TA Loeffler's Adventures that Move

Hey this is TA calling in from Day 53 of the great big walk. We are at an elevation of 5091 m and I am calling our little location, Everest view high camp. We’re camped about 300 m below the Renjo La which will be the pass that we cross tomorrow. Our last pass of section 2 and the reason we stopped here is we had the most incredible, amazing views of Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse. Just phenomenal. I thought the views yesterday for Gokyo were cool and these today were also just absolutely awe inspiring and as I looked over at Everest I was sending lots of thoughts and prayers to those affected by the avalanche tragedy. Thanks Trudy for thinking of us and sending the text in.

Turns out today was kind of another second mini rest day. We got here at about 10:30 which gave us time to settle in and we’ve been charging batteries from the sun and hoping it helps me with my uphill energy which has been lagging the last few days and with my cough as you can hear. You get the khumbu cough from breathing dry cold air and so by having to breathe less of it hopefully I can start getting those airway passages a little less irritated. You can hear the wind, the wind is now picking up so I suspect that we are in for a cool windy evening and I wanted to remind everyone of the great big walk walk site its the Nova Scotia heart and stroke foundation walking site. We’ve got about 2 weeks left of the great big walk. It is still not too late to join us and record your steps with us so you can see instructions for that on my website.

And I realized the other night as we came over the Cho La that because I was giving the update in the dark by headlamp and that I was so tired that I forgot to talk about my camera miracle. We were coming down from the Cho La, either I hadn’t latched my camera case all that well or I struck a rock as I went by it, we were travelling through some interesting terrain that was icy and rocky and snowy and all of a sudden my camera flipped out of its little case and started to roll down and Lhakpa, we have 4, so we call Lahkpa Yetti the one, the Lahkpa the one who’s been with us this entire time, at first thought that a rock was coming at him so he started to brace to move away and Marian said, “camera, camera, camera” and Yetti turned and made the most gorgeous world series ending catch and he caught my camera and 51 days of memories were preserved and the best news is the camera still works. A little banged up, has a little more character but that was our camera miracle from the Cho La.

So I had about 7 212 steps today, 98 floors and just about 5 km. Marian’s fitbit actually ran out of juice so that was one of the things we were still recharging today was our fitbits so hers only recorded only 4845 steps and 44 floors and Cam’s was 5781 steps with 3.8 km. Marian’s was 3.37 km. So a very lovely day here. Enjoying the views, getting some rest. Preparing for a bigger day tomorrow, A much longer day tomorrow. Up and over the Renjo La, into another new watershed. Into the bodakosi watershed and then downhill to an elevation of probably around 42 or 4300 meters so that will be very luxurious and then into Tame the next day to where the GHT’ers will continue to go through and go west and the section two’ers will go east back to Namche. So that’s the report here from Day 53. Hope you’ve had a great big walk or roll or stride or hike or workout in the gym. Whatever physical activity that makes you happy. I hope you find your fit and get out there and be active and take care! Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 7 212 steps, 98 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 4845 steps, 44 floors

Total Distance for TA: 5 km

Total Distance for Marian:

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.

Hey this is TA calling in from day 52 at an elevation 4800 m in the village of Gokyo and I’m actually calling from indoors, which is a new thing for me. I’ve usually been calling from my tent and as I look out my window I see a gorgeous glacial lake. I see a pile of rocks that we’ve been listening to stone masons go clink clink clink all day. They are shaping the granite into stones that will become the new tea house. Here in Gokyo we’ve been lucky to be staying in a tea house for last night and tonight so that means our streak of sleeping outdoors has come to an end at 49 nights and it has given our staff a chance to have some well deserved time off. The lodge is also cooking for us and time for us to enjoy a little bit of luxury and a little bit of ease before we transition into our next phase.

As I’m looking out the window I’m seeing 3 yaks going for a walk by so that is always kind of fun and the sun is getting low in the sky and putting a nice glow on the mountains. Four of us plus a couple of our support staff woke up early to climb gokyo ri this morning. Gokyo ri is 5360 m another 185 floors of gain and when you get to the top, we are treated to one of the best views of the Himalayas. We looked out on Everest, on Choyu, on Makalu, on Pumori and it is lovely to see these mountains from different views.

I know yesterday because I was doing my update by torchlight, I couldn’t tell you the name of the glacier we had crossed. It is the Giyozumba glacier and it is reportedly the biggest glacier in Nepal and it begins the dudh kosi. Many poeple refer to the dudh khosi, that have trekked Everest base camp and yesterday when we crossed the Cho La, we left the Everest watershed and entered  the Choyu watershed but what I learned later today was actually downstream just south of namche bazar both streams join together and become the dudh khosi. So that was kind of fun. We started one of our teammates put us on to buying some naches as a snack and so we dropped some in Dingboche and we got some more today and just a reminder lots of people say yakchees but in fact the nak is the female yak so its probably best to say naches because yak cheese might be a little bit of a (inaudible)

We want to say a big happy birthday to Treen. Thinking about you and sending lots of love your way. On our little jaunt up Gokyo ri this morning Marian and a little bit of bopping around Gokyo but we’ve mostly tried to have a bit of a rest day because definitely our legs are tired. Marian had 11 130 steps, 185 floors and 8 km. I had 11 864 steps, and again around 8 km, 185 floors and Cam had 13 400 and a little over, almost 9 km on her fitbit. So we got up there, got a little bit of exercise. We were back down by Gokyo ri by 10 and I think all 3 of us, definitely it was a bit of a grunt on the way up. Its interesting when you choose to go uphill versus when we’ve had to. When we’ve got to go over passes you have to go whereas when you’re choosing, you can always choose not to but the view was definitely worth it and we still  have plenty of day to rest. Tomorrow we will position for our next high pass, the renjo la and hopefully our legs have gotten enough rest and that is the report here from day 52 on the great big walk. Hope you’ve gotten out and had a great big walk. Thanks Kay for the Easter texts and for the other texts and hope you all are having a great Monday, I think this is Easter Monday. So we will catch it from tomorrow on the great big walk as well. Take care!

Total Steps for TA: 11 864 steps, 185 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 11 130 steps, 185 floors

Total Distance for TA: 8 km

Total Distance for Marian: 8 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.

Hey this is TA calling in from day 51 of the great big walk. I’m doing this by headlamp so its a little bit dark and my writing is a little bit small. We are in Gokyo at an elevation of about 4800 m and we’ve had a very big and full and rich day and we crossed the chola pass about 5300 m and saw some amazing views from there and then we had to come down, down, down, down, down and then the coolest thing is we had to cross probably the biggest glacier in Nepal and unfortunately because it is dark and late I forget it’s name. It was covered in different kinds of silt and rock and we saw some of the ice kicking out and that was cool.

Happy Easter everyone, the easter bunny didn’t quite find us yet but we did find the 500 km mark for the great big walk and we’ve crossed another half map and big day for steps. Marian had 23 771, 146 floors, 16.5 km. I had 24 175, 170 feet, 16 km and Cam was our big winner today with 27 363 steps, with 18 km. It is cool to be able to be here in Gokyo, I’ve heard about it for years. Tomorrow, 4 of us, Bill, Cam, Marian and myself are going to get up decently early and give up a rest day to climb Gokyo to see the famous view from there and hope to see cho oyu and everest and several other big peaks that I will tell you about tomorrow and yeah, it was a much better day today for me. Nausea has passed, legs are still a little bit pooped, so it will be interesting to see how tomorrow goes and that is I think day 13 and it may be day 17 or 18 before we actually get a rest but that is alright. The walking is going great, its pretty cool.

We did see some animal tracks today. We maybe they were snow leopard again and a fair amount of folks coming both directions on the chola and you can definitely tell we’ve been out walking and decently acclimatized. You can here me coughing a bit, about half the team has the khumbu cough and it comes about from breathing the dry air up here at 4800 m where we are and above the air is quite cold and dry so it irritates your air passages so you can be coughing during the day and coughing during the night. I fortunately have only sort of get irritated a little bit during the day but I can get sort of down during the night and sometimes its just as you try to talk you get coughing a bit. So that is it from here. Day 51 from the great big walk. Hope you all had, see if you recognize and celebrate easter, hope you had a great easter with friends and family and maybe even went for a walk after that big meal you shared if you shared a big one. So that’s it from now and I promise a more coherent update tomorrow.

Total Steps for TA: 24 175, 170 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 23 771, 146 floors

Total Distance for TA: 16 km

Total Distance for Marian: 16.5 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.

Hey this is TA calling in from day 50 of the great big walk. We are just outside a village called Dzongla. 4815 m above sea level, preparing to cross the chola tomorrow. I wanted to say a happy birthday to our dear friend Nolan. Hope you’re having fun celebrating. A bit of a hard day for me today, a bit of a dunga day, a stone day, instead of a diamond day. There was much helicopter traffic going up and down kundu. So was thinking of all the families who lost loved ones and I suspect there is some built up fatigue. We’ve been moving 12 days since our last rest day. We had a pretty decent move today. 20 784 steps for Marian, 233 floors, 14.5 km. For me it was 21 437 steps, 253 floors and 14 km and Cam had 20 170 steps. What this means is that we’ve just broken 800, 000 steps and we look forward to another 200,000 steps that are unfolding over the next two weeks or so. So not a big update today, just a short one and we’re doing fine and think of us tomorrow as we go over the chola and sending all of our thoughts to those who lost loved ones in the last two days. Okey doke! Bye! Oh yeah and Brianne can you delete the one we had before. The phone is acting a little bit strange tonight, maybe because of the snow we’re having. OK bye!

Total Steps for TA: 21 437 steps, 253 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 20 784 steps, 233 floors

Total Distance for TA: 14 km

Total Distance for Marian: 14.5 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.

Hey this is TA calling in from Day 49. We are here in Dingboche at an elevation of about 4410m and for me its a little bit like coming home. I have been to Dingboche on the way to Everest several times, on the way to my Pomori expedition so being here feels very familiar except that I am acclimitized which is kind of a bit unfamiliar.

We are camped in the yard of a teahouse and what was kind of fun was the yaks just came home. It is too bad I didn’t have the phone a little bit ealier because you could’ve heard the yak bells. They also had little earrings. They make wool little castles that they put in their yaks ears hanging from their yaks ears so they can tell their yaks. So they just came home and went by the tents and the good news is they didn’t run over any tents and out the vestibule door we have a beautiful view of (inaudible) when it is not covered in clouds which was true for most of the day and also if we look up to the valley that we walked down from today, we can see Island peak. Or imjatse so it is a beautiful part of Nepal that we’ve been in. A little bit funny for ourselves to be back in civilization and to be surrounded by many many tourists. They all look much cleaner than us.

Wanted to say a big happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, birthday to Alex. I hope you’re having fun celebrating. We’re thinking about you and sending love and the yaks send happy birthday greetings as well as do the yetties.

It is find your fit Friday here in Nepal and we hope you’re finding your fit. As I walked down from our camp I was thinking about do me a favour, this week sometime, there is hopefully a child in your life. Find them and take them for a walk. Give them a gift of walking. I was thinking that one of the easiest ways to find your fit is walking. It is simple. Requires only your feet, in some cases, in some cultures, your feet and some shoes and others and there is so much to be gained from a walk. So find a child that you care about, your grandchild, your daughter, your son, your niece, your nephew, your just significant young person in your life and go out for a walk together. Another thought we had today and this came to us from Sylvia, hey Sylvia. Cam says hi and she’s glad that you and Joshie are going for great big walks everyday and that is one way to get a lot of exercise, is to have a dog because they need to be walked and if you can’t get yourself motivated to walk for yourself, a lot of times people can get themselves motivated to walk their dogs and consistently the research shows that dog owners get more physical activity than non dog owners. So find a kid, find a dog and if you don’t want to have a dog in your life because it doesn’t allow it or dogs aren’t your thing, well maybe you can borrow one. We saw a wonderful little puppy today which Cam always calls Malcolm ever since we met our first Tibetan Masset in Ghunsa oh about 6 weeks ago. Can’t believe today, Day 49 actually marks our 7th week here together here on the great big walk.

Speaking of great big walk we had some great numbers today after the 10 days of being in the high country where we didn’t make a whole lot of steps. Today Marian made 18 284 for 12.7 km. I made 19 093 for 12.5 km and Cam clocked in at 18 595. 12.3. So that is all pretty exciting and so that is how we found our fit today as we went for a lovely, mostly almost entirely downhill walk from our camp beside Island peak. Kind of a pseudo rest day for us and guess what we’re going to do tomorrow? It is what we do most days. We’re going to walk uphill on the great big walk. So happy find your fit Friday, go out there, find your fit in whichever way you can and tune in tomorrow because there’s going to be some new numbers and we did have some filtering of perhaps sad news here today. We haven’t had any real details but it sounds like there was a huge tragedy on Everest and knowing that there maybe people that I know that lost their lives, my thoughts and condolences go out to anyone affected by this tragedy. So that is it from here today and we will catch you tomorrow from further along on the great big walk. Take care! Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 19 093  steps

Total Steps for Marian: 18 284 steps

Total Distance for TA: 12.5 km

Total Distance for Marian: 12.7 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.

Hey this is TA calling in from day 48. We are at the Injola lake camp at an elevation of  4943. What an awesome day we had. My goodness gracious. Amphu labtsa is a fabulous pass. A great one to be number 3. The one side that we climbed we ascended this morning had the mushroom ice fall and it was a fairly inactive icefall so that means we could enjoy being amongst the towering ice cliffs as we passed through there and took lots of pictures and we topped up and our amazing Sherpa climbing team had the porters all set up in terms of lowering their loads and then going down so we just popped over the top, spotted Makalu and lots of other peaks. The Island peak and Lohtse and started the descent. The first of the bit was kind of interesting. Some scrambly rocky stuff with our crampons on. Then we got to the fixed line and then to our first abseil or repel.

Kind of interesting because as we were going down, a German team was coming up. They were actually climbing with Al Hancock on Makalu but they wanted to warm up doing what they call the icy kols. So we had to be very careful not to step on their ropes with our crampons. Then we had a fun kind of like rampy descent that was protected by press hooks and safety as we went down and had some lunch. Got everyone off the mountain, got the mountain all cleaned of all the protective gear and then made our way another couple of hours down. So a big long day for everyone. We were up at five and the first group of us pulled into camp here at 5. The other guys got in at 6 and definitely fatigue all around and excitement all around. People are feeling pretty proud of themselves as they should. 3 kols, without any incidents except perhaps maybe one smashed hot chocolate and we can strain out the plastic bits with our teeth.

Marian had 15 164 steps. I had 15 425 and Cam had 13 989. We all logged in around 10 km for today so a big day and with our elevation gain it was about 100 floors. Wanted to say congrats to Carly. That is terrific. I am so excited you’ve got that submitted and yes indeed we’ve got lots to celebrate when we’re back. Congrats to the grade 4 class at Bishop of Abraham for 25 times around the gym. That is amazing. Thanks Glen for your text it couldn’t have arrived on a better day and congrats to Yaya that’s cool that you got an award. So lots of things to celebrate here on day 48 of the great big walk. Which today was definitely one of those great big climb days.

Everyone is looking forward to a good night’s sleep. A little bit lower elevation here. Again it is kind of funny to think of 5000 m as lower elevation but tomorro we will drive to dinboche and skins wounds might actually start healing, snickers bars will be available and maybe a little bit of internet. Who knows? But fabulous day, just an awesome pass, so excited. Marian and I were supposed to cross it a year ago. So exciting to do it today. Hello again to Christina Tyler. You would’ve loved it. It was amazing, maybe some day you will put it back on your adventure schedule and hope you found some time to take a great big walk today or a great big swim or a great big hike or a great big soccer game or a great big hockey game. Whatever it is, find something that you love to do and get out there and do it because again I think that our lives are enriched when we do. That’s all from today. I’ll stop rambling on and catch my breath and we will catch you from Dingboche tomorrow on the great big walk. Thanks so much! Bye bye!

Total Steps for TA: I had 15 425, 100 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 15 164 steps, 100 floors

Total Distance for TA:

Total Distance for Marian:

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.

Hey this is TA calling in from day 47 and we said the other day that 47 was sort of like what we were about recognizing that our trip is only about 3 weeks left in it. We are located at the Amphu Labsta base camp at an elevation of about 5400 and anywhere between 40 and 86 m above sea level depending on which device you consult. We wanted to say a big hello and thinking of you to Christina Tyler, sitting here at the foot of the amphu labsta. You would’ve loved seeing what we’re seeing here and what are we seeing? We’re seeing an amazing glacier ice fall with several ice shells that look somewhat like the gills of a mushroom. A giant glistening white mushroom amphsa icefolicus labtsa sidium is what I’ve named my giant icefall mushroom and tomorrow we will most likely be making our way up through those icefalls. Icefalls gills iced off with our crampons and big plastic boots to make our way over the third high passage.

We had a pretty good move today. I had 10 317 steps, Marian had 9 826 and Cam had 9 623. Coming in at around 7 km. It was a bit of hard work. I think one just because we were walking on Talus the entire time just about or snow and also just because I think we’re starting to have a build up of fatigue from some very big days at high altitude. I wanted to say a special hello to Holy cross elementary and the students there and hope you will join me in celebrating that we’ve reached over 750 000 steps for the great big walk with our steps today. We’re hoping to reach a million before we finish.

We had some very very variable weather today. I recognized it as a johari window of weather. It was definitely teaching me equanimity towards the weather. Basically if you have a graph that has a little sun and a little wind in one axis and lots and lots in the other corners. If we had a little wind and a little sun we felt pretty good. If we had lots of sun and very little wind we were way too hot. If we had lots of wind and very little sun we were two cold and if there was lots of wind and lots of sun we were pretty good and if other than that we were changing our layers and unzipping and zipping and unzipping and zipping. We were walking with Lhakpa today and basically he left camp and never adjusted the thing and he is my new hero. I do not know how he quite does that.

Thanks to Heather Courage for the Easter date. Thanks April 20th. We will know to send off Easter greetings and for your class doing 20 times around the gym. That is absolutely positively awesome. That is very exciting and I was thinking today about one of my favorite Buddhist books which is called the wisdom of no escape by (inaudible) and she says basically sometimes it is important to put yourself in situations that you cannot get out of except for one way and at the moment several of us are thinking yep, we’ve got one way to out of here which is over the pass. Again we are still waiting for the plan to be affected by our team. There is another group moving up valley. Our climbing Sherpa’s need to set the fixed lines to keep us safe as we go over the pass. So we don’t know if we’re on an early departure, mid departure, on delay or just what but most likely we will be going over the pass tomorrow and then heading down towards Island peak base camp for the night and then into (inaudible) the next day.

We gained about 200 m or about 60 floors today and probably felt every single one of those floors but all is well. We’re eating and trying our best to eat and drink up here at 5400 and change meters above sea level. Thanks so much for tuning in to the great big walk and hope that you found some place to take your own great big walk today and tomorrow will definitely be another of our great big climb type of days. Thanks and have a great day. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 10 317 steps

Total Steps for Marian: 9 826 steps

Total Distance for TA: 7 km

Total Distance for Marian: 7 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.

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.

Hey this is TA calling in from day 45 of the great big climb. Definitely called the great big climb today. We are located at the foot of West kol at an elevation of somewhere between 5939 and 5959. I am going to call it 5959 which means we are sleeping on top of Mount Logan. We actually reached the summit and slept on the summit of Denali or Mt. Mckinley yesterday so that is the highest peak in North America and Mt. Logan is the second highest peak. That is the highest peak in Canada. Denali is the highest peak in the US.

I don’t know if you can hear the wind kind of rustling. The sun is just going down so the temperature is about to plummet. We started off with a beautiful sunny day. Both Marian and I are rosy peak cheeked and nosed because we only used our sticks today not our (inaudible) because it was epically frozen this morning. It was pretty chilly last night. After about we passed up camp fairly early and our climbing Sherpas went off to fix the descent ropes for the west kol and just as they finished getting those ready for both us and the porters, the weather changed dramatically and brought in some of the most epic conditions I have ever descended in. So we had lots of standing around in very brisk wind and cold conditions. So we were standing with our backs to the wind for probably 4 hours between the top of kol and the base of the kol while the loads where getting lowered. So a challenging day to be out here and that is one of the reasons we did not get as low as we hoped to tonight. It just was so zapping for everyone. Our climbing Sherpas are absolutely amazing. They were up on top of the kol probably about 8 hours in truly epic conditions. So I bow down to them. I am humbled by them each and everyday.

We did have someone get a little bit of hypothermia but the team bonded together and (inaudible) so they are fine. We crossed a little bit higher, got the west kol where sometimes the cross was covered in some pretty amazing blue ice so we crossed at about 6190 today and again fitbit is being in new locations. Mine was 6068, 19 floors and about 4 km. Marian’s was 3061, 3 floors and about 2 km so not sure how they fit into the reality but it was only about a 45 minute walk up to where we were going to cross the kol. A lovely little jaunt to get all warmed up and then probably half an hour walk down. So not a big day in the walking department but definitely a big day in the put your mountaineering skills to work with coming down so pretty hard blue ice over the kol and rocks and abseiling and stuff and as you can hear in my voice we are still at altitude. So we are going to have probably another cold night with maybe not the best sleep. Still Marian had a fabulous sleep last night so she’s amazing. I think she was so wiped from the night before. So we’re all hanging in. We knew these days would all be epic, those just from the kind of terrain we are crossing and the weather that could come and this part of the Himalayas is treating us to all that. We are earning our crossing here on the great big walk. Thanks for your prayers and good thoughts. We are appreciating those and hopefully you will head out on a great big walk of your own today. Take care. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 6068 steps, 19 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 3061 steps , 3 floors

Total Distance for TA: 4 km

Total Distance for Marian: 2 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.

Hey this is TA calling in from day 44 of the great big climb as it was today. It was definitely not a walk. We are located at West kol camp at approximately 6130m above sea level and I probably won’t be able to get sentences out without pausing because we are 500 or so meters above our camp last night without an acclimatization stop. It was what I might call usually an epic day. We had a 4am wake up and I know for me I slept pretty well in the early part of the evening, but then didn’t really sleep from about midnight on. So not much sleep. It was definitely a super cold morning and if you looked around the breakfast tablet people we’re terribly interesting in eating. So not much sleep, not much breakfast. Super cold and off we went to try to gain, actually we did more than try as Judah says there is no try do or don’t do and we did gain enough elevation to cross the kol.

In looking at all the maps. Our itinerary says we went over Sherpani kol. We’re not convinced. It might have been East kol, it might have been some unnamed kol but it could’ve been Sherpani kol as well. So we gained the 500 m then we had fixed lines to go the last really sort of super steep part to the kol. It was pretty amazing to watch our climbing Sherpa’s send all the loads down over the kol using a flying fox or zipline down to the ground. Once they were finished with that then we all had about a 6 section abseil rappel down to the other side of the pass and then we had about a hour and a half or an hour pole into across the glacier, the Barun glacier, to our camp here. We’re fairly close to West kol which I will suspect be crossing tomorrow and kind of exciting after the big day having some (inaudible) as I often. I like definitely not the opera if you want to hear a fun story about me and a tea bottle after an epic day. Check out the live show. OK let’s make it the lower Barun glacier that we walked across this afternoon. Didn’t fall in any kavasses so that is good. So yeah check out the live show podcast from St. John’s and you can hear me talking about the joys of using a tea bottle with cramping legs.

Trying to rehydrate and snack up here after our big day. I was thinking this day definitely went in the top 5 or maybe top 8 epic mountain days for me along in that list would be Denali summit day, the Aconcagua summit day, the returning to camp two for summer (inaudible) in 2010 after only 2 days rest day and probably some others. I think it is definitely a type two kind of a day. I think it will seem fun maybe in a week or so. At the moment I think people are pretty tired and have had big days. We actually have several more epic days on the horizon so keep that support and good thoughts for the great big walk coming. Not sure the fitbit was all that accurate today but Marian had 4797 steps, 3.3 km and I had 7979 and 43 floors really with a 500 m gain that is actually well above 1500 feet probably about 150 floors would be more accurate and Cam’s tent is too far away to get her steps. I will try get those for you tomorrow. To Cam’s family know she did fabulous today she is doing great and thanks for all your prayers and good thoughts and it was a, dare to say it was altitude records all round in the team of participants except for me and so that is pretty exciting for everyone and that might be all that I can semi-coherently say at the moment before supper. So day 44, not only a great big walk, a great big climb and thanks for tuning in and we will catch you from tomorrow. Take care. bye!

Total Steps for TA: 7979 steps, 43 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 4797 steps, 150 floors

Total Distance for TA: 3.3 km

Total Distance for Marian: 3.3 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.

Hey this is TA calling in from day 43. We are located at Sherpani kol base camp at an elevation of approximately 5688 m above sea level. We had a pretty big day. A pretty challenging day for most of us. We started out in the sun and then had a mix of snow and sun and snow and sun and at the moment it is doing the same up here. We’re getting hit by some snow and wind and then it will brighten up and the sun will come out and the tents will warm up. We just finished up a nice big bowl of veggie noodle soup to help the hydration. We just made a big jump in elevation and I know at the moment I am feeling it somewhat. Though my headache from lunch from lunch just now just passing so that is delightful. So my job and our job up here at the moment is to drink and breathe and drink and breathe. We’re waiting to hear back from our climbing Sherpa’s. They have delivered the call today to see what condition it is, to see what the plan was.

Our hike today, our walk today, our climb today was definitely dunga, dunga, dunga. Rock, rock, rock. We we’re on scree and talus slopes the entire day. Really mostly talus and for me I quite like walking over Talus slopes because it takes almost your full attention. So you can’t really let your mind wonder how hard it is. So I actually felt pretty good today. Pretty strong. I think all those early km and early snow passes are paying off. I wanted to say a special hello to Mrs. Courage’s grade 4 class. 15 times around the gym is awesome! You’re ramping it up just about the same time as us so that is fabulous. Thanks so much for walking along with us. Today’s step totals maybe a little light again just because I think the fitbit has trouble reading when we are sort of moving so slowly, but Marian had 6925 steps and I had 6294 and Cam had 6341. We travelled about 5 km. You can see I am under the influence of hypoxia at the moment and we gained almost 500 m so about 150 floors. So yeah, so we’re positioned now. We’re just waiting again as I said to see what plan is for tomorrow to go over Sherpani kol and whether or not we will try to do Sherpani kol and West kol on the same day, most likely given this history from what we’ve heard in the past, we will do Sherpani kol tomorrow and then cross over to Baruntse camp one and then descend West kol the next day into (inaudible) valley.

I realized yesterday being Friday was the last Friday of sneak it in week. So hopefully you’re sneaking in your physical activities. Here and there remembering it doesn’t matter whether you go 30 minutes straight or you do 3 ten minutes. It has the same benefit for you and that is the report from here. Not terribly articulate. I apologize for that. The few days may be a little bit silly as we’re operating on less than half as much oxygen as usual and I just heard a little sound outside the tent which means it is washy washy time. It will be our last washy washy for awhile. So I will sign off here. We’re all doing well drinking. There is Lahkpa saying washy washy. So it is time for us to cruise off and we will catch you from tomorrow. Thanks. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 6294 steps, 150 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 6925 steps, 150 floors

Total Distance for TA: 5 km

Total Distance for Marian: 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.

Hey it’s TA calling from Swiss base camp at an elevation of 5211 m above sea level on day 42 of the great big walk. This was a R&R or an R&A day for us again. Rest and acclimatization. We spent the morning doing a lot of walking uphill to gain about 200 m or about 60 floors of elevation gained to give our bodies a little prompting to begin the changes that it continues to need to make as we walk ever higher and then we had a great lunch and then in the afternoon we did some preparation of practicing with our plastic boots, our double walled climbing boots, our crampons or footbangs as I like to call them and practice walking in glacier (inaudible) together. So it has been a busy yet restful day, I had 6027 steps. Cam had 6109 and Marian had 6 378 and as I said about 60 floors for elevation gained and about 4 km for distance. So not our biggest exertion day for sure but that was because it was an R&A day. It is also find your fit Friday. I am a master for find your fit with recreation of Newfoundland and Labrador and one of the aims of the great big walk is to get people out and active in whatever way makes sense for them. Whether that is walking running, skipping, jumping, swimming, biking, whatever fit, aerobics, strength training, so for more resources, you can visit the recreation of Newfoundland and Labrador website.

For us here I wanted to say a big thanks to Phil and Karen for the texts. Good wishes and prayers. We set off tomorrow to begin anywhere between 5 and 7 day passage of the three high passes. For those of you that are familiar with white water. It feels a little bit like we’ve done the scout and we’re on top of the rapid and our hearts are beating a little bit faster and we’re about to start riding the V wave and once you’re on the V wave you’ve got to pull it through and you just sort of make your plan and then run your plan and that is what we will do here. We had some porters and some of our climbing sherpas today go out and go to the foot of our first call and drop some rice and some kerosene to make tomorrow’s passage a little bit easier. We’ll move to the base camp before our first pass tomorrow and then up and over and it’s going to be exciting and as you can see even I’m still acclimating here to 5200. Tomorrow we will be at 5600 or 5700 and then we will go over the 6100 m pass.

Another 4 seasons in a day day. Gorgeous this morning here at the Swiss base camp resort and now it is snowing and quite chilly and it said that temperatures in the tent last night went to 20 degrees fahrenheit so I am guessing that is about -5, -6 degrees C and it is only going to get colder from here. Wanted to say a big happy birthday to Gill’s mom, Anne from all of us here on the great Himalayan trail. And I wanted to give you one little bit of learning bit today and that is the Nepali word tse which means peak and so as we go around the corner tomorrow we will see Baruntse which is the peak of Barun. You know that we’ve travelled along the Barun natti, today from our perch here on Swiss base camp we can see the Barun glacier, we’re travelling in Makalu Barun national park and then as we go around the corner we will see Baruntse which is 7 152 m and there are quite a few peaks of course none of which I can remember at the moment that also have tse in their name but yet another little word for us to practice. Marian is sitting here beside me in the tent under our lovely flat base sleeping bag and oh yes Island peak. For those of you out there that have heard of Island peak, its other name is Imjatse and also on the same ridge line with Everest and lhotse there is shartse and shartse two and farentse which I probably just didn’t say properly.

And the other highlights for me for today was this morning the sky was beautifully clear and on our walk we could see a beautiful view of Everest including the North East ridge and seeing it form this angle is wonderful to add to all the other angles I’ve seen it from. So happy find your fit Friday. TGIF for all of you. Know that for us we’re going to work big time this weekend. Lots of elevation gain, lots of cold temperature and elevation to adjust to, but we’ve got a strong team, we’re confident and looking forward to supporting each other in the big challenges coming up. So happy Friday. Talk to you tomorrow from Sherpani base camp. Take care. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 6027 steps, 60 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 6 378 steps, 60 floors

Total Distance for TA:  4 km

Total Distance for Marian:  4 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.

Hey this is TA calling in from day 41. At an elevation of 5211 m at a location called Swiss base camp but it is so much more than that. Indeed we are camped across from Makalu and in reading something yesterday, we learned that Makalu means big black stony mountain. Which indeed is one description. The other is just big awesome rocky mountain. We can actually see where the Makalu teams from our new location will be heading around to set up their advanced base camps. We’re actually across the Barun glacier from them, from where they will make the turn. They have to go a little further and then they have to make a big right hook and we’re actually going to make a big hook behind us to go up to Shapani kol.

We spent the day walking on the work of glaciers. Glaciers as I talked about the other day are big rivers of ice that move downhill but they don’t normally move ice downhill, they move rock and when a glacier moves downhill it makes things called moraines and it pushes the rock, it is sort of a big bulldozers and it pushes down and it grinds up the rock and in some cases you can find sand and other cases the boulders it pushes those downhill. Some of the rocks get left off to the side and those are called lateral moraines and that is what we were walking on today and at some point if a glacier begins to stop proceeding and becomes receding ie. less snow is added to it and it starts moving backwards, you may have something called a terminal moraine which is a pile of rock left at the end.

We will head up to a camp when we leave here in two days or a day and a half from now and we will go to a glacial snout and the snout of the glacier, sometimes called snout and sometimes called tongue and it is where the front part of the ice is. So it’s pretty cool to be living amongst the moving peak bits of ice and seeing the amazing work they do. We here rock fall across the way from Makalu quite often. We’re safe from that. No problems with that but it is always amazing to watch gravity at work as well.

It was a great walk for me today. A tough walk for some folks in the acclimatizing and a few little GI things going wrong for some folks but we all got here safely and that is awesome. Marian had 11 322 steps and 104 floors and just about 8 km on fitbit. I had 12 508 steps, 113 floors, a little over 8 km and Cam had 12 845 steps, 8.5 km and when we add those all to our grand amazing total we’re celebrating that we’ve passed the 700,000 step mark so that is pretty fun and we’re 416 km or so. Rock hopping was the name of the game today. So moving and trying to flow from rock to rock. We had, sometimes that kind of rock work is also called talus. When rock are about the size of your fist they are called scree and when they get to be the size of big blocks or boulders they start to become talus or boulder fields and we definitely passed a few km of those. We got into camp and again we could call this the swiss base camp beach resort because we are camped on glacial sand once again. Conditions are cold comfy.

We had a delicious lunch and now we’re relaxing in our tents. It clouded over for a while and got kind of chilly and threatened to snow so we call it shake and bake. Windy and cold and snowy that is the shake part and when the wind slows down and the sun comes out it becomes the bake part. We used to be a joke that when you are moving and climbing and camping on glaciers it is like we’re corningware because depending on what the sun is it is like we’re either in the freezer section or we’re ready to be in the oven being baked and we go back and forth regularly between that. So that is our report from day 41. I hope you snuck it in because this is Thursday of sneak it in week. Everybody if you can go out for five minutes, if you can go out for 10 minutes, you put three 10 minute chunks together you’ve snuck it in and that is a great thing. For more information about sneak it in week, you can visit the participation Canada website or the recreation of of Newfoundland and Labrador website and remember if this is Thursday of sneak it in week then tomorrow is find your fit Friday. And a special hello to Mr. Patterson’s grade 5 class. Please let us know if you have any more questions. We love answering questions and from anybody actually. So that’s it from day 41. Catch you from tomorrow. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 12 508 steps, 113 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 11 322 steps, 104 floors

Total Distance for TA: 8 km

Total Distance for Marian: 8km

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.

Hey everybody. Happy day 40 from the great big walk. We are located once again at Makalu base camp here at an elevation of 4800m. This was a rest and acclimatization day for us as well as technical skills practice day. So we spent the day admiring Makalu. After waking up this morning, we had a puzha and a puzha for those folks that don’t know is a blessing ceremony. One of the kitchen assistants is a former llama. So he is able to perform the blessing ceremony, where the mountains permission is asked or we ask the universe for the deities, the mountain deities for good weather, for safe passage, our climbing gear is there to be blessed and then flare flags are flown and we all receive protection cords from a high ranking lama in Kathmandu.

So that was our second Puzha of the great big walk and wonderful as always to witness and participate in. Here at Makalu base camp there seems like there is going to be 3 expeditions. We’ve met members from one expedition which is the one led by Al Hancock. He is a person that I climbed with in 2007 on Mount Everest and he has gone on to do several major Himalayan peaks. This year he is attempting Makalu, trying to be the first Canadian to climb Makalu and also a third go at Kaytu. So great to see him, we saw him a few days ago, great to see him again today at base camp. And in case you’re wondering what base camp looks like, it is a fairly sandy location. We are camped 4 km below the summit of Mount Makalu and it looks a little bit like a bunch of marshmallows have popped up. There is little groupings of tents, mostly yellow but a few other little colors. Each expedition seems to have one or two big large rectangular tents that are the group dining areas and cooking areas. There is a few stone huts and we had a mixed day of some sun and a little bit more wind today. Lots more helicopter runs in. They are using helicopters to bring expedition here in. So it is kind of an exciting place to be. Teams will begin to continue to arrive and it will take them between 6 – 8 weeks to climb Mount Makalu.

After our puzha, we had breakfast and then we headed out on what is called an acclimatization walk or acclimatization hike. The idea being to climb high and sleep lower. So since we will be moving to around 5200 m tomorrow we had a little foray out from camp and we actually got see some additional high peaks. We saw Lhotse, Lhotse shar and much to my delight we saw Everest and Cam got to see Everest for the first time herself. So that was pretty fun to watch her see it was a little bit in the distance and playing a little bit hard to get coming in and out of the clouds but how amazing to get to see Everest from yet another angle. We came back from that.

Had some yummy lunch and spent the afternoon doing technical skill practice. Practicing rope ascension, fixed rope ascension and repelling. Making sure everybody is all set because we will need those skills for our first big pass crossing coming in about 4 fours days of (inaudible) So not quite as big a travel day for us. Marian had 10 585 steps or so. 6.5 km, 72 floors. I had 11 180, 6.5 km, 79 floors and Cam came in 10 228, 6.78 km here on the great big walk. Hope you’re all having a great Wednesday. Hello to all the schools that are following along. I’ll send specific readings over the next couple of days and know that we’re moving into some higher, higher and much more difficult terrain so your thoughts and prayers are appreciated for us and with us over the next 7 to 10 days as we tackle probably the hardest section of the great Himalaya trail and the great big walk. So happy Wednesday everyone and we will catch you from Swiss base camp tomorrow. Take care! Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 11 180 steps, 79 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 10 585 steps, 72 floors

Total Distance for TA: 6.5 km

Total Distance for Marian: 6.5 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.

Hey this is TA calling in from day 39 from Makalu base camp at an elevation of 4800m above sea level and it is awesome being here and I thought we should rename Makalu base camp to the Makalu beach resort. We had sun, we had sand and we had the world’s fifth highest peak. Makalu is 8468 m above sea level and the weather was kind enough to give us expansive views of the entire mountain from base camp to the summit today. To looking 4km up at this amazing wall of rock and ice. So we’re feeling pretty lucky that there was lots of, we actually had the sun till about half an hour ago so its great to come into camp with tents, dry feet and it took us about 4 hours to get here so a half day’s walk it was actually instead of Nepali up up up it’s really actually Nepali gradually flat. So a lovely walk today. About 12 km. Marian had 16 067 steps, 146 floors. I had 16 623 steps, 154 floors. Again around 11 km for both of us. Cam was the big winner again today with 19 988. I wish she’d gone for 12 more steps so it would be a nice even number. She’s a little higher because she went over to visit one of the glacial lakes that’s very close the base camp here so she put in 13 km today.

Some exciting things to celebrate today here on the great big walk. We passed the 400 km mark and we also passed on to the 3rd map. So that’s a big day for us to celebrate. We also began to see glaciers. We saw glaciers today on the slopes of Makalu. Some of those we saw are dry glaciers ie. there is no snow cover on them at this point. So the (inaudible) are very easy to see and then some of them are snow covered. In a few days we will be crossing some snow covered glaciers and one of the hazards there are the kavakas that are covered by snow so we can’t see them and that is why we will rope up together. And a glacier is a river of ice. Basically high up on the mountain. The snow gets deposited during the winter. It compresses and eventually turns into a hard blue ice. That ice is acted on by gravity and pulls that ice downhill and it becomes a glacier and in Newfoundland and Labrador we look forward to iceberg season each year and those icebergs are actually calved off the glaciers of Greenland. Here when the glaciers calve off it is actually often called a sorack instead of an iceberg and those can present some pretty big hazards to mountaineers so they choose to try not to go under sorack balls or to go under them in the middle of the night when it is less likely that they will fall. Glaciers move a little bit faster during the day because of heat of the sun.

So it is pretty amazing scenery here today and I already said that. I am now thinking, I had some other wonderful thoughts. Happy belated physical activities day. We are actually quite proud of our totals today and after our rest day yesterday, I think those of us on the longer team ie. those of us that have been out almost 40 days were feeling much stronger today after the rest and everyone is doing well, acclimatizing, we’re drinking lots again because we have to jump up here to 4800 m. At 5000m it is considered to be about half the oxygen available to our body as at sea level. So we need to assist our bodies in making the changes and the best thing that we can do is breathe a lot and breathe deeply and also we can be staying well hydrated because as our body makes more red blood cells, the blood gets a little thicker so it is important to stay well hydrated. And as you can hear from my voice probably from the last time we were close to 5000 m I can actually a whole sentence without taking a breath. So that is showing that indeed I have been acclimatizing.

So hello, hello, hello from Makalu base camp. It’s actually the 4th 8000 m peak base camp I have visited and at the moment, at least this afternoon it was seriously gorgeous with sun and sand. All we needed was an ocean but instead we had a very glacially fed lake which was pretty darn chilly is you wanted to go for a swim.

A reminder that there are text updates and pictures on the world expedition blog and by all means please send in your questions and comments. You can put your questions and comments on this post and they will be sent in to us and or if you have text instructions, go ahead and text the phone directly. So happy day 39 from the great big walk. As you can see we are pretty excited to be here at Makalu base camp and we will talk to you from tomorrow. Thanks. Take care. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 16 623 steps, 154 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 16 067 steps, 146 floors

Total Distance for TA: 11 km

Total Distance for Marian: 11 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.