Everest diary: April 18 - Base Camp at last!

Ali and team leader Lance Trumball will be keeping a diary of the expedition and eventually, the climb and descent. The latest entries are below.

April 18, 2006: Lance Trumball 

After a bumpy and adventurous four hour drive from Tingri we finally made it to base camp. Yes, on the Tibetan side you can actually drive to base camp.

After having a quick meal we spent the rest of the afternoon setting up our tents and organizing our personal gear. Last night we woke up to several inches of snow and it has continued all day. It is pretty cold here!!

Although feeling the affects of altitude, the team is basically doing fairly well ? I am feeling a bit weak but at the same time, I personally feel quit proud ? for we are here! For over 40 months I have put together this project trying to accomplish something meaningful ? and all throughout this time I had many people tell me I was crazy or that our Everest Climb for Peace would never happen.

Well, we are at Everest and it is happening! I don?t know what the outcome will be and how many people will summit or if anyone will summit. But to be honest, just getting everyone together (including our Palestinian and Israeli teammates) here at Everest already feels like a success to me.

April 16, 2006: Lance Trumball

We are in Tingri, Tibet - 4350 meters. The drive from Nyalam was long (about five hours) - but beautiful. For the most part the "highways" consist of narrow, bumpy dirt roads that often have precarious and steep drop offs on at least one side - the best thing is to just ignore your potential imminent doom and just trust the gods and the drivers - who could probably be professional race car drivers in America. On the way to our destination we drove over a 5,000 metre pass in which we could see 360 degrees of the Himalayas - the most spectacular was Shishipangma - an 8,000m peak and one of the tallest in the world. An hour later we got our first glimpse of Everest - it was an amazing sight to see - even from our far off location you could really see the wind howling and blowing the snow and ice off its face; today would have definitely been a bad summit day - with winds on the summit as possibly as high as 150mph. We then continued on to Tingri, arriving around 3pm. Today we are spending another day here in Tingri to acclimate as you can really feel the elevation here. Some people are going on short acclimatization hikes; others are relaxing and getting ready for tomorrow. What is tomorrow you ask? Tomorrow is the day we will arrive at Everest base camp and will be seeing Everest face to face! The morale is high and everyone is very much looking forward to finally being at Everest.

April 14, 2006: Ali Bushnaq
We have finally reached Tibet and are already in our second city at 3,700m. Getting acclimatised to the altitude. I feel very good but we are on Diamox which helps the blood to hold more oxygen. We will spend two nights here then after tomorrow we move to the third city at 4,500m where we spend another two days before reaching base camp on Tuesday.

April 10, 2006: Lance Trumball
The Everest Climb for Peace team is stuck in the middle of violence and political upheaval in Kathmandu. It seems the world (and certainly Nepal) needs a Peace Climb more than ever.

Perhaps The Everest Peace Project is a small candle in the midst of a lot of darkness here in Nepal? I think our Everest Climb for Peace is just such an example. Will our climb change the world? Unfortunately, no - the world needs more help than that! However, people are motivated by the stories they read and the images they see.

Our Everest climb and our international peace climbers are providing and continuing to provide inspirational images and stories of peace and teamwork under the most extreme conditions. We feel that our Everest climb will inspire and bring a positive influence to people around the earth.

April 6, 2006: Ali Bushnaq
We have arrived in Kathmandu - all the team members have been spending the last few days organising equipment and transferring all of it into plastic waterproof drums as the trip to Everest Base Camp will be through very rough and wet terrain. 

Due to strike in Nepal we are trapped here till the strike is over on the 9th when we start our five day journey to Base Camp into Tibet.

The last few days where full of activity as we donated a library to one of the schools in the Kathmandu Valley and did small hikes with the team members to get some fresh air as the city is polluted.

We are now in the hotel as the streets are quiet due to the strike and all the shops are closed.  We can not wait to leave here as we are mentally and physically ready for the expedition.