Hey this is TA calling in from day 46 at Baruntse base camp at an elevation of 5477 and look I said that whole sentence without even having to pause for breath. We’ve come down about 400m and we think it is God’s gift which is kind of funny because if you ask anyone who has just come to 54 they would think that they were at extreme elevation.

So we got through last night. It was pretty rough conditions but our staff was awesome, delivering supper to us in our tents and then we woke up this morning just about an hour before the sun hit our tent and really the action started this morning once the sun hit the tent. There wasn’t a whole lot on the go. One of the guys has a thermometer he has in his tent and he gave it to me in fahrenheit and it was -12 farenheit. Something like that inside the tent. (inaudible) -18 centigrade inside the tent and you can add a factor of -5 to -10 outside the tent so basically lets just call it chilling and agree to go there. So pretty chilly. We had a beautiful sunny morning for our walk downhill. It was entirely downhill. Both fitbits registered no floors of gain which actually matched the reality. I had 7976 steps. Marian had 8081 and Cam had 7722. We went about 5 to 5.5 km and we’ve had a half day rest day. We were actually supposed to be here yesterday for a full rest day but of course the weather had a different plan for us and we’ve used today well to dry our gear.

One of the things, if you’ve ever been out in the winter time camping, you will know everytime you breathe out, every time you have a hot drink, every time you have 3 wonderful dinners in your tent, every time you sleep in your sleeping bag you are introducing this wonderful stuff we call condensation into your atmosphere in your cute little tent and even if you vent it out really well, after a couple of days, you have a situation like we all had this morning where if anyone touches the tent it snows inside. So let us just say that everyone is pretty excited to have dry gear, dry fluffy sleeping bags to be sleeping in tonight. As we started to walk down we had clear views of Baruntse. Remember tse is a word for peak and it was pretty exciting to finally get to see the mountain in all of its glory because it was the first mountaineering expedition I supported by buying a t-shirt in 1990. It was an all women’s expedition. So great to see the peak and definitely from this side, the rocky side it is quite the peak. You usually climb it from the back side where we’ve just come.

We are in the very remote, very wilderness valley at the moment. There are lots of glaciers you can see that glaciers shape this valley. Moraines, ice, glacial highways and we are here at the base camp so we can see some prayer flags. There aren’t any expeditions this spring, either yet, I think it is often a fall peak but we are enjoying some weather that is now just starting to change into snow. Let’s see. I thought it would actually be kind of entertaining some folks may remember that the egg producers board of Newfoundland and Labrador was my sponsor in 2009 and what we have for breakfast here is one egg each and it is someone, some porters job to carry the eggs and he does an amazing job over these passes because we don’t have scrambled eggs every day. We did have a question here that hopefully someone can text us the answer to, because Marian and I already ate our peace at Kanchenjunga base camp. When’s Easter? We know it must be coming up soon. We are seeing the full moon through each and every night here. So would someone text us in just so we know when to eat the non-existent chocolate bunny rabbits and marshmallows.

So I think that is it here from April 14th. I think legs are a little bit tired. We’ve passed two of our big passes. Tomorrow is a positioning day and then we will be hopping over pass number 3 the following day so as always your thoughts and prayers are appreciated and we will probably have some milestones to celebrate tomorrow on the great big walk. Hope you’re having a great Tuesday, yeah it is Tuesday. Monday sort of was a bit of blur. So hope you’re having a great active Tuesday. Get out there and have a great big walk and we will catch you from tomorrow. Thanks and take care. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 7976 steps

Total Steps for Marian: 8081 steps

Total Distance for TA: 5.5 km

Total Distance for Marian: 5.5 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.