1 year of planning, intense training, triathlon, gym, weight training with my trainer Derek, to be in best possible shape, a charity for raising money for Nepal, great support from friends and family, almost 3 weeks on the mountain and the day has finally arrived. You know the feeling when you have been longing for […]

On this early morning, the clouds float at around 5000 meters. They are far under us at 6000 meter camp 2 and it makes for a beautiful scenery. From our tent (proper altitude tent this time), we can see perfectly Manasulu scrapping the sky at more than 8000 meters as well as Annapurna, made famous […]

I slept fine surprising myself for not feeling the slightest headache at such high altitude. I open the door to the outside world and see beautiful weather, blue skies and sun slowly coming down to our camp 1. The period between 6-7am when we wake up and 8-830am when the sun hits the camp always […]

Breakfast is served at 730am, we are aiming to leave base camp at 8am. We all meet in the mess tent. Xav is pretty much done with his packing, Glenn seems to be as well, I feel a little behind in selecting the gear and what to take, what to leave behind. There is already […]

The pressure is slowly increasing. Today is our second rest day but we all know that tomorrow we start the final push. We have to start packing tonight to make sure all the critical gear is in the bag without carrying too much. 1 item forgotten could compromise the summit push.

Today is a rest day (as well as tomorrow) in order to recover from the past 3 days of very high altitude, and to build red blood cells, it’s a critical step of the acclimatisation and an important milestone of the expedition. I like the way Chris puts it: “your body has taken a hit […]

it’s 9am and we are packing. The usual morning routine (by now you all know it): melt snow, drink hot, eat a freeze-dried porridge or cereal of your choice, freeze your ass when you get out of the 32 degree inner sleeping back to the outside -10 degree world in your undies and t-shirt, get […]

Today is the real deal. We wake up and start the morning routine of melting snow, preparing ‘breakfast in a bag’, eating, packing our huge down sleeping bags, stuffing our backpacks, dressing for the weather (sunny but cold). We hit the slope for a 600m / 5 hours ascent. Ice axes are not required for […]

9am start to camp 1. It’s a long day of walking in altitude towards camp 1. I think I make it in 4:58′ a little after Chris and just before Xavier and Glenn who follow around 20 minutes later. We all have our rhythm and pace and it’s important to listen to our body in […]

Today is a very sad day for all our team as we are loosing Patrick. He has been sick for the past couple days and is helicoptered out of base camp to Kathmandu. Patrick has been the coordination leader of our group of four guys, has done an awesome job liaising with Adv Peaks and […]