This is the moment I have been waiting for. We begin our travel to the mountain. I am very excited and nervous all the same. It takes so much to get to this point. While it truly is the trip of a lifetime and the most beautiful mountain ever....it is down right frightening at times. brad told me that ever since I decided to go, I stopped smiling. Our teammate from Belgium last night confided that he too was stressed. I loved his honesty.
In many ways it is hard to relax until this point. Despite all the help we get from porters and our agency, there is so much to manage. We will be in the middle of nowhere. For the first time, I am taking a full medical kit. I feel so good that I invested in Wilderness First Aid and Advanced Life Support classes over the last two months. It gave me a greater confidence.
I will live out of one small barrel and one duffle bag now for the next 55 days. I have a spare pair of crampons, a spare headlamp and one spare pair of glacier glasses. Excess baggage fees came in at only $175 to get here....double that for the trip home. That is the extent of the redundancy. Now the rest depends on health, weather and teamwork.
The little things that will make my trip comfortable include: the home made beef jerky provided by Ted, the extra sims card from Jamie for emergency phone calls, the very new oxygen mask and regulator from TopOut, the warm Marmot sleeping bags and my Thor base camp tent, having Will Cross on the team (a friend of Brad's), my custom 8000m suit, my pink goggles from my dear friend Sam, my iPad that houses pictures of all my friends and family...(on Everest I did not have this), a new clear Nalgene bottle, one bag of Reece's peanut butter cups, a box of earl grey tea (yes Laura Kinman, there will be London Fogs made at BC), and most importantly the full support of Brad!
I hate to say goodbye...but it is time. Love to all.
