TA Loeffler's Adventures that Move

Hey this is TA calling in from day 38 of the great big walk. We are still here in Yangmali kharka at an elevation of 4400 m. It was a rest and acclimatization day and for the 4 of us that spent the last 36 days or so walking here it was rest. Glorious rest along with a little bit of laundry some electronics charging. We did have some sun for a few hours. We also did some technical gear prep and some knot practice. So we’ve had a rich and full day doing that. Its also world physical activity day and also the begining of sneak it in week in Canada. So the idea is hopefully, people around the world today are thinking about being physically active and the benefits that come and sneak it in week is encouraging people to sneak in physical activity here and there and the kind of irony of it of course is that today for us was a very well deserved rest day.

So Marian managed all of 1390 steps, and 3 floors, and about a km. I managed about 1496 and again about the same with a km. 3 floors for Marian, 5 floors for me. Cam was the big winner because she put her laundry far away to dry. She had 3799 steps and 2.5 km. So this is definitely one those days where we say do as we say not as we do. So please get out there. Celebrate world physical activity day and for the next week try to sneak it in. Get a walk in here and a walk in there.

I was pleased to learn an interesting fact about Yangmali kharka today and that the little tea house that is run here sometimes, used to be, maybe still is, he’s not here at the moment but run by Tasang Wanksta Sherpa and what is interesting about him is that he is the father of Lahkpa Sherpa and some of you may remember that name. Lahkpa is the woman with the most number of Everest summits. She summited 6 times. She first summited in the year 2000. Her sister Mingkipa is actually the youngest woman to have summited Everest and also their brother, Mingma, has summited as well. So they have got 3 Everest summiteers in their family and Lakhpa Sherpa always looked up to the first Nepali woman to summit Everest, who was the only Nepali woman to summit before Lahkpa and her name is Tasang Lamu and when you drive to the airport in Kathmandu, you see her statue. She is considered one of Nepal’s 15 national heroes and she even has a peak that they renamed after her. She summited Mount Everest on April 23rd 1993 and unfortunately tragically died on descent. It was actually her 4th attempt on Mount Everest but she was considered one of the barrier breaking women in Nepali history.

So interesting to be here in Yangmali kharka were Lakhpa and Mingkipa would’ve spent quite a bit of time and we will hopefully follow in their footsteps in the next few days in terms of we will be heading up to Makalu base camp tomorrow to make another jump in elevation and then have another rest, technical and acclimatization day. So after moving a bunch over the last 10 days we are going to be moving a little less but gaining lots of elevation next to the (inaudible). So I hope you have a very excellent, amazing, physically active, world physical activity day and I hope this week you can sneak it in and we will be joining you tomorrow now that we’ve caught up on our rest as well. Thanks and have a great day. Signing off from the great big walk and we will catch you from tomorrow. Bye bye!

Total Steps for TA: 1496 steps, 5 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 1390 steps, 3 floors

Total Distance for TA: 1 km

Total Distance for Marian: 1 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 37 of the great big walk. We are located here at Langmali khara at an elevation of approximately 4400 m. We had a great walk today, in some ways truly Nepali flat as we actually gained 800 m which I guess is a contradiction in terms. The day started fairly cloudy and misty but then it cleared and gave us about 5 hours of expansive views. This particular area has sometimes been compared to Yosemite. So some of our team mates who have seen Yosemite say it is unfair to Nepal to make that comparison but awesome, we saw some ice falling off. We were safe of course at the time and that was pretty fun and had some crows come and visit us at lunch. They are often called gorax here and they were quite bold and they were quite fun to watch over lunch.

As we left this morning we passed by a Hindu shrine that looks on the mountainside like one of the deities and we were told that thousands of hindu muslims will trek to this region around the August full moon as the pilgrimage to this particular formation of rock in the mountain and definitely today was a day for digging deep. It was definitely a fatigue filled day for me. We’ve been moving for 10 days. I actually figured out that we’d gained about 6000 m of elevation gained, similar to (inaudible). The beep thing you hear is my phone getting ready to run out of battery because we haven’t had much sun in the last 6 days either. So I could cut off. Just know that we’ve got one more battery to go and hopefully some sun tomorrow. Marian had 15 897 steps and 11 km today. 243 floors of elevation gained. I had 16 040, 216 floors and 14 km and Cam was 14 586, coming in right around 10 km. Our two teams are coming together rather well. We know actually have 4 Lakhpa’s on our team, helping us out. You may remember Lakhpa’s are born on Wednesday and I thought we would visit a couple other Sherpa words today for the cardinal direction. North is Chayang, East is shah, south is low and west is noob. So we will go via a peak called lopi shah and that means that it is sort of east of lopi and some have said that could be considered the 9th 8000m peak in Nepal. So we will keep this short one because we are running out of battery. Thanks Kay. One text did get through. Appreciate that and we are all looking forward to our rest day tomorrow to catch up. Hopefully have some sun. Get our electronics charged and definitely recharge our legs. Thanks! have a great day and remember to get out for a great big walk yourself. Take care! bye!

Total Steps for TA: 16 040, 216 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 15 897 steps, 243 floors

Total Distance for TA: 14 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.

Hey this is TA calling in from day 36 of the great big walk and we are at Yangla kharka at approximately 3625m. We had a great downhill day coming back from the high alpine white and blue land into and through the big rhododendron forest, past some amazing blue pines once again and down to the baru natti. So we’re in the makalu baru national park and so the baru natti leads over to the baru natti. So we have arrived here and this now is the official end of our section 1 of the great himalayan trail and sort of taking a fun look at our section 1. We have climbed the equivalent of 130 signal hills. We have done approximately 650 000 steps and we’ve walked around 380 km so far.

So kind of fun to celebrate that and as we’re celebrating all that we’ve experienced in the last little while, we’re taking two teams. The other section two team has been walking in from Tungmantar and so we are joined on our next section by Paul and Ed from the United States and Bill from Australia and New Zealand. So we are now 7 trekkers and supported by a mixed group by some of the staff from section 1 and some of the staff that have come in from section 2. So we’re all getting to know each other and we’re now three deedee’s and 4 guys.

So ray has a little more company in the male companionship department, no longer surrounded by just 3 Canadian women and speaking of Canadians and speaking of small worlds, it was kind of fun sitting in the tent this afternoon and all of a sudden Cam came over and said, “ I think there is someone here that knows you”, and it turns out that it was Al Hancock. Folks might remember that Al and I were on the same team on Everest in 2007. We were both on Everest again in 2010. Al Hancock is the first Newfoundlander to summit Everest not only once but also twice and he is here leading an expedition on Makalu and then will be heading over to kaytum. So great fun to run into him and we will see him again in a couple of days when we pass through Makalu base camp and fun to take some pictures and share some stories and those kind of climbing connections.

In terms of our steps today, Marian had 16 756. 93 floors, so pretty good for a downhill day and did close to 12 km. I had 17 147 steps, 98 floors and 11.5 km and Cam was the big winner once again with 19 391 steps and 12 km. Actually 12.83 so close to 13. So she’s the number one stepper today on this Saturday. Kieran, thanks for the text. In fact most days are diamonds for us, even though they are tough. We have one more day, so we will have moved 10 days. We move into Langmale kharka tomorrow and then we get a rest day so we’re pretty excited about that. Get everything all dried out. Marian and I have a new tent today, so that is exciting, in white and light color so its pretty interesting not be in a yellow world any more. We are now in a natural daylight world and Kellie Baker, yes! The answer is yes. Absolutely yes! And so that is it for today. Section 1 is officially closed and now section 2, the 3 big kols. Sherpani kol, West kol and Amfulasa. Here we come, bigger teams and bigger challenges. So we will catch you from tomorrow on the great big walk. Happy Saturday everyone, get out there. Go for a walk. Get some physical activity and we will catch you tomorrow. Thanks Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 17 147 steps, 98 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 16 756, 93 floors

Total Distance for TA: 11.5 km

Total Distance for Marian: 12 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 good afternoon. Good morning. Good day from day 35 of the great big walk. We are located here at approximately 4105 m above sea level in a place called grazing kharka. You’ll remember a kharka is a place where they bring animals to pasture. At the moment, the animals would have a little bit of a hard go since once again it is covered in snow but we’ve had an awesome, awesome, awesome, did I say awesome day? The sun actually came out this morning and stayed out our entire travel so we got to have the most amazing mountain views, the classic high altitude gorgeously beautiful blue skies, white and black mountains and little colorful dots of climbers and trekkers as we made our way across.

It was funny today as we walked, we actually haven’t seen any other humans but our group for the last 7 days, but there was helicopters probably flying into makalu base camp. So it was kind of jarring to have this mechanical noise but we will be there in about a week or so it will be interesting to see what ( inaudible) expeditions there on the go. It’s find your fit Friday here on the great big walk and we definitely found our fit today. Marian did around 11 656 steps, 100 floors. I did 13 230 steps, 102 floors and Cam did 14 001. She’s the master of the odometer with her steps and we went around 8 to 9 km. We went up and over two passes so indeed our floor count might have been a little bit higher but we will leave it at that for today. As it is find your fit Friday today I was thinking about all of the folks who contributed to my being fairly physically literate and so my parents, my family, my community members, teachers, coaches, activity instructors. Doing this kind of a great big adventure, great big walk, we have to climb, step, move, descend, balance and I wouldn’t have been able to do it if all of those wonderful folks in my life hadn’t supported me becoming a very physically literate child, physically literate young adult and then physically literate adult. So big thanks to all of you.

It was as I said an amazing day out here. We actually saw some snow leopard tracks today. Mingma pointed those out and also he said he had seen bear tracks near our camp last night. We did get to look down on the black lake, Kalo pokhari, this morning but it was actually white white. So I forget actually the Nepali word at the moment for white but it was pretty fun to look down in there.

And I am thinking in terms of a find your fit Friday lesson for today, I think sometimes when we’re out finding our fit we get amazing views ie. like from the top of signal hill and sometimes we can have amazing view of our progress. Things are going well, we are finding out fit. Things are getting easier and then other days like the last days we’ve had before today where it has been whited out and its been hard to tell we’re making progress, we’ve had to just trust and keep stepping and know that we’re getting closer to our destination. So whether you’re having amazing views of your fitness at the moment or whether you’re finding your way, just trust and keep taking some steps and hopefully you’re stepping along with us. Thanks to Bishop Abraham, glad to hear that you made it around the gym once again. That makes us very excited to hear that you’re stepping along with us. And  tonight is the last night of our stage one. We did a little ceremony today where we thanked all of our amazing support staff and we thank all of you supporters who’ve seen us through these 33 days of incredible mountain walking, climbing, traversing. We are all feeling so privileged to be here and so privileged to be seeing what we’re seeing, what we’re experiencing and also for all of the hard lessons we get when we’re feeling cold, when we’re feeling tired, when we have to struggle up yet another Nepali flat (inaudible) which really isn’t flat at all. but its an amazing experience and we are so grateful that you are with us and that you’re following along and hopefully you’re taking some great big walks and some great big steps along with us on this find your fit Friday. Take good care and we will catch you from tomorrow. Thanks Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 13 230 steps, 102 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 11 656 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, good afternoon or good morning, wherever you may be. This is TA calling in from day 34 of the great big walk. We are located at 4123 m above sea level near a lake called kalo, black lake. Kalo pokhari. We’ve had a very adventurous day. You might recall yesterday we were camped at adventure camp and today we went over adventure pass. Our climbing (inaudible) went ahead and set up a fixed line to protect everyone as they crossed over the pass. It was a little bit steep with a pretty good run up that you wouldn’t wanna fall down. So we got to use our climbing harnesses and ascenders. Ascenders are kind of like this device that has little teeth that jump, that grab and bite into the rope so that as you climb up you bring your ascender with you and if you were to fall you would just be caught by the rope. So kind of a technical day for us.

We are at the halfway mark in terms of days for the great big walk today so we’re kind of in disbelief at that. But we’re well on our way to making our goals of a million steps. Since we’re over 600 000 and 600 km, we’re at 357. So that’s always good to check in with our goals. I wanted to say a a big special hello to the grade 4s at Holy Trinity Elementary in Torbay. I had a great visit with them earlier and we’re once again (inaudible) in our little white home, our little North Face tent because it is snowing for the 6th day in a row. We got here at around noon so kind of a nice shorter little bit of a day for us. 5 918 steps for Marian, fitbits had 45 floors and just over 4 km for her. 7 362 for me in the step department so I was the winner today. 45 floors and almost 5 km, and Cam came in at 6852 and 4.5 km and yesterday she had 15 000 even. How cool is that? And 10 km. We’re looking at our elevation gain, that we actually did gain, we were probably closer to 120 floors but you know who’s counting, well we’re counting probably counting everything. One of the things that is interesting was that its snowing all the time so we may run out of power. So if you don’t hear from us one day just know that we’re waiting for sun so we can recharge the SAT phone.

We also have to dry all of our wet gear each day. We try our best not to sweat very much but our socks usually do get wet from being in the snow all day so sometimes we dry it on our shoulders and sometimes we dry them on our bellies and sometimes we use hot water bottles to warm up both ourselves and our gear. If you don’t dry your gear every day, pretty soon all your clothes will be wet and that would be no fun because one of the things I definitely look forward to after a big walk out in the himalayas is coming home to some dry warm clothes in the tent.

It is important that we have lots of good systems. We use layers when we’re outside so we dress in a base layer and then differing amounts of insulation layers. Depending on the weather and how fast and hard we’re moving and we take off those layers and put on those layers and take off those layers and put on those layers, trying to make sure that we’re just warm enough. Not too warm, not too cold just like Goldilocks we want it just right and if we’ve done it well then there is not too much to dry at the end of the day. When we do stop like we did today it was starting to snow so we got in. We quickly put on our shell layers so we wouldn’t wet. Captured all that heat and while we’re waiting to get in and get move into our wonderful little homes that keep us safe from the elements. Pretty exciting, last night we figured out a new system for our boots because our boots haven’t been drying for 6 or 7 days but we were able to keep them from freezing by putting them in a bag and keeping them between us. A little cold to cuddle up with but definitely much nicer in the morning not to have to shove your feet in frozen boots. So its been a pretty decent adventure day here, just over adventure pass. We hear the mountains  and the Nepal are beautiful and we’re excited to see them someday once this weather system lets us. This morning we did have a little bit of sunshine for about an hour or two and then it closed in, let us get over the pass and started snowing quite hard since we hit camp. Wanted to send my condolences to the (inaudible) family I’ve climbed with them and heard they had a loss. So I was thinking of them and to all of you. Thanks for following along. Hope you’ve had a great big walk and we’ll catch you from tomorrow which is again, of course, already, can you believe it? Find your fit Friday. So we’ll catch you tomorrow. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 7 362 steps, 45 floors

Total Steps for Marian:  5 918 steps, 45 floors

Total Distance for TA:5 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 33 of the great big walk/ great big climb. We are located in a place called adventure camp at an elevation of 4040m and it was definitely an adventure getting here. About 6 hours of climbing. Mostly up snow. With lots of variable weather today. We started out in bright sun as usual and then we had some snow, and then we had some white out and then we had another blue sucker hole and so on and so forth. Its currently snowing now. We’re tucked nicely into our tents after some soup and some hot drink after our big day trying to rehydrate and re-energize, because we still have 3 more big days to culminate the end of section one over the next few days. We have a big pass to go over tomorrow so we’ve been looking at maps and reading gps’s and all kinds of stuff.

With today’s elevation gain which is almost 1200 meters. So 1200 meters is 3600 feet or so. So thats about 360 floors. A little different with the fitbit although its a little bit better today. Marian had 11 350 steps, 188 floors, almost 8 km. I had 11 696 steps, 186 floors and again nearly 8 km. Because of the snow storm Cam cant hear me call out to her tent so we don’t have her data yet. We broke 600 000 steps for the project today, so that is very exciting and 350 km and with today’s elevation gain, we’ve gained nearly 51 000 feet of elevation gained. So we’re definitely specializing in up and down. Bishop of Abraham thanks for the texts. Our feet not so much but our hips and knees are definitely getting sore from all the big downhill days. Thanks for walking around the gym with us the other day. Always thrilled to hear that.

Hello to my school of human kinetics and recreation colleagues at Memorial University of Newfoundland and thanks again for the Memorial University of Newfoundland office of engagement for making these live updates from the expedition possible. Thanks bro for the text. Glad to know things are going well and I think today’s lesson was something that comes out of my sea kayaking trips from with my buddy Karen. Sometimes we’d have a weather report coming in and we’d be worried about the sea building so we always just kept saying paddle the water in front of you. And I know for a couple of days I’ve been thinking about this big day of needing to gain about 1200 meters of elevation gain and sort of getting myself all worked up about it and what I said to myself today was you know walk the trail in front of you. Just keep taking each step, each step, each step and that is how we got up here. The first hour or so was a little bit rugged but then we had a snack. We continued to kick in nice steps for our portering staff at one point. They went ahead and they quickly sat down and said nope, you guys go ahead so that we can try to ease their passage as they come up to help us.

So we’re tucked in. We’re resting. Definitely starting to feel the fatigue of the six big days of moving. 3 more until we go in to our rest day and hoping for great weather tomorrow to go over adventure pass. That is it here today from the great big walk / great big climb. Hope you’re having a good one and go out there and have a great big walk yourselves. Thanks. Bye bye!

Total Steps for TA: 11 696 steps, 186 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 11 350 steps, 188 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 32 of the great big walk. We are located at an elevation of 2920m at a place we are calling forest camp. It was a pretty eventful day so I better get to it. Marian had 19 666 steps, 92 floors, 13.65 km. I had 19 855 steps, 94 floors and 13.1 km and Cam was the big winner again at 22 495 steps and 14.88 km. I wanted to send a big hello out to the grade 4s and 5s at CC Loughlin in Corner Brook and we’re tucked into our little yellow tent once again because it is raining this afternoon. We hoped for some dry conditions but alas after our usual beautiful morning the clouds moved in so we’re not really drying anything and we’re not charging any electronics.

We had a very interesting walk today. We started in the snow and we descended a little stream called the dunghe khola. You’ll remember khola is a stream that feeds a river and at the junction we went upstream along the fun named khola kharka khola. What a great name that is. Say that 5 times fast. Khola kharka khola. I won’t say it five times fast but you can. To find a river crossing and when we found that crossing we also saw an amazingly wide flat valley so I think that is how it got its name khola kharka because it was a giant giant kharka. You could pasture probably a thousand animals in that valley. So after crossing, we descended again. We descended the khola kharka khola. I just had to say that one more time until lunch.Lunch was noodle soup, pancakes, local greens that tasted like ratini. Tuna also with greens and peas and curry. Breakfast was chapati with cheese omelette and fried potatoes. After lunch the trail, and trail in quotations marks, got a little more sketchy and at one point Cam successfully navigated a landslide area entirely on her own. An achievement for sure that we got high fives all around.

Knowing what those kind of areas caused her stress in the first part of the trip. We saw lots of evidence of wild pigs digging and moving around and saw some interesting toubas that they dig up and some folks even saw a bear scampering off the in woods, so very good natural history kind of afternoon. We stopped for a short break at a giant blue pond, this tree was amazing. It was hollow and Mingma said they actually naturally hollow themselves out at the base. The tree was still alive but 10 people could have fit inside the tree and we figured that maybe it was about 12 feet in diameter at the base. I gave it a hug and I couldn’t come anywhere near getting my arms anywhere around it. We then descended to the savim khola and when Cam first caught a glimpse of the bridge she said “no (expletive) way am I crossing that”, but then she saw that there was some bamboo saplings lashed together to provide a “hand rail” which gave the confidence to cross. So pretty exciting afternoon of negotiating this part of very little traveled Nepal. We started heading up through the forest and I noticed finally a red rhododendron blossom that was fresh ie. not full of bugs and low enough for me to pick. So Marian Cam and I, after checking with Mingma to make sure it was indeed edible. One of the edible varieties of rhododendron. Had our first taste of rhododendron. So it was definitely an eventful day all round and we actually passed the halfway mark of our Makalu map so we’re making great progress. We’ll match up with the folks that are coming in to join us in about 3 days but we have a lot of elevation to gain between now and then and thanks so much for following along. Hope you take a great big walk along with us today. Reminder that there is a great big walk heart and stroke foundation spot where you can contribute your steps or you can contribute in any way you like. Thanks for checking in and we will talk to you again tomorrow. Bye bye!

Total Steps for TA: 19 855 steps, 94 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 19 666 steps, 92 floors

Total Distance for TA: 13.1 km

Total Distance for Marian: 13.65 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 31, in a location called dunga kharka. So remembe dunga means rock and kharka means place where you pasture animals. So we’re in a rocky pasture. We actually can’t see too many of the rocks because they are covered in snow at the moment. Our elevation is 3471 m and you just heard that lovely little beep beep sound and yesterday if you listened to the update that was a texter palooza. We had 10 texts come in so that may have actually broken the record for a single day incoming text. Texts, just so you know if you use your initials instead of your full name you may score a few more characters because there is a 160 of them and seems they cut off at the end.

A big day for us here, this is a day for which this expedition was named. A great big day. A day that certainly more climb than walk. We left our snowy campsite form last night and had a 400 m gain past the Molun Pokhari which was absolutely gorgeous and then we climbed up to the Molun Pokhari path and had an amazing view of makalu though the clouds sort of hid it a little bit but cool to see it. One of our first passes where we actually had a clear view and then we had a 700 m descent, so both the ascent and descent were all in snow. The climb was pretty good because we got a good early start and so it wasn’t so bad. The steps were holding pretty well but coming back down we definitely knew the snow had gotten softer. We were regularly sinking into our knees, sometimes into our thighs and occasionally into our middle.

It was sunny most of the day so we’re all feeling a little cooked by the death star as I used to call it on Mckinley and you definitely can see a fatigue throughout the entire team. Again probably not a day where our fitbit statistics really reflect the reality of our day but Marian had 13 929 steps, 41 floors, 9.67 km. I had 16 896 steps, 55 floors and 11 km and Camolina was the winner today with 19, 264 steps and 12.75 km. In reality the 400 meters is probably closer to 120 floors. Wanted to say a big hello to the grade 4’s at Bishop Abraham. I know you guys are following closely. Hope you’re having a great Monday at school today. We came as close I think to Tibet as we will come when we were at the Molun Pokhari today. We had joked at some point about a run to Tibet but it turned out the topography was quite steep so it definitely wouldn’t have been a run to the poptila into Tibet. It definitely would’ve been a long climb. I wanted to share a couple of mountain geography terms with you today. These are sherpa terms for some geography because we are travelling through mountain geography. So in sherpa a mountain is known as a Ree and a snowcovered mountain is actually known as a kangree.

We’ve been spending a lot of time in the forest its called natti. We went by a sacred pokhari or lake today and in sherpa that would be a tso. T-S-0. We haven’t seen, we saw one glacier in the trip in the distance but glacier is a dza. D-Z-A and we’re camped beside the dunga khola so the dhunge river today. So in sherpa a river is known as a sangpo. So those are some mountain geography terms from the sherpa language. So that’s it for our big Monday. I was reminded today of a book I read once called “We made the road by walking” and definitely this piece of the trail, the great Himalayan trail we’re on at the moment, its just a line its not a fixed route and so Lakpa and Chandra once again were the trail makers. Followed by us step fixers like yesterday. It is a line on the map it is not a developed trail so we definitely appreciate their expertise in finding the route having come through this piece before.

Awesome day with big mountain dews. Lots and lots of snow and as you can probably hear we worked pretty hard so we’re pretty tired. So that is it for us today and we will catch you from the great big walk tomorrow. Hope you had a little time to get out and find your fit and do a little walking, running, shuffling or whatever it is that makes you happy and gets you moving. Thanks. Take care! Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 16 896 steps, 55 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 13 929 steps, 41 floors

Total Distance for TA:11 km

Total Distance for Marian: 9.67 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 30 of the great big walk. We are located about 100 m below the Molun Pokhari. Pokhari is the name for lake in Nepali and Molun is the name of this particular one. Many pokhari’s in Nepal are considered sacred so we are staying here at this spot which is a lovely place to camp. It’s got what is an amazing view of snow caps (inaudible) to respect the sacredness of the Molun pokhari. We are at an elevation of about 3814 m above sea level. We gained about 700 m today and the theme of my talk today is snow day. I love snow days and we’ve had a couple different kinds of snow days here. In Newfoundland and Labrador we have snow days in winter time when we have severe storms and school kids sometimes will sleep with their pyjamas on backwards and sometimes they will put (inaudible) under the pillows so that they don’t have to go to school that day. We didn’t have that kind of snow at first. We had a snow day where basically all of the 700m that we gained today were in the snow. So lakpa and Chandra set to early to start making those steps and once everything was all packed up we headed out (inaudible) gradually we caught up with some of the (inaudible) and eventually they just let us pass. So we headed out we caught some of the folks and so they had us (inaudible) since our loads are so much less.

We could help improve those steps. Stepping in rhythm and making our way as we go and trying to improve the steps for those of us coming behind. So we were climbing for about 3 hours trying to take good care of lips and our face skin with lots of sunscreen and lip balm because it was sunny when we started out and then topped out at this wonderful spot where we’ve got camp and we can see views across the valley and it ended up being a second kind of snow day in that we finished at about 11 am and that usually doesn’t happen to us often. So we get kind of a snow day in the afternoon to just relax. I here ray listening to music, we’re doing blog posts to send off to world expedition and we had a most wonderful lunch. So its two kind of snow days here. Marian again, this is the kind of day that I think the fitbit has a little bit of challenge in picking up our efforts. Marian had 3 178 steps, 51 floors, 2.21 km. I was the step winner today with 5 504, all those good little steps I was trying to repair, 49 floors, 3.64 km. In reality the floors probably should’ve been closer to 210 given how many meters we gained. Cam had 2 930 steps. 2.5 km but we’re all happily tucked in to the afternoon. Our tents are up. The view is gorgeous and we’re wishing you all the best from the great big walk and we will catch you either later today or tomorrow, based on all those texts we just pulled in. Thanks and have a great day. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 5 504 steps, 49 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 3 178 steps, 51 floors

Total Distance for TA: 3.64 km

Total Distance for Marian: 2.21 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 29 of the great big walk. We are located at 3100m above sea level at Bakim Kharka. I remind you that a kharka is place where animals are brought to pasture. There’s the remains of a little pasture building here made out of bamboo and it was a different kind of day for us. We got started a little bit later because we were waiting for food resupplies to come up. Definitely a hot one for us down below, the Canadians are all wilting a little bit so we climbed back up to snow so now we are feeling quite comfy. It was definitely an uphill walk all the way. We gained almost 800 or 850 m and given that we’re on a linch trail system at the moment. The trail is much more primitive. So lots of stepping up and over and on rocks and lots of (inaudible) and things. The forest was absolutely gorgeous again today with rhododendrons in bloom some magnolia’s, lots and lots of moss and fern and even some laila’s in one of the kharka’s. We’ve had an interesting experience watching some of our staff start foraging in the forest the last couple of days. They are foraging in the forest, the last couple of days. They are foraging for what they call thicke. They will cook it with salt pepper and chilli and have it with (inaudible). Yesterday’s thicke was reminiscent of Japanese maltweed. You peel the stems and it’s kind of a (inaudible) and you can eat it raw or they could cook it up which they did.

Today’s forage was for sort of a flower cluster from a ground leaky plant. We haven’t had a chance to try that yet because it does need to be cooked before you can eat it so we’re looking forward to trying that with our dinner tonight. Definitely here on day 29 finding the joys of simple camping life. We basically eat sleep walk, eat sleep walk, eat sleep walk and we (inaudible) a piece of research that you might be interested in that said that after 4 days of camping your body will naturally reset to the daylight that you’re situated in. So that you’ll rise in the morning with the rise of the sun and you will go to sleep with the fall of the sun. Which is indeed true for us. We’re lucky these days if we can stay awake till 7:30 and we’re up between 5:30 and 6 when the sun rises here and there’s definitely a wonderful simplicity that comes from living outside. One of my current research projects actually is talking to folks that are 50 and older who are still taking trips that are longer than 7 days. So if happen to be out there and would love to participate, drop me a line and I will chat with you when I get back. But I am interested in what happens to folks when they do spend more than a weekend outdoors. What happens?

What is different about being out here for the length of time that we’re being. I am definitely thinking about that a lot and writing about that in my journal and will be reflecting on some of the data and some of the interviews that I have already done. Definitely enjoying our great big walk. Today Marian had 15 235 steps, 281 floors, 19.19 km. I had 14 173, 311 floors. 9.37 km and Cam had 14 950 and 9.9 km. A little bit of a measurement difference between the different devices and the heights of the various humans wearing them. So basically it was a big walk. Lots of uphill today and a pretty good distance. Sylvia thanks for the congrats. We are all pretty pleased to be done with the phase 1. We know that phase 2 we’ll start walking in and start meeting is in about 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 days so they start walking tomorrow. Your sisters are a little worried that something is on the go at home so give us a text and let us know that everything is okey dokey if you would. And that is it from this Saturday on the great big walk. Hope you’re having a fabulous weekend. Get out go for a walk. Grab a buddy. Climb a hill. Do whatever it is that gets you excited to move your body and be physically active. Thanks and have a great day. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 14 173 steps, 311 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 15 235 steps, 281 floors

Total Distance for TA: 9.37 km

Total Distance for Marian: 19.19 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 28 on the great big walk. Its find your fit Friday. We are in a village called Hongon at an elevation of 2323 m above sea level. We had a fabulous walk today, we are on much more of a main trail so we actually got to pick up our heads and look around a little bit and we walked for about 7 hours and completed about 17 km today. Marian had 24 268 steps, 273 floors and just around17 km. I had 24 908 steps, 277 floors again around 17 km and Cam had 25, 803 steps and again right around 17 km.

I am the ambassador for Recreation Newfoundland and Labrador find your fit campaign so that is why Fridays are find your fit Fridays and I wanted to give you some tips from our great big walk here that we’ve been experiencing and learning from. One is that we started slowly, our early days were easier than our days are now. We built our strength and endurance over those first 2 weeks and now we are feeling much stronger and able to power up some of the hills. Walking is definitely an excellent way to find your fit. Here on the great big walk we walk anywhere between 3 and 7 hours each day. For health benefits it is recommended that folks try to get 10,000 steps into a day and you don’t have to do them all at once. You can do some in the morning, some at lunch, some in the evening. Just sort of building up to that number too.

You don’t have to necessarily go out and get 10,000 steps your first day. Maybe 3000 the first day and then work your way from there. One of the things that we definitely find here on the great big walk is having comfortable shoes and boots make it a whole lot more comfy to be walking and hiking along. We hike in our bigger boots during the day and trade into lighter shoes in the evening. One of the great things about being on the great big walk is we’re walking outdoors everyday and the outdoors is a great spot if you can find your fit sometimes outdoors. Some of the research shows that you’ll work towards your fit a little bit harder outdoors but you won’t notice it as much so people tend to feel like they are having an easier time because there is so many other things to pay attention to when you’re exercising outdoors and there is lots of other benefits that come your way. You’ll make some vitamin D, there is usually a sense of calm and relaxation that comes from finding your fit outdoors.

You can find a fit that fits, for us here on the great big walk we definitely all enjoy walking but in other parts of our lives we enjoy other things. I enjoy ice hockey, any kind of outdoor sports, kayaking, canoeing, those kind of things. Other folks may like skating or walking or running. There’s lots of different ways to find your fit. A great place to find lots more information about finding your fit is the recreation of Newfoundland and Labrador website for lots of ideas, tips and other ways to find your fit. As we’ve been on the great big walk here we’ve been walking some ancient footpaths and these footpaths generally link villages together and that reminds me of the origins of the East Coast trail that we have on the along the East Coast of Newfoundland and I know for me when I am training for mountaineering expeditions and as I got ready for the great big walk I spent some time walking and hiking along the East Coast trail so it is another great resource for finding your fit.

We celebrated another milestone here today on the great big walk. We passed the 300 km mark. We also got about 535 000 steps each or so and we’ve gained about 43 280 feet or so. Give or take! My final tip for today is its great to count things. I am big fan of using pedometers or fitbits or GPS’ or even good old fashioned counting steps, just myself or Gmaps pedometer, but its pretty helpful to set goals and then use some mechanism to measure your progress towards those goals to give you milestones to celebrate and for me I get to draw graphs and all kinds of things in our log books for our expedition. So a few tips from us here on the great big walk out to you on this find your fit friday. Hope you can get out for a walk or a run or a stroll and take a friend with you. Actually I have one more tip which is go with a buddy. Find someone who will encourage you to find your fit, get you out of bed when you don’t want to get off your bed or off the couch and sometimes it is more fun to share your fit with someone else. So a great day here, day 28 on the great big walk. Happy Friday to everyone, find your fit and will catch you tomorrow from Saturday on the great big walk. Take care! Bye bye!

Total Steps for TA: 24 908 steps, 277 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 24 268 steps, 273 floors

Total Distance for TA: 17 km

Total Distance for Marian: 17 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 good afternoon, at least afternoon in Nepal calling in from Day 27 of the great big walk. We are here again in Chyamtang at an elevation of 2187 m and we have had a very excellent day resting, relaxing, , laundrocating and practicing ascending and descending. I wanted to say a special hello to all the schools that are following along, specifically today to Bishop Abraham and the grade 4’s there and a special hello to Mrs. Courage who I know has been our longtime follower and reader of Everest books. Just a reminder that you can leave us questions. They will get texted in if you want to know something specific about how life is going for us on the great big walk and it was great today to have a couple of different texts. Thanks Tyler for letting us know that they fitbit floor is equal to 10 feet and welcome aboard Jerry Riley. Good to know that you’re enjoying reading about our exploits here on the great big walk. Welcome aboard! And thanks as well to the Memorial University of Newfoundland office of engagement for their support of these audio blog posts.

One of the things that we did today was entertain the entire village of Chyamtang it seems. When we got to practice our rope ascending and descending techniques. When we go over eventual paths over the next week we may need to use fixed rope and we practiced that it seemed like everybody in the village turned out to watch. It was quite entertaining because even the 5 year olds were climbing the type of rock without any protection that we were all geared up with our harnesses and (inaudible) so it was quite fun and it was kind of a great scene in my mind at the moment. If you can picture sort of 40 people at the bottom all sort of watching a visitor to Nepal go up a rope, you sort of have a little bit of the picture.

Wanted to mention our amazing awesome rest day lunch today. On rest days we have the most awesome food. We had meat momos and local greens and bamboo shoe that were harvested nearby so that was a pretty yummy lunch and usually if we’re lucky we get cake that is baked by our amazing cook team for dessert on rest day so we’re all hoping and crossing our fingers that cake is coming our way.

In terms of walk totals today I had 4 381 steps, 27 floors and 2.9 km. We walked over to a river to wash some clothes and some hair and clean off some boots to get them ready for waxing. Marian had 3646 steps 26 floors and 2.5 km and Cam was wearing her fitbit much today so she reported in at 837 steps and 0.5 km. She actually did much more than that but you know if you don’t wear the fitbit you don’t get the credit. Kind of an exciting thing, one of the things you can do is catch up on the journal on rest days. So we added up all the floors and with our new statistic of knowing that a floor is 10 feet it turns out that we have done a total of 40 240 feet of elevation gained, registered or measured by the fitbit. Which comes up to about 12 000 m of elevation gained which means we have climbed Everest one and a half times already from sea level so that is pretty exciting. We are only a third of the way through.

Also thought I would tell you since we are here in Sherpa village a little bit about the prayer flags that we see quite often. Their other name is Lungta or wing ports and the idea is when the wind blows is the prayer gets released from their prayer flag den. Different readings that I have done give them different colors or give the different colors different meanings, but one that I had read says that the blue means air, the white means water, red fire, green earth and yellow space and when you see the strings of prayer flags they usually go in that order. Blue, white, red, green, yellow and repeated patterns. So on our trip here so far sometimes we’ve seen one in Olungchungola there was one green. Like probably 200 feet of green prayer flag flying. Sometimes you’ll see white prayer flags, you will see vertical prayer flags as well but I know for me they are one of the highlights of this visit to the Himalayas and very special part of being here in Nepal. So that is the rest and relaxation, R&R, rest day report from the great big walk day 27. We don’t have another rest day for 10 days so we’re all glad to have clean happy dry laundry, clean happy dry feet and mostly clean happy dry (inaudible). Hope you’re having a great day out there. Hope you’re doing some walking and we will catch you tomorrow from find your fit friday. Take care. Bye bye!

Total Steps for TA:  4 381 steps, 27 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 3646 steps, 26 floors

Total Distance for TA: 2.9 km

Total Distance for Marian: 2.5 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 26 of the great big walk from the village of Chantan at an elevation of 2187 m. It was another great day here on the great big walk and the big news is cumutivaley ie. when we add it all together informally I think we have hit the half a million step mark on the project so that is pretty exciting. Half a million on day 26 so we’ve hit that our goal was a million steps and so it looks like we’re on track for that. Marian actually had 19 467 steps today and 205 floors, 13.5 km. I had 19 719, 209 floors, 13.3 km and Camolina 20 500 with 13.6 km. We left the yak kharka and I didn’t sleep so well last night because I had a yak that just seemed to be right outside the tent ringing its bell last night and we had a short climb up to a path and then we dropped 1000 m to the aru natti and you may remember that natti is a Nepali word for large river and the Aru natti is the largest river in Nepal and it actually goes by our leader Judah’s home village. So he is quite in touch with the Aru natti. It made me think of several white water adventures and folks that I’ve traveled on rivers with. Marian and I actually stood in the middle of the suspension bridge and tried to see if we could find a line through the white water we were seeing. Special hello goes to Kristen, Karen, Denise, Jim, Mark , Darren, Lu, George, Paul and Joe.

It was a pretty big descent so by the time we hit the river we were pretty excited actually to have some lunch and get rested up for the big 40 0m climb up here to Chantan. It was actually a lovely acsent and felt good after the 1000 m or actually really the 3000 m that we’ve descended in the last few days. Tomorrow is a rest day so that is pretty exciting to give the legs a bit of a break and when we arrived there was still some sunshine. That was the first time since we left Olungchangola. So it did allow us to get some of our sleeping bags dry get some of the condensation out of everything and we started charging the batteries that power our electronics. We’ve either had a lot of snow or rain everyday in the early afternoon during the past week so it was really lovely to get things a bit dry and we will continue that process tomorrow with laundry. We saw a clearcut area today that will be burned in a few weeks to make an area to grow crops. Having just traveled through an area with lots of landslides and where wood was treated as a precious resource it was a bit hard to see this sort of slash and burn agriculture but in talks with Judah he said that was a family probably that needed to grow crops to feed itself and that was the best way that they knew how to do it. So it is always interesting to learn about different ways to work with the land.

Our arrival in Chantan again has made us sort of a spectacle so the folks who live here year round are watching us and at the same time we’re watching them. We did note the intense green of the new potato plants, the potato plants are up in beautiful green as well as the spring onion. And we did see a couple of bilkos, bilkos are wicker baskets you see here a lot in Nepal containing a chicken with her new brood of day old chicks so pretty exciting to see those guys. We also saw some folks thrashing millets and our neighbors while we were taking our afternoon tea break they were actually having some fermented millets from tonga’s which is sort of a wooden container. They ferment the millet and then add hot water which removes the alcohol and you suck it through a straw so different refreshing beverages were had by all here in Chantan this afternoon. So that is day 26, we’ll wrap it up here. Hope you’re having a great day. Pretty excited to have achieved half a million steps in our first 26 days and we will talk with you tomorrow again and hope you will take a great big walk somewhere in the world to celebrate our half a million steps by adding a few of your own. Thanks a lot. Take care. Bye bye!

Total Steps for TA: 19,719, 209 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 19,467 steps today, 205 floors

Total Distance for TA: 13.3 km

Total Distance for Marian: 13.5 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 Namaste from Day 25 of the great big walk. We are located in a karka and if you remember a karka is a yak pasture and I wish you could hear the yak bells because actually this karka comes with lots of yaks. They have been wandering around the back of the tent, they have handy dandy bell sounds and sometimes we hear them grunting and groaning as they walk by probably wanting to eat something under our tent. We’re camped at an elevation of 2700 m and it was a little bit of surprisingly big day for us here on the great big walk. We knew we were dropping about 800 m but we hadn’t counted on how undulating the terrain would be. So Marian had 29 080 steps, 201 floors and a distance of 20.18 km. I was in there at 29 783, 221 floors almost 20 km and Cam was in there, the big winner for steps, 30 451 and a distance of 20.13 km. So some decent terrain that we covered today. Day 25 we found was a bit of a day of reflection for Marian and I we are more than a third through our great big walk and our colleagues are now a sixth of the way through theirs. They are going through the entire way. It definitely seems like the day’s routine is well ingrained and the speed at which days pass is a lot quicker.

Hard to believe that yesterday morning we were camped at 4900m with views of Makalu camped in the snow and today we are camped in the rain in the middle of the yak pasture and today’s highlights included multiple trips through the bamboo forest. Seeing rhododendrons in bloom as well the magnolias. Their blossoms are just amazing. To me they look like flocks of doves perched in the trees. Given that we’ve gone up and down now through the terrain several different times we are becoming very familiar with which vegetation and trees live at different elevations and what we can expect and we can almost guess what elevation we are on what trees we are seeing.

We did lots of rock kopje this morning as we descended the modek cheju khola as well as lots of up and down of very slippery kind of rocky mossy terrain. It had me thinking of my colleague from the school of human kinetics and recreation at Memorial University. My colleague Jeanette Byrnes’ work on fall prevention and reduction and was thinking about how grateful I was that I feel pretty able to catch myself because I think sometimes when people are worried about falling they don’t realize that one of the things that they can be doing is working their ability to catch themselves and maintaining that ability to catch. And one of the ways we do that here is using trekking poles so that when we’re going over more challenging terrain we can pull out a trekking pole which gives us a third or a third and fourth point of balance. So if we’re someone who has been a walker in doors who would like to walking outdoors and is a little bit worried about falls, maybe you can borrow a pair of trekking poles or ski poles or nautical walking poles as a way to both involve your upper body in your workout as well as feel a little bit more secure on less even terrain.

We had a lot of fun walking as the three deedee’s. What are the three Deedee’s you ask. Well deedee is the Nepali word for sister and is often a term for respect used and so we are rarely now called by our names we are called by our respective deedee names. So Marian as the eldest is called tule deedee and given in North America tule is a brand for roof rack we call her roof rack deedee as a way to help us remember that Nepali name. I’m the middle deedee so my name is Miley. So I’m MIley deedee and so we think of me sometimes probably incorrectly as the Miley Cyrus deedee and Camolina as the young one of the the group is kanshi deedee and so we often say “Kanshi? Of course she can deedee” and so when we get called for meals or whatever they have they call us as Tule deedee, Miley deedee or kanshi deedee. Ray is dai. Dai is the Nepali word for brother and so he’s Ray dai and Judah is Judah dai and if you’re referring to your younger sibling or younger sister or younger brother as a term of respect you might use beanie as a woman and a by as a younger brother. So Marian would call me (inaudible) call her Marian deedee. So we’re having fun being the three deedee’s and a dai and enjoyed our walk tremendously today even though we, at some point, wished it was a wee bit shorter just because we are on card legs having come over the pass but we’re doing well things are great. We love being out walking everyday and hope you’re out there walking yourself, counting those steps and marking them in there with our great big walk heart and stroke site and or in our Facebook group. So thanks for following along. Take good care and we’ll catch you from tomorrow. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 29 783, 221 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 29,080 steps, 201 floors

Total Distance for TA: 20 km

Total Distance for Marian: 20.18 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 from Day 24. Some of you that know me know that 24 is my favorite number. An elevation of 3492 and the village is called Sadom. We actually walked downhill today for about 7 hours. Losing about 1500 m from our high point of the lumbha sambha yesterday and we’ve landed in the village of Sadom. And it is a very small village. Said to be closer to Tibet than the rest of Nepal and we definitely felt a little bit of a parade as we walked through. The only trekkers that would ever end up here are Great Himalayan Trail trekkers. 3 young boys have already taken up residence, sort of watching camp to see what they could see. Once we had tea, the village women and children came over and sort of peered into the tent and so we shared our cookies and one had a toothache so we suggested she found our leader who found her some pain meds. And Camolina used her tablet to shoot and share videos with the assembled crowd which was (inaudible).

It’s a big day here for new things. We’re in a new village. We’re also on a new map so we have to traverse four different maps and we’ve just joined our second map. We’re also in a new watershed having come down from a path and saw so many beautiful views today and out headlamps got new batteries. In my exhausted stupor and lack of oxygen, I forgot to say yesterday that it was very fun to watch the staff enjoying reaching the lumbha sambha as well. They were snapping photos and posing and even a few pulled out their phones and grab a minute or two of 5128m cell phone coverage. So that was pretty fun to watch. I was thinking today of the Canadian tire commercial that aired during the olympics that said every gold medal was a team event and that is definitely true of this great big walk. I then telling you all about the trek team that has been so instrumental in us coming over the pass in the last few days. But I also know there is a comm team at home, Brianne and Anthony and Earl. There is a home team. Thanks Alex for watching the house. There is a team of colleagues that covers for me at work when something needs to get done while I’m gone. I have a training team, a health care team, lots of folks out there cheering for me and so I think I wanted to send out some love and hugs and thanks to all of you for being on the team and know that this great big walk is possible because you all are there in support of it as well.

Speaking of great big walk, it was a bit of a bigger walk today at least as recorded by our fitbits. Marian had 21 340 steps for about 14.81 km. I had 21 171 steps for 13.99 km and Camolina was the big winner today with 22 801 steps, 15km. We were basically losing elevation so I had 7 floors, Marian had 6. We figured the last couple of days why we had such low readings is when we climb at altitude we’re taking basically very slow, very rhythmic kind of steps and it maybe that the accelerometer in the fitbit can’t sort of pick those up as elevation gained. We figured it was probably decently accurate with the steps but maybe not so much with the floors. So that’s it here today from day 24. It was great to come out here to the thick air. I can almost talk to you in a full sentence without losing my breath. We’re getting stuff dried out a little bit so the snow has come in once again in the late afternoon but we did wake up to a beautiful blue sky and it was amazing to see all of the peaks that surrounded us. We did get to see Makalu today, the fifth highest peak in the world and it was gorgeous. Also saw the Lhotse and will be heading towards Makalu over the next sort of while. We are now officially in the Makalu region. On the Makalu map so you will be hearing more about Makalu as we go. So we’ve got two days more walking till our rest day when we can hopefully get everything truly dried out but know we appreciate knowing that you’re out there. Hope you’re taking some walks or doing something to be physically active yourselves and we will catch you from tomorrow. Thanks have a great day. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 21,171 steps

Total Steps for Marian: 21,340 steps

Total Distance for TA: 13.99 km

Total Distance for Marian: 14.81 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 23 of the great big con as we’re calling it for at least the next couple of days. We had another big day here on the great big walk. We were out for almost 10 hours today. Moving for just over 7. And its kind of funny, we’re all kind of thinking the fitbit lied. We’ve all got them in new locations and we definitely know that its not picking up our movements in terms of our climbing because it gave us credit for only about 20 floors today when in fact it should’ve been about 180 with the meters that we gained. But anyway its what we got its what we got. Marian had 9918 steps and 20 floors, 6.81 km. I had 9628 for steps. I had 18 floors. 6.36 km and Cam had 6638 for steps. 4.39 km. We figured it was about probably in the vicinity of 6 km something like that. We crossed over the lumbha sambha. I can actually say its name today and with the amount of snow we’ve had, we’ve had 36 hours of snow. It was a decently epic day and it was especially epic for Mingma and Lhakpa who did the majority of the trailbreaking. Chandra helped the out as well and Cheri did as well but the lion’s share definitely went to Lhakpa the awesome and Mingma the magnificent.

And so since I have been telling you a bit about Mingma and Lhakpa I wanted to share with you the sherpa tradition of naming children for the day they were born and so Mingma was born on a Tuesday and his Mingma is associated with Mars. Lhakpa the awesome was born on a Wednesday and his planet is Mercury. If I was sherpa, because I was born on a Thursday, my name would’ve been Perba and I would be Jupiter. Tasang is born on Friday and Venus is the planet. Pemba on Saturday with Saturn. Nema, we have a few Nema’s on our crew. They were born on Sunday and the Sun is their planet and we have Odawel on our team as well and he was born on Monday and the moon is his sign. And if there is more than one child born to the family on the same day of the week, they often take a different middle name like Odaweldojay or On Mingma and things to differentiate.

I must say as we climbed up through the snow for hours on end today I had memories of lots of other big days in the mountains. Climbing to high camps in Aconcagua almost every day of climbing Mount McKinley and I’m glad for all those skills and experiences that I’ve had in the past as its fun to remember them. And it’s great to be out here taking this great big walk and definitely its a great big walk. We had some Tomato soup and I think we’re getting galbi for supper tonight. That will be a great energy replenisher. Up high for our second night in a row so it is going to be another chilly one but we’re going well, we’re hanging in, staying motivated and hope you took a glorious walk or whatever way you wanted to find your fit on this Sunday. Maybe it was your rest day. Rest days are good too. Definitely was not a rest day for us, we’ve got about I think 3 more days till we get our next rest day but looking forward to getting down out of the big snowy cold so that we can get things dry. We’ve been dealing with a lot of condensation and ice and snow so it will be nice to get down and see some trees again. But all is well here and thanks for tuning in and to Mrs Courage’s grade 4 class, we saw two lakes today as we crossed over. The name of lakes in Nepali is pokari. So we saw two lakes today, way up high. They were both frozen. We could’ve gone skating and so the number two in Nepali is dwee. So we said dwee pokari. I don’t have any idea how deep they were but we did see two lakes as we passed over.

Some of the terrain we traveled through today was very complex for a pass and hats off to the crew because the first part of the day was bright sunshine and then it was whiteout conditions with some flurry. So a big day, a challenging day for all and as soon as we have a little food we’re heading off to bed. Ok, take care, bye!

Total Steps for TA: 9628 steps，18 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 9918 steps, 20 floors

Total Distance for TA: 6.36 km

Total Distance for Marian: 6.81 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.