Greetings from our Makalu BC,
having the most beautiful views of the Himalayans surrounding us each
day as we wake up to the glacier river sounds and the Nepalese native
birds chirping outside our tent before our morning tea arrives from Ram
and Junger, our sidar and cook. All is going well with our climb. It is
very difficult to change our route from a new one to the Japanese 1970
SE route and then dropping into the East Cwm, the highest Cwm in the
world and up to the East Ridge, Korean route, towards the summit. We are
now above the 7,000 meter level on the SE ridge, fixing lines and
working hard with the very cold temps and extreme high winds, but we are
making it with each step.
Chris and I are feeling strong and happy with the way things are going. We love this land and its people, being a part of their daily life style is very special for us, especially during this time of living on our earth. We have rolled up over 60 years of mountaineering in Nepal in our minds, bodies and hearts; now is the time to enjoy the past years with blending in the present and future times, so that we become more respectful with what we have as of this moment. This is what climbing in the Himalayans is all about for us, to be present and real.We climbed down yesterday from our high camp at 6,600 meters, the winds and cold were too much to hang up there for any longer. During our last radio call down to BC, we heard that the Ukraine Team, who are on their SW face route, had the 4th highest minister of Ukraine arriving by helicopter into their BC for half an hour to support the National Climbing team members.
This world is very different from the Nepalese men and women who live in this area, they're looking up in the sky, seeing this huge Russian build helicopter flying on the horizon, landing only meters away from their stone hut homes, to deliver one person from a foreign land for only minutes of saying hello to fellow country men and then departing back to a world that the natives only see when reading magazines. Our Sidar Ram, was able to order 4 fresh chickens, a kilo of fresh apples, 2 kilos of carrots and tomatoes for our BC evening feast. We ended up paying for most of the Ministers helicopter expenses, but man does that fresh food make a difference. Yes, we are not from Nepal and we do bring many different ways of living to this land, some being good and some not being so good, but for the people who have the true love of sharing the riches of good living, not being based on money, fame and ego... these people bring the Nepalese people a chance to grow more open to the rest of the world, getting more educated, experiencing the ability to work over seas, creating more work within Nepal, blending western ways with eastern ways... this is what true living is all about and we all can be doing this together no matter where we are living on this earth.Like for Chris and I right now, climbing this very big mountain, we have come together to share the highest meaning of friendship and partnership. We are living together everyday, building each other up to accomplish a major goal of summiting Makalu. But more than this, the real lessons learned from this calling of climbing Makalu, the real experiences that are being learned, like not having a disowned ego, not being self centered, not only thinking of the past, not being present, not helping with the full picture and not making that extra effort to see where the other person is coming from, being aware of all this is being present and this calling to be real is what we are here for.
Thanks so much for wanting to follow our small team climbing this very big mountain. We enjoy sharing with you our highs, lows and day to day living on Makalu.
Good thoughts to all, till the next dispatch our best.
Cheers, Marty and Giannina.