Getting on the way- 13th May

Day one of trekking- a day of firsts. First time brushing teeth in a garden, going to the loo in the wild, and using an ice axe to dig and bury my business. And all this before five am. We quickly replaced our sleeping bags (into those horrendous compression bags), clothes and mattresses in our…

Return to Civilisation- 27th May

Last night we got back from the glacier and reached HMI. I finally have phone signal, charge and some spare time, so I will be catching up with the blog. I was using an old school notebook and pen whilst I was at Chaurikhang, so I have some notes, but many were written with a…

Winding roads- 12th May

Early morning, bags packed, a hurried breakfast and lunch stuffed into mess tins (copious amounts of chhola, poori and suji halva [chickpeas, flatbread and semolina sweet dish]), we crushed ourselves into jeeps for the six hour journey from HMI Darjeeling to Yuksum, the first capital of Sikkim. This proved to be deceptively easy start to…

Goodbye connectivity!- 11th May

Today is the last day at Darjeeling- tomorrow we head off for base camp so I won't be posting any more updates until I get back home. I will hopefully write by hand and then type up when I return.  I won't have any signal or charging abilities and will be conserving any battery I…

Tenzing Rock 3

So I seem to end up writing about fear every day!! But I guess that's partly because I'm a scaredy cat and partly because a lot of what I am experiencing is terrifying.  Today was crazy rappelling at Tenzing Rock- we used just a rope on our sides, at our stomach and then also used…