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.jpg "Image") Panoramic view from the top of the Everest, 24th May - Photo: Mustafa Cihan |
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Latest News
Base Camp
 Today is the May 1st. We organised an international celebration at the base camp. We, Pepe, all our Sherpas (they also arrived to the base camp yesterday), our Brazilian friend Rodrigo, our Chinese friend Ning, our Nepalese cooks, our Tibetan kitchen helpers, we first had our photo taken all together and then passed to the common food tent. We continued the celebration here with Pepe’s offer of various cold meat and beer. At the base camp in other places, Tibetans were celebrating the May 1st, with drinks and dances. Çomolungma also accompanied us by waving its white hair around.
 These are our last days here, the preparation will start again and we will leave for higher altitudes. Most of our supplies are at the advanced base camp and some of them are at the camp at 7000 meters. We are skimping with the things that we brought with us here. That is to say, this time we are temporary at the base camp.
A new month has started, we are also preparing for a new stage of the climb; may it be easy for all of us, long live May Day!
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Base Camp
 We are at the base camp since two days; we are eating, drinking (since we have the opportunity to drink beer here!) and resting. Actually we are at an altitude of 5200 meters, which is not a height to regard. But still, after living in high altitudes for the last fifteen days, this place is good for us. One or two days later we will set off again, until that time we are trying to recover in all senses. We met with Mustafa Temiztaş, the 12th person of the team, who is responsible of the documentary film, by climbing down to the base camp. On these days, we will have the opportunity to gather the things we have in hand related to our documentary film. Base camp, other than to rest, also means to get cleaned. We all have been washed the first time since many days. A tent, rather large and can be remained standing, is put up; the hot water is filled into a bag and hang on to a pole in the tent. Well then, how peaceful would it be to have a bath under the threats of, being left out of water and soapy, the weather to turn nasty and to search for a warm nook, and having forgotten the most critical cloth among the last clean ones that has left over in the tent? There are of course other cleaning activities other than having a bath. For example, Mustafa and Haldun got rid off their excess hair and beard. On the other hand, Serkan left haircut aside and contented just with shaving.
 However the most important event of the camp days is the radical decision of Elif. Her long and luxuriant hair to be cut! Having fought with her hair during her climb, she has taken the control in hand and decided to get rid of her excess hair. It is the Aunt Doma who has a grocery at the Tibet town, who successfully brought this difficult task to a conclusion! Aunt Doma who we met at the grocery that we dropped in to get scissors, has cut Elif’s hair ably with the huge steal scissors that she brought from her house, on a stool, at the square of the village. From now on Elif will be an example to even the most perfect hairdressers and be comfortable during the rest of the climb!
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Advanced Base Camp
 We came back to 6400 meters. At the 25th of April we departed from the advanced base camp quite loaded and reached the northern col at 7000 meters. The weather was clear; therefore the descent and ascent routes were crowded. Acting all together as a team all the time, having the highest ratio of women among all the groups by four women climbers and being insistent on a resolute strategy of our own, we are attracting quite attention here.
That day, we again climbed in the accompaniment of comments. These comments are usually comprised of praises but sometimes we face with some envy questions. For example, the guides of the “most experienced” firm of here, question our most important safety equipment, helmets! Some odd questions like, why do you wear these, doesn’t your head sweat! We actually think that they do not want to come across with uneasy questions of their customers and do not want to go into a comparison of safety!
 Anyway, we came across with an unpleasant event on the day to climb 7000 meters. At the camp site of the northern col, an Indian climber got worse in the morning. The doctor from the USA has just arrived when we reached there. They injected dexametazon to the unconscious mountaineer and placed him on the stretcher to carry him down. The patient regained consciousness after a while and first taken down to the advanced base camp and then down to the base camp via stretcher. As we have learned later on, he had a brain oedema start however he is ok now. After all these, we have reached to our camp site at 7000 meters. We settled by putting up the tents that were left for us by Sherpas beforehand. Our camp at 7000 meters is composed of three tents in total, 4 girls staying in one tent and 6 boys staying in two tents three by three. In spite of the noteworthy height, we spend the first night quite well. The next day we hang around in tents until noon and we started out in the afternoon in order to ascend a little more. The first 500 meters of the route from the north col starts with steep snow and then leaves its place to the rocky terrain up until to the summit. As it is seen at a distance, the path that goes to the summit did not frighten us. For sure it is long, tiring and high, but it is not something that we cannot deal with! We had a live broadcast with Turkey during our adaptation ascending. The weather turned nasty right at that time, the snowstorm started and we returned to our tents. On the 26th of April we spent the night in the accompaniment of snowfall at 7000 meters. The weather was clear in the morning, the 27th; we waited both for the snow to settle down and for the other groups to get in the route from below. We packed and descended in the afternoon.
 By this way, we have concluded the first stage of our climb. We have been living at an altitude of 6400 meters over fifteen days. We climbed up to 7000 meters two times, spend two nights there in the final one and ascended up to 7300 meters. Well then, we deserved to rest a little! Today we are going back to the base camp, we will rest a few days and recover. Who knows, maybe we can find a chance to be cleaned up!!
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Advanced Base Camp
We are getting prepared for higher altitudes. Tomorrow, we will climb up to 7000 meters to spend one or two days. Although we keep saying equal work load, it is impossible to catch up with Sherpas. Nima and Lakhpa Sherpas have already climbed up to 8300 meters today! They are preparing the camping sites at 7900 and 8300 meters. They are not putting up the tents but preparing a suitable place. We are expecting them to come back when they are done. These people are really different from us, Nima Sherpa, 22 years old yet, doing all these work as if he going to a daily picnic with a continuous smile on his face. We also started making our preparations. Tomorrow we will climb up to 7000 meters and if the weather allows us, we will try to reach to 7900 meters on the following days. We will try to get some of us, if not all; spend the night at the camp at 7900 meters. Today we are going to arrange the climbing equipments and the food that we brought from Turkey. We are burning Mustafa Abi’s ears for his invention of the heat bridges as a solution of the dilation problem of our fuel tubes that we use in our stoves. Thanks to Mustafa Abi, Everest will resound with our stoves!
In the meanwhile, we changed the carburettor settings of the generator that wasn’t working for days, and it works now. It seems like we are taking the advantage of the engineering education!
If it goes as it is planned, we will be above on the following four or five days, we will do our best to send news to our web page via wireless communication with our camp manager Hakan. May it be easy for all of us!
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