the precaution of opening an empty plastic bag in front of me as an improvised sick bag. I looked across at Lise with an excited grin, and made the scuba diver's sign for "Ok?" She just looked back at me with a trembling bottom lip.

The flight was indeed bumpy, but once over the initial nerves, quite exciting. The pilot rode the updrafts as we crossed the mountain ridges - sometimes by a margin of what seemed like just a few feet as he stayed just underneath the thick clouds above us.

Then suddenly, out of the clouds appeared Lukla airstrip, right in front of us. It looks tiny from a plane, but when you're doing a dramatic sweep over it in a chopper from a height of about 10m.... it looks even tinier, and makes you very glad you're in something that can land vertically.

We were greeted by our sirdar Bagbir, a tall thin man in his thirties, with smiling eyes and a constant sideways nod, and his brother Malang, who would be our porter. Malang was shorter and younger, and shy. We said our goodbyes to Bruce and went inside for a cup of sweet black tea and an introductory chat with Bagbir.

"Tonight we sleep in Phakding," he said, "maybe three hours from here."

It was already 3 o'clock, and with sundown around 6, we had to get moving, so once we'd finished our tea we set off. Lise and I put on our backpacks - maybe 6 kg or so each - and felt suitably humbled as Malang strapped both of our duffels together for a combined load of 30kg plus whatever else was in the two smaller bags for he and Bagbir.

At 2845m in Lukla, I was feeling a little light-headed at first, but soon settled into a medium paced hike through Lukla village, noting with a wry smile the Starbucks branch there.

We passed through village after village, peopled with exactly the kind of red-cheeked, white-smiled, huge load-carrying Nepalis we'd seen in countless photos, plus an assortment of unbearably cute small dumpy children in huge woolly hats. Bagbir pointed out apple trees and vegetable patches, and schools being built through foreign aid.

We had to push the pace a little, so there was no time to stop and chat en route, but we did squeeze in a tea break at Bagbir's cousin's house where we were served a plate of Nepali donuts - like yum-yums without the glaze.

"You have a headtorch?" asked Bagbir, with a note of concern in his voice as he eyed the gathering gloom outside.

We finished our teas and set off again, pushing against the tiredness and breathlessness, until we gratefully arrived in Phakding in more or less full darkness, and checked into the Beer Garden lodge.
Our previous reading on lodges in the hills had led us to expect little more than a shed with some bunks, but this lodge had a twin room with a couple of lightbulbs, two relatively comfortable mattresses, and a western-style porcelain toilet across the steps - all spotlessly clean. No heating though, and the night was cold and surprisingly damp after the dustiness of the trail.

The dinner menu was extensive, our Nepali hostess sang a constant ditty in a sweet voice, and after a delicious meal of Dal Baat, we retired. We climbed gratefully into our sleeping bags, thinking that fleece liners were the best invention ever, and were asleep by 8:30, for night of altitude-induced vivid dreams and numerous trips to the loo, up at 6 for the long next days hike to Namche.

Everest Base Camp trek day 4 - Frustrations & Recommendations

We drove to the airport this morning feeling positive - "THIS time! Yeah!"

Yalamber thought the signs were good as he surveyed the airport car park with a grin - "lots of mountain trips here today"

We rolled to the check-in counter full of confidence - no scrum, that means no delays, right?

Wrong.

"Sorry sir, all Lukla flights today cancelled, I am sorry,"

Bugger.

With a 14 day trek ahead and only 15 days before our flight back to London, it was time to think of plan B.

So after another come-get-us call to Yalamber, and a detailed plan-redrawing session in the Explore Himalaya office, we now have these options:

Plan A
- fly out to Lukla tomorrow (yes, we WILL!)
- trek as far as Gorak Shep, via Gokyo Ri as planned
- climb Kala Pattar as planned, but don't go on to Everest Base Camp & back the next day
- instead, save one day by heading back down that afternoon.

This allows us to keep one day contingency at the end in case we have troubles flying BACK from Lukla. It means we don't get to see base camp, but Kala Pattar is just as high and actually offers better views of the mountain.

Plan B
- if we can't get a flight tomorrow, we drive to Pokhara in the west, and trek to Annapurna Base Camp.

ABC is only 4100m, compared to EBC's 5600m, hence the trek is a few days shorter and less physically arduous, but it's just as popular. We also know we've been OK going to that altitude before (Toubkal) in just 4 days. So it's easier, but therefore less of an adventure.

Still, an ABC trek would still be pretty awesome, I'm sure...

I have to say that Explore Himalaya have been amazingly helpful, especially Yalamber who just radiates an easy-going calm practicality, and the same goes for all the Nepalis we've dealt with so far. Take the airport staff yesterday - could you imagine anyone at Heathrow taking you out to the runway and rummaging through bin bags for a list ticket with you? I'd have had to fill in forms, ring an 0870 number, spend hours on hold, navigate an automatic menu system, etc etc...

And the food - oh, the food! Some recommendations:

- the daal baat at New Orleans (so good Lise had it two nights running)

- Momo - essentially a Nepali version of dim sum dumplings. Delicious!

- the fajitas at the Northfield Cafe (better than any Mexican food I've had in England)

- the coffee at Mandaps

- "Trekking in the Everest region" by Jamie McGuinness / Trailblazers. Everything we've found ourselves asking about Kathmandu so far, is answered in this book.

I'm going to bed now, as we have to be up at 5am for our last chance of a flight to Lukla. With a bit of luck, this will be my last post for a few days...

Happy New Year!

Everest Base Camp trek day 3 - lucked out over Lukla

"This customer service is amazing," I remember thinking as I joined two cleaners, one bin man and one sharp-suited Tala Air check-in official in a frantic rummage through a small rubbish tip just off the runway, "there's no way you'd ever get this in England!"

Let's rewind a little.

Our 7am flight to Lukla was rescheduled to 9.15, but as Yalamber said, "it's not hard and fast 9.15...."

No kidding. Lukla is one of the most difficult and dangerous landings in the world, and what we didn't find in any guidebook was that flights frequently get delayed or cancelled as they close the airstrip whenever the wind or cloud picks up.

Apparently there had been unusually windy weather up there, and we met several people in the airport who had been trying to get there for days already.

A word here about the internal airport - it's chaos. None of the orderly queues that we Brits seem to default to whenever we see someone behind a counter, here it's good old fashioned Asian Crush. The staff, however, are helpful in a way that if seen at Heathrow would surely be grounds for an instant sacking (and no doubt followed by a strike vote from the union.) When our local helper left us saying "wait here, I'll tell you when to check in" yet an hour later had still not returned, an airline employee tapped me on the shoulder and said "to Lukla? Mr Davidson? We have been looking for you!" (More of him later)

It took until 11am to board the bus for our plane - a tiny twin-prop 20-seater, which we were just starting to board when the walkie-talkie squawked and the cry went up - "Lukla airport closed!"

Cue everybody off, and a further 20mins standing around the tarmac chatting to the others, one of which turned out be Lucie Dumont of Karavaniers, a Canadian guide who gave us some great tips about where to stay in Namche. Two Japanese lads said this was their second day of trying to get a flight, the third for a German group who now only had 6 days left.

Eventually the airport re-opened, we boarded the plane on tenterhooks, and to a palpable sense of nervous excitement we finally took off.

I'd studied the map beforehand, and figured that the best views would be on the left side of the plane - I wasn't disappointed. As our tiny plane rocked and swayed over the foothills, mammoth peaks aplenty came into view, including a spectacular sight of Everest over the monstrous Lhotse-Nuptse wall, tailing its signature plume of cloud in the jet stream. I got several good photos, but they're all on the decent camera so you'll have to wait until I get back and upload them.

The plane was being buffeted by the wind and banking heavily, and also didn't seem to be pressurised. I felt light-headed and got the hot flushes in waves that I've learned signal an imminent digestive revolt against too much altitude too quickly. A glance around the plane at the other faces in various shades of ashen green told me I was far from alone.

Then just as we flew over the airstrip, and we all looked down and thought "oh my God, it's TINY! You can't land on THAT.. and there's a sodding great mountain right at the start of the runway!", the announcement came back from the front - "sorry, too windy, we're heading back to Kathmandu."

The disappointment was only slightly tempered by relief that we wouldn't be going through the legendarily scary landing this time, together with surprise that they had managed to squeeze an air hostess into a plane this tiny.

On arrival back at Kathmandu - the captain signing off with "bad luck gentlemen - such is Lukla!" - at around 12:45, we were told that there might be one more flight today, and we should wait until 2pm, by which point they would either fly or cancel, and we could re-use our boarding passes.

At this point I checked my pocket for my boarding pass, and with a sinking feeling realised it wasn't there.... or in the top of my bag. Oh shit. Not in any of my other pockets either. Shitshitshit! ....and it was with our airport tax receipts and return tickets as well! Oh shit, shite and shinola...

I sheepishly explained the situation to Lise, feeling like a naughty schoolboy sent to the Headmaster and asked "so, why have you been sent to me?" She was remarkably calm and level-headed in contrast to my rising panic, and after a couple more exhaustive searches of my backpack, sent me to throw myself upon the mercy of the nearby gaggle of airport staff, clearly sharing a girly gossip session (although speaking Nepali, the body language of a group of young, same-sex employees on a break was unmistakable).

After just about managing to explain the situation - their English was limited, and my Nepali covers all of about 10 phrases - one of them ran off to speak to someone else, and returned saying "there is no problem, you can come speak to the ticket desk," then walked me back through security to the front.

As they explained in Nepali to the check-in person at Yeti Air, whose expressions of concern and occasional gasps were straight out of a silent movie and should have been accompanied by a tinkling piano, I was trying to explain that I couldn't prove I had been on the flight as I'd lost all of my stubs, when the guy who'd come to find us earlier walked past.

"This gentleman!" I cried, "he knows I was on that flight!"

Although already wearing the expression of someone just trying to get to the end of a long day, he listened intently to the two women, then turned decisively to me and said "come with me!"

He led me at pace back through security and out through a side door onto the tarmac, flagged down a passing bus and diverted it to our plane, and led me onto it where the captain and hostess were hanging out and chatting. "It's already been cleaned," said the captain, "but please, go ahead!"

I searched to no avail, and re-emerged onto the tarmac to see the check-in guy in conversation with two cleaners carrying full bin bags from other planes. He turned to me again, and said "the rubbish has already gone - this way!"

So we marched determinedly over to a small dump of bin bags just off the side of the main runway, and began tearing open the bags.

Which is where we came in.

I shall truncate the rest of the tale - the search was fruitless, and in the end we concluded that the tickets and stubs were irretrievably lost. The last Lukla flight was now cancelled, so the check-in guy took me back inside and up to the main back-office of the airline where some more explaining to the airline manager eventually resulted in an offer to provide replacement tickets for 500 rupees each (a bit less than a fiver) on the condition that our guides wrote a letter promising that they would be responsible if the original tickets were ever used by somebody.

I thanked him copiously, and set off to find Lise, who I now realised I hadnt spoken to in over an hour and must still be sitting by the departure gate wondering where I'd gone.

Practical as ever, she'd retrieved our baggage once the flight was cancelled and was waiting for me by the check-in desk.

"There you are!" she cried, "where did you go?"

"Well..."

We called Yalamber, who arrived half an hour later and, after some intense discussuions with the airline, eventually said that we could get new tickets for tomorrow for nothing. However, the conditions on the return ticket offer were too onerous, and we would have to pay the full cost of one new return ticket, and one nights accommodation for the sirdar still waiting for us in Lukla. He took us back to the Explore Himalaya office where we paid on card and adjusted paperwork, then back to the hotel, where we, frankly, zonked out and slept for three hours.

Fingers crossed for a flight tomorrow!

Everest Base Camp Trek day 2 - Thamel and Temples

"What are they burning over on that side of the river?" I asked our guide Niraj, as we entered the Pushipatinath Hindu temple complex and the clouds of sweet-smelling smoke drifted across to us.

"Dead bodies," he replied, matter-of-factly.

Niraj went on to explain in great detail all the rituals and complex caste hierarchies encapsulated in the scene before us. How the ten stone plinths were reserved in caste-order from highest-caste right in front of the temple to lowest way off to the left, and the obligations encumbent on the son of the family once his parent dies. As we watched, two funeral pyres finished and the ashes were pushed into the river, where women were washing their clothes and men were picking through discarded rags.

"It's a holy river to us," Niraj explained, "it flows down to the Ganges in India."

One pyre was just getting started on the second-highest-caste plinth, reserved for diplomats and senior public officials, with the highest-caste plinth reserved for royalty.

I in turn told Niraj how funerals in England tend to be very private affairs, with all the mechanics taking place behind closed doors and a family's grief locked down behind a stiff upper lip. Lise, by way of contrast, told of how the richer Chinese families will hire women to cry in public for them.

My lasting impression of that visit was a sense that, despite the rigid caste demarcations, there was something very egalitarian about the whole business being literally and metaphorically out in the open, with diplomats burning just a few metres up the river bank from the lower castes, following the same rituals and very visibly ending up in the same river. Death, of course, being the greatest leveller of all.

Our next stop was Boudnath, a Buddhist stupa dating back to the 7th century, festooned with prayer flags and containing hundreds of prayer wheels, from the small to the size of a room. Every wall was covered with stunningly detailed Buddhist art, ten foot tall wheels of life and mandalas of all descriptions. Upstairs we visited the school of Buddhist painting where the works are produced, and saw the master lama at work, filling in the tiniest of details with a single-cat-hair brush.

The guide explained the painstaking process of preparing the canvas, crushing the stone to make the paint, freehand sketching by the master and then up to 57 days of painting that goes into a mandala, and the richly-layered symbolism embodied in the design. He also talked us through a series of photos of the Dalai Lama spending nearly 2 months producing a mandala from sand, and then, once finished, tipping it into the river. There was something about that which definitely struck a chord with us - the end product being almost irrelevant compared with the process itself. Very reminiscent of our feelings on finally reaching the top of Jbel Toubkal - "right, quick photo then let's head straight down!"

We returned to our hotel in Thamel, the main tourist district in Kathmandu. It's a bustling district of endless small shops with street signs piled high, street salesmen offering you taxis, rickshaws and  trinkets while you dodge a miasma of cars and motorbikes and people offering you a "schmoke sir?" every few seconds.

However, unlike Marrakesh,  they all accepted a "no thankyou" with good grace (at least the second or third, if not always the first) and the atmosphere has yet to feel in any way threatening.

Tomorrow we fly early to Lukla, and trek on from there. My next post will probably be from Namche on New Years Eve.
Namaste!

Everest Base Camp Trek - day 1 - Kathmandu

"oh my GOD, Al..." exclaimed Lise as the plane banked south east and we got our first unambiguous view of the gargantuan wall of snow-capped mountains on the horizon to the north of Kathmandu, "I thought they were SKY!"

I am aware, of course, that as insights go, "gosh, those Himalayas - they're quite big, aren't they?" lacks a certain something, but as the unmistakable profile of Ama Dablam towered on the horizon, I was struck - and slightly perturbed - by the thought "that's only about 6850m, which means that somewhere out there is another one that's two whole kilometres higher than THAT..."

Emerging dazed and bleary-eyed from the tranquil bureaucracy of the airport immigration & customs, you are suddenly plunged into a kaleidoscopic chaos of smiling, nodding faces waving name cards at you, offering you taxis, hotels, treks, but even amongst all that I thought the guy wanting a tip for pushing our trolley 20m was a bit much - we thought he was a customs official.

Finding our contact - Yolamber - in a sea of faces and name cards, we forced our way across the road and into his car, and were driven through an onslaught of motorbikes, cycles and horn-tooting cars from all directions through the hectic dusty streets to Thamel.

Yolamber assured us that we would be safe from pickpockets and any other kind of violent crime, but did suggest that we should be back inside by ten, as "night is the time when evil wakes up". I listened intently for any sign of the almost obligatory thunderclaps, howling wolves or diminished organ chords that surely should have followed a sentence like that, but none were forthcoming.

Tomorrow is sightseeing around Kathmandu, I'll post more then.

Test post

Nothing to see here, move along now....

Oh alright, go on then, here's a pic of the view from halfway up Great Henry at Lawrencefield

Tricks of the Training

Lise has been training hard at The Third Space recently, and reaping the benefits in endurance. On Saturday - after two fruitless hours stuck in traffic on the M1, edging north towards the Peak until eventually admitting defeat - we went to The Castle where she showed me what she's been doing.

Endurance Training

1) Pick a short, easy route - like, a 4A - and whiz up it on a top rope. At the top, don't rest, but continue on and downclimb it. At the bottom, again no rest, just keep going up, and down, and up and down. Three times is probably about right.

2) Pick a longer, harder route. It should be a couple of grades below your limit, but reasonably long. For me, it was one of the long, vertical, UK 5A/French 6A top-rope routes upstairs by the cafe. Climb it quickly - don't think, just go go go - then lower back down. Rest only for 1 minute, then climb it again. Repeat (if you can!) until you literally peel off the wall and can't even make the first move.

You can gain many things from this. As well as the obvious physical benefit of pushing your endurance limits, I found I could actually continue to climb for longer than I thought I could - even when I couldn't grip anything at all, I could still use my hand as a kind of static hook on some holds. I also found it very liberating to be completely free of any fear of falling, and concentrating on climbing quickly. I tend to over-complicate things in my mind, and over-think the moves when I'm leading - probably fear of falling, even when not conscious - but forcing myself to not think, just go, I found myself making moves I probably wouldn't even have thought of with my usual slow, cautious approach.

Skills Training

3) Pick a really easy route, and climb it using only your left hand. (Tuck your right into your harness or chalkbag strap if it helps). This is not easy! I found that pretty much every move ended up as a deadpoint, but it really makes you think about where your body weight is moving, where the momentum is going to take you, and how you need to shift your feet to compensate. Repeat using only your right hand.

4) Tape your feet together (or clip them together with a carabiner) and climb the route again. It's a good ab workout, and again it makes you really focus on your bodyweight.

So what did we get from this (apart from a satisfying set of aches the next day) ?

Fun - trying something different made the session enjoyable, and a pleasing change.

Focus - it really felt like training, rather than the usual going through the motions, bouldering a bit, having a cup of tea, doing a couple more routes then going to the pub.

yyyyy-YESS!!!

Sloper dead-hang up to 10 seconds. Yeah!

Bouldering at Idwal Cottage and Caseg Fraith

On Monday, we set out with the intention of bouldering in the legendary Llanberis Pass, but as we drove up the A4086 in increasingly thick pea-souper fog, visibility was fast approaching zero. By the time we got to Pen-y-Pas, there was no denying it. A quick glance at the stern warning at the start of the Pyg track - AVALANCHE RISK CONSIDERABLE ON SNOWDON, all points - put paid to any residual hopes of ascending above it.

We're not going to be able to get anything done at all, are we? moped Lise, despondency creeping in - she'd hauled herself out of bed for THIS?

..we're going to have to go to a cheese museum or something!

Now I must confess, the idea of a cheese museum is not entirely without appeal - a vision conjured itself up in my head, of a huge prop-forward of a Welsh museum guide explaining -

now THIS close-combat Caerphilly was used as a bludgeoning weapon in the Battle of Bryn Glas, 600 year old, it is...look, it's still got the original hair on it!

- but it was definitely second best.

Well look, I said, while we're here, lets just try going back round to the Ogwen valley, it might not be so foggy round there. Admittedly it was more in hope than anything else, but I figured it had to be worth a try.

Luckily enough, as we passed Joe Brown's at Capel Curig, the fog became less dense, and as we rounded the long bend to get a clear view of Tryfan with its winter coat on, we perked up considerably.

Parking at Ogwen Cottage, we walked a hundred yards or so through the trees to find a beautifully picturesque little crag, with some stunning views of the surrounding peaks:

We had a lot of fun here. The rock was dry, with good friction, and the landings were all flat and level. The lower-grade problems were as good as any at Burbage South, and our particular favourite was "Problem 5", described in the guidebook as eminently pleasurable - and I'd have to agree. It feels a lot taller than it looks in the photos, believe me!

Problem 5 - the eminently pleasurable crack line

One thing to watch out for though, is the low-flying jet planes. The RAF use this valley as a low-flying training run, and on my third and final attempt at this problem, just a few seconds after I'd finally made the nervy committing move to gain the ledge in a numb-fingered, pumped-out whimpering panic, a jet came screaming overhead, a deafening crescendo that got louder and louder and louder as an involuntary convulsing scream escaped me and I felt I was going to have to either let go and fall to stick my fingers in my ears, or suffer burst eardrums and fall anyway. It passed after a couple of seconds, but by god it was loud. I dread to think what would have happened if it had flown over a few seconds earlier, while I was in the middle of tackling the crux.

As the sun began to dip below the peaks, we figured we had about an hour of daylight left, and headed back down the valley to Gwern Gof Isaf farm, to grab a quick look at the Caseg Fraith boulders behind the bunkhouse. The farm owner was very friendly, as was her Jack Russell, who followed us up to the boulders in a typical puppies' frenzy of excitement - Oh boy oh boy oh BOY, there's a ROCK!!! - and even proved a dab hand at scampering up the lower slabs itself, and licking Lise's nose as she was trying to top out.

Again, the rock here was perfect. Rounded yet juggy aretes and laybacks aplenty, but with plenty of friction to make even the tiniest of footholds viable. The best problem we found was straight up a slabby face (pictured) on tiny crimps and pebbles, before thankfully gaining a blocky flake near the top and launching a committing move over the top of it.

We could quite happily have spent several hours here, but our hands were tired and numb, and the light was fading. Definitely worth at least one repeat visit, both crags are highly recommended.

Fingerboard progress - week 3

I haven't been using the board as regularly this week, as we nipped up to Wales for some actual outdoor bouldering (there's no training like that, right?) but a quick post-run workout last night showed that I'm now up to:

• 3 x 30-second dead hangs on the jugs


• 3 x 5-second dead hangs on the slopers


• 3 x clean 5x5x5 pull-ups on the largest four-finger edges


• 3 x 3-second dead hangs on the large 2-finger pockets

Getting there, slowly, but steadily.

Bouldering on the beach in.... North Wales???

It's true - on Tuesday, with the snow still on the summits, and a mid-January Welsh pea-souper in the Llanberis Pass, we discovered the boulders on the beach at Cae Du.

The rock here - Greywacke - was very picturesque and kept making me think I was surrounded by IKEA prints. On the other hand, it was rather less amenable than at Llyn Ogwen, with a distinct lack of friction for our gritstone-accustomed taste. It's probably due to the beach location, more than anything else, but even on the few climbs we could find that were actually dry enough to tackle, I found it quite difficult to trust my feet. There were plenty of large shelvey edges for the hands, it's true, but unless they were actually 90 degrees or less, even they were slippery. Anything remotely sloper-ish, just forget it.

Still, there was some fun to be had. We stuck to areas 1 and 2, as areas 3 and 4 were full of what looked like (eep!) a school club, and managed to induce a minor hamstring pull on the overhung heel hook of Problem 1, Area 2 (V2**), and what might best be described as a brick on Problem 10, Area 2 (V1/V2 ***). The latter was an unnervingly high slab on teeny tiny holds, that felt to my scaredy-cat mind like I would need more than just our one mat to tackle the top half without bricking it. Definitely a good problem to try if you're in the area and comfortable on that kind of thing though.

On the plus side, the fingerboard training is definitely paying off, with my crimps feeling solid and reliable despite having trained exclusively open-handed.

First Weeks With a Fingerboard

After about two years of constant "canwecanwecanwe?" / "no, you'll only injure yourself" / "but pleeeeeeeeeeeeease", and one decisive bout of steep limestone sport climbing in Spain that made us both admit that we just had to get better finger strength, I finally relented and bought Lise (well, ok - us) a Metolius Simulator Fingerboard for Christmas.

A mere four hours of strenuous screwing later (stop sniggering at the back there) it was installed in pride-of-place above the living room door, and my wrist was ready to drop off (I said STOP it!):


I've been careful to start slowly, and not overstrain myself, but I have to admit that in just over a week, I'm already seeing a real improvement. Enough to make me think it's worth keeping some kind of record of it, and that I might as well post it here for future reference and probable hilarity for you rock gods reading this who probably do a hundred one finger pull-ups just to warm up:



So here goes. All the advice I've read from Dave McLeod and others led me to shy away from crimps and concentrate on open-handed strength, so that's what I did.

I started out doing:

• 3 10-second dead-hangs, open-handed on the two big jugs.


• Then I'd do slow open-handed pull-ups on those same big jugs (slow as in a slight enhancement of Tim Ferris' 5x5 method - 5 seconds going up, lock-off at 90 degree elbow position for 5 seconds, then take 5 seconds going back down). I could do two of these in perfect form, was really struggling by the down-stroke of the third, didn't even start the fourth.


• Finally I'd do open-handed dead-hangs on the biggest flat edges (four-fingers) for as long as I could. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that that was all of 3 seconds at first. Eep!

I've been doing this above routine maybe twice a day every other day, for about ten days, and already I've moved up to the following:

• 3 15-second dead hangs on the big jugs


• 3 clean 5x5x5 pull-ups on the big jugs, can do the up-stroke of the 4th but can't hold the 5s lock-off yet


• 3 10-second dead hangs on the largest flat edges


• 2 5x5x5 pull-ups on the largest flat edges - really struggling at the end of the 2nd, couldn't start the third


• 1 3-second dead hang on the top slopers

I've also noticed a definite improvement in my open-handed grip strength at the indoor wall, particularly on slopers.

So I'm going to keep up the progress reports in the hope that it makes me keep at it, and gives me a bit of inspiration next time I'm feeling weak.

First Gritstone Solo

On Sunday we pitched up at Birchen Edge just after lunchtime, figuring that if it's going to be busy everywhere then we might as well take advantage of the easy walk-in, laid-back atmosphere and good range of low-grade routes there. Neither of us really felt like pushing grade too much, the weekend was about relaxing and getting away from work more than anything else. Especially after The Midge Incident and Lise's unsettled mind yesterday.

So we arrived at the Edge and headed straight for the far end, where we found the only unoccupied bit of rock past the Emma's Dilemma area.

Let's just boulder a bit round here first, said Lise, and proceeded to do just that.

After a few warm-up foot moves around the base of The Gangplank (M **) she thought out loud:

I could solo this, you know

So off she went, looking calm and confident all the way. As she topped out, I thought

Well, so could I!

...and off I went, without really thinking about it. I actually found it perfectly OK, with only one point where I felt the rising nervousness as I contemplated a typical gritstone mantel top-out at about 8m. But I quashed it down as quickly as it arrived, and just went ahead with the move - which was fine - and topped out with a satisfied grin on my face.

Now, admittedly it's only a Mod. That's the lowest grade anything ever gets, and it was practically a staircase - the slew of people on UKC describing their ascents as no-handed / one-legged / juggling fire on a pogo stick shows it's not exactly a difficult route by any means - but still, 10m is not a distance you want to fall, and as someone who is no stranger to what could best be termed EPIC HEAD FAIL, I felt a little chuffed at having had my first ever solo.

I'm not in any hurry to start soloing harder routes, but it did feel like I crossed some kind of threshold, having done that. I was confident enough in my footwork (thanks Jack !) to KNOW that I wouldn't fall, and that's a rarity for me on grit, where every hold is rounded and a pebble is classed as a Good Foothold. Maybe there *is* some improvement in my technique after all...