Friends in the High Places

Our flight into Kathmandu today went just about as smoothly as possible. All our bags arrived, no issues getting our visas, and I was able to pick up a SIM card for the cell phone and data card for the laptop on the way to the hotel.  I did learn one important lesson here – cash is king!  Nobody takes credit cards in Kathmandu.  And if you don’t have enough cash to exchange when you get here, it’s really hard to get more.

Toward the end of the flight in, we saw some mountains sticking up above the clouds, with huge snow plumes coming off their southern sides as the jet stream was blowing the snow off of their northern flanks.  A little later, the captain announced that one of them was Everest (and Lhotse and Nuptse just to their South), so we’re pretty sure the others were Cho Oyu and Ama Dablam.  What we want to be in position and ready for is the window during which the jet stream moves off of the mountain, allowing us to try to summit.

We met the rest of the team we are going in with today, several base camp trekkers, a Lobuche climber, a Camp III climber, and another going to the South Col.  Mark and I were the only Lhotse climbers there today, the third on our team is already trekking in the Khumbu valley.

Tomorrow morning we have a 5 AM flight that will take us up to Lukla, the start of the trekking route, and then it’s on…  We’re pretty happy that the international travel part of the trip is over, and that it went smoothly.  From here on we’ll have more direct control over our progress.

We made it to Tokyo without too much hassle.  Getting ready to board the plane to Bangkok.

Part of the purpose of this trip is to run through the whole process for Everest next year.  We have already learned a few valuable travel lessons, nothing we couldn’t fix thankfully.

It was recommended that we try to check our luggage all the way through to Kathmandu from our departure cities in the US (Fort Lauderdale for me, Portland for Mark).  I was able to check my bags all the way through, which I felt was important because Delta had a higher weight limit than Thai Airways (which we were taking from Bangkok to Kathmandu).  This was also good because we were planning to stay in the Louis Tavern Day Rooms in the Bangkok airport – these rooms are inside the airport so we wouldn’t need to go out through passport control, and wouldn’t need to go back in through passport control and security.  While Delta was able to check my bags through, Mark was on a Delta code share flight run by Alaska Airlines, and they weren’t able to check his bags through, which meant we would need to go to baggage claim to collect his bags, then check them in again the next morning.

I decided to go with Mark in case he needed some help, which turned out to be a good thing.  When we got to the baggage carousel, my bags came out (still tagged for KTM).  Apparently that’s how the system works here, all the bags come out, even if they are continuing on another airline, then in theory the baggage handlers would come and collect the bags that were tagged to go on, assuming nobody else collected them first…  I ended up collecting my bags since I didn’t know the process until later, but in retrospect I prefer that I did get them myself.

The other implication of this was that Mark was now OUTSIDE the airport, with his bags, and we were 9 hours from departure so he couldn’t check them back in, and couldn’t get in through security, so we would have been split up.  In the end, it all worked out well, we went to the Novatel hotel just outside the airport, and had a solid few hours of sleep and a nice breakfast.

Checking in on Thai airways was painless, security was quick, and I can see why people like to come to Thailand on vacation, everyone is super friendly and always smiling.  Next stop, Kathmandu.

I’ve learned over the years of expedition preparation to get everything ready early.  Several important things always compete for limited time in the last week before leaving – spending time with family, leaving work projects in a good state, not to mention making sure you have everything you will need for weeks on the mountain, and packing it all.  Packing is a challenge in itself, because you need to anticipate what you will need, when, what will be used together (so you can pack them together), and then try to balance out the weight between duffels, realizing it doesn’t all fit the way I expected, and ultimately leaving some items behind…  I have a recurring nightmare about this…

This time I was able to finish packing about a week in advance.  I’m a little on the heavy side, 127 pounds total, should be at 120.  Now I’ve got to look at what I really don’t need and can leave at home, and see what that does.  I think I can pull out about 3 pounds without too much trouble,  but then it gets harder, and I’ll decide how much I want to take my chances of having to carry a few extra pounds if the yak drivers complain!

Additional complication – Delta is fine with “up to three 70 pound bags”, but we are only on Delta as far as Bangkok, then we hop over to Thai Airways for the leg from Bangkok to Kathmandu.  The Thai Airways website says we are only allowed 2 bags of up to 44 pounds.  I’m having a hard time getting down to 60 pounds each, so 44 pounds just ain’t happening 🙂  Nobody at Delta, nor the travel agent, really has a convincing answer as to how Thai Airways is going to deal with that.  So, I’m packing an extra duffel just in case they make me repack at the airport, and I’ll just have to pay an extra bag fee.

But I’m going to eat you, because you are made of protein…

This is the second time in my life I’ve tried to go vegetarian.  The first time was in 2000.  For the past 18 months I’ve been “mostly” vegetarian, say, 80% (vegetarian during the day, meat at night 3-4 times a week).  There are plenty of successful athletes who are vegetarian (even vegan), but I haven’t figured out how to get it to work for me.  I felt like training was going well, but at the end of a hard week, I felt like I had no energy.  The same thing happened to me when I tried to go veg in 2000.  So on the recommendation of the Hulk at the local supplement store, I dramatically upped my protein intake.  What a difference!  Almost immediately, performance and strength went up, I estimate by about 20 percent.  I was eating maybe 70 grams of protein a day before, compared to about 200 grams a day now.  I’m eating more, and more often as well – about 30 grams of protein every 3 hours – but dropping some fat at the same time as increasing speed, endurance and power.  Thanks supplement guy!  But I was finding it hard to get enough protein from vegetarian sources.  I’m only interested in chickens, turkeys, pigs, fish, and the occasional cow for now, so the rest of the animal kingdom need not worry.  Of course some new things might find their way into my diet once we get to Nepal (squeek squeek), stay tuned…

Most people might think that living in South Florida puts me at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to training for high altitude mountaineering.  No high altitude.  No mountains.  Completely flat.  There is no doubt that the best training for climbing is to climb.  But South Florida has it’s advantages too…

Today is March 1st, and we’ve had about 4 straight weeks of near perfect weather – sunny, light breeze, highs in the low 80s, lows in the low 70s.  I’ve been able to get out and train consistently, right on plan, 6 days a week for the past month.  The consistency is really paying off, I feel strong and healthy.  The idea is to peak at the right time, just a few weeks before leaving, then taper off for the 10 days or so before the trip starts to give the muscles a chance to recover.

Here’s what my training week looks like – not the most hardcore regimen out there, but I do have a day job and a family, so I’m happy to get a good balance.  To be clear, I can’t train for a big mountain in 4 weeks!  I’ve been training for this particular trip for the last 18 months since recovering from an ACL replacement, and have been training specifically for climbing for 5 years.

Monday is my rest day.  I don’t do much on Mondays, usually just 200 situps and 15 burpees.

Tuesday: Today I ran 7.5 miles at the track, really whatever I can run in an hour at a nice slow pace

Wednesday: Weight training, usually a 20 minute warmup, then 200 situps, 15 burpees, 5 sets of overhead lunges, 5 sets of deadlifts, step-ups with weights, and 2 sets of pullups.  Trying to work lower body strength, core and balance.  This is basically the “Gym Jones” concept, weight training that requires you to use your core and balance (holding the bar overhead when you do lunges and squats for instance).  This is a lot more effective than using a machine that controls the weight for you.

Thursday: Alternate running hill sprints for an hour and half, or riding 30 miles on the road bike

Friday: Our headquarters building in Miami is 40 stories, so I climb the fire escape 10 times (400 flights/4,000 feet up and down).  This takes about 2 1/2 hours so it gets into the endurance zone

Saturday: 70-80 miles on the road bike.  This is another endurance day, taking 3 1/2 to 4 hours

Sunday: Alternate running hill sprints for 2 hours, or hiking with 60-70 pound pack for 10-12 miles/1,500 feet elevation

This seems to be a good mix of long, slow aerobic distance days (3-4 hours) that get you into the endurance metabolism, lung busting anaerobic days, and strength and balance.  This is a little different approach than I’ve taken on previous big mountains, but I have so far avoided injury with this regimen and I think the consistency is working out.  I’ll let you know in 3 months…

Time to get this party started!  I had hoped to start posting on this blog earlier but training has been taking priority.  Training for what you say?  I was originally planning to post about preparing to climb Cho Oyu, an 8000m peak on the border of Nepal and Tibet.  We had planned to arrive in Kathmandu on 11 April 2011, and cross over into Tibet to try the “standard route” up the north side of Cho Oyu, but the rumors were flying that the Chinese were likely to close Tibet in the spring.  Rather than take the chance of getting shut out at the border, we decided to change our objective to Lhotse, which is completely inside Nepal and thus not affected by whatever happens in Tibet.  Lhotse is right next to Mt. Everest – actually the “South Col”, a saddle between Everest and Lhotse, connects the two mountains.  For more information on Lhotse, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lhotse

While I’m not a fan of last minute changes, now that I’ve had a few weeks to get travel switched over and look at the route, I’m actually pretty psyched.  The original plan was to try Cho Oyu, which is the world’s 6th highest mountain, as a test run for attempting Everest next spring.  Climbing Lhotse essentially means we’ll be sharing most the climb with this year’s Everest teams.  We will trek into base camp together, and the Everest and Lhotse routes share camps 1, 2 and 3, before the routes split between camp 3 and the high camps of Lhotse to the South and Everest to the North.  So I suppose we couldn’t have much of a better opportunity to prepare for Everest than this.