Call From Peter from Everest Base Camp

Peter called! It was so great to talk to him. 

Funny backstory to that: he'd already messaged me "all my electronics have broken", so I was guessing that he'd just borrow a phone to call when he got back to Everest Base Camp. But, the one device he had that didn't break was the rugged handheld that my company had sent with him. Of course! Until this point, he had used that device just to watch the hours of videos and movies that I'd downloaded for him. Because of the restrictions of Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix, he'd purposely kept that device off any Nepali networks. But, the other limitation is that all of those services require you to log in every 30 days. So, after 30 days, the videos wouldn't work anymore anyway, so it was worth a shot to try to use that device as his phone. He said that most people were having trouble getting their cellphones to work on the Nepali networks (his hadn't ever worked at all, until now we'd only spoken via wifi or on borrowed cellphones). But he pulled the Nepali SIM card out of his phone, put it in the device and it worked immediately!

We talked for an hour.

He's doing really well. He said that he slept long and hard when they got back to base camp. They all did. Poor sleep is part of the acclimatization process, so they slept fairly poorly for the past 10 days. But now with all their new red blood cells, the air felt thick and life-giving back in base camp. After a long sleep, he said he was feeling strong and energetic again.

He said that it had been very difficult in the high camps. A willingness to move and climb, but just not enough air to really ever have real energy. 

So now they rest, recover, and build strength for their summit attempt. He and a few other people on his expedition are going to hike back down to a small village at about 14,500 feet for a true, deep rest. He said that while the altitude of base camp (17,500 feet) feels much better than when they first arrived, it is still high enough that the body never really gets a chance to heal. A few days at lower levels will be very restorative. 

So much depends on weather, but he estimated that they'd likely start their summit bid in 7-10 days. A summit trip is generally about 6 days long roundtrip from base camp. 

I asked him if there was anything that surprised him about the climb so far. He said he had been surprised by the extent of both the suffering and the beauty. And then he became a bit philosophical about the beauty being amplified by the suffering. True Peter. I am so happy to get to talk to him.