Day 5 - Rest Day

Tim called today at 13h local time. After watching a movie last night, they had a good night of sleep. Tim had a light headache, but it was gone this morning. Bram has not felt any headaches so far. A stunning sight opened up when they peaked out of their tent this morning, a fresh layer of snow had turned the surroundings into a beautiful white world. Magic! (this photo was taken in chamonix on a hike)

After breakfast - time for a doctor's check-up! Bloodpressure, heartbeat and level of oxygen in their bloodstream. Top scores for the boys, they're in great shape (well, we knew that already...)! I had no idea there was this doctor check-up thing. It turns out that in their expedition deal, there's a helicopter rescue included, should you have serious trouble on the mountain. So in order to prevent accidents (and expensive helicopter rescues), caused by obvious health problems, they provide this service. Not too bad! This base camp seems to me as quite a holiday park. Toilets, pizzas, doctors, movies... I had a rougher idea in mind! I suppose this will radically change as they move up. And up they go.

A strategic plan has been made be the guide for moving up and maximize succes for summiting. The schedule looks a little bit like this:

Tomorrow saturday they move up to camp 1, then back to base camp again. Sunday, another restday in base camp. Monday up to camp 1 and rest. Tuesday onto camp 2 and hopefully no return to camp 1. In camp 2 they get another medical check-up. Wednesday or thursday are preliminary days scheduled for the summit push. So the lazy pizza days are over! The hard work will now begin, meaning also carrying your logistics/rugsack up to the higher camps. Tomorrow nights phonecall will be interesting...

After today's lunchbreak, a "stroll" in the environment, but the motto remained "take a break today".

If you've followed the comments on yesterday's posting (links provided), well then you know that solar cells keep the movie theatre open.... And there's a pretty heavy extra battery, should the sunny spells be over. Brigitte went through quite a hazzle buying the stuff online. Ended up with an english version, no adapter... you name it! But she sorted it out, so technology goes up the mountain. I wonder how Hillary and his sherpa managed... poker? My bet it was not the dress version...

With this I end today's story and wish you a good night. I can use one.

Thank you Bok for todays correspondance... you should know that hotmail technology is better than you think... I got the (first) draft that you thought was accidently deleted!

A demain... xxx Jen & Bok