September 11, 2015
Forced Rest Day
I wish that I could regale you with tales of daunting summits achieved, but alas today's bad weather forced us to spend the entire day in our MSR Base Camp tent. Luckily, it's big enough to stand in and is quite comfortable.
We had hoped to make it to our advance base camp today and potentially summit Jabo Ri but the morning's clear skies quickly vanished and the weather turned to a fun combination of rain, sleet and snow. Instead, we spent the day alternately laying in our Therm-A-Rest sleeping bags or sitting in Treo chairs with our sleeping bags pulled up to our chest. We listened to a few 'Stuff You Should Know' and '60 Minutes' podcasts.
I've spent several years trying to convince Maria that my expeditions are actually work, and for the most part, they are, but today may take a few planks out of my platform. Tday was just simply killing time. Honestly, our bodies were so tired from the previous 10 days of gear hauling that a tent bound day wasn't half bad even though one bad weather could turn into several and potentially sabotage our climb.
Both Ryan and I have spent significant parts of our lives in tents. Personally, I've spent over a year in a tent just in the Arctic and Antarctic. Ryan's Himalayan tally is much higher. Needless to say, we are both fully capable of whiling away hours with little or nothing to do. Waiting for weather, waiting for permits, expeditions are great teachers of patience.
We sat upright for lunch. Then went outside to check the conditions. Ryan and I and our orange and gray tent surrounded by white fog and sleet. I've been in more remote places than this but few that feel as wild.
In writing this blog I asked Ryan, 'what did we talk about today?'
'Not much,' was his reply.
For those of you interested in helping the people of Nepal, we are partnering with the DZI foundation in their efforts to help rebuild schools in Nepal. To learn more about the DZI foundation and how you can donate, please visit www.dzi.org.
For those of you interested in following our route through the Rolwaling, I am tracking through my DeLorme inReach and you can check out my website or my DeLorme map share page for a more detailed look. Of course, there isn't much of a route to follow today!
We had hoped to make it to our advance base camp today and potentially summit Jabo Ri but the morning's clear skies quickly vanished and the weather turned to a fun combination of rain, sleet and snow. Instead, we spent the day alternately laying in our Therm-A-Rest sleeping bags or sitting in Treo chairs with our sleeping bags pulled up to our chest. We listened to a few 'Stuff You Should Know' and '60 Minutes' podcasts.
I've spent several years trying to convince Maria that my expeditions are actually work, and for the most part, they are, but today may take a few planks out of my platform. Tday was just simply killing time. Honestly, our bodies were so tired from the previous 10 days of gear hauling that a tent bound day wasn't half bad even though one bad weather could turn into several and potentially sabotage our climb.
Both Ryan and I have spent significant parts of our lives in tents. Personally, I've spent over a year in a tent just in the Arctic and Antarctic. Ryan's Himalayan tally is much higher. Needless to say, we are both fully capable of whiling away hours with little or nothing to do. Waiting for weather, waiting for permits, expeditions are great teachers of patience.
We sat upright for lunch. Then went outside to check the conditions. Ryan and I and our orange and gray tent surrounded by white fog and sleet. I've been in more remote places than this but few that feel as wild.
In writing this blog I asked Ryan, 'what did we talk about today?'
'Not much,' was his reply.
For those of you interested in helping the people of Nepal, we are partnering with the DZI foundation in their efforts to help rebuild schools in Nepal. To learn more about the DZI foundation and how you can donate, please visit www.dzi.org.
For those of you interested in following our route through the Rolwaling, I am tracking through my DeLorme inReach and you can check out my website or my DeLorme map share page for a more detailed look. Of course, there isn't much of a route to follow today!