Historic Images – Everest from Kala Pattar 1990

I’ve been scanning some of my old photos, I have literally boxes of them, and at least having them as bits of paper means that I still have the technology to view them!

Anyway here’s one that has always been close to my heart. It was taken in April 1990, that’s Everest in the background and I’m lying on the shingle which makes up Kala Pattar.  It was the highest point I reached on the Everest Basecamp trek and in my life.  I’d been posed on the ground for a while, waiting for my companion to get back from the top, to document the moment.  Oh OK, I was absolutely stuffed and wouldn’t have made it to the top for all the chocolate, or gold in China. The top is 5500m so I always claim to have made it to 5300m. I’d finally surcumbed to altitude sickness and was too dizzy to keep walking – even a wide gravel slope, and I knew I’d have to walk a ridge at the top – too dangerous.  I couldn’t even stand and wait – so that’s why I’m lying artistically!

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6 Comments

  1. Vi on April 30, 2012 at 11:33 pm

    I was 116 meter higher 😀
    I passed Thorong La pass (5416m) couple years ago 🙂

    • Elisabeth on May 1, 2012 at 8:27 am

      That’s impressive – I was lucky – I did get any real symptoms until that last day – but I am blown away that people have climbed Everest without oxygen – I can’t even imagine walking on the flat on a smooth road at that height!

      • Vi on May 1, 2012 at 9:44 pm

        So may be you just climbed too fast and didn’t have enough stops for acclimatisation.

        • Elisabeth on May 1, 2012 at 10:01 pm

          I’d slept at the last hut which is at 5100m – you can’t just sleep anywhere, you have to sleep in the existing huts (assuming you haven’t spent the $30k to actually climb the mtn 🙂 ) I could have tried again the next day after going back down – but I was fine with where I got to.

  2. Glenn Dixon on May 1, 2012 at 12:50 pm

    Lis! I can’t believe you were up there! Thoroughly impressed!

    • Elisabeth on May 1, 2012 at 3:44 pm

      Yeah – it made me understand why mountaineers do it, and also confirmed that I would never climb mountains for fun LOL

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