April 18, 2007

"The mountains will always be there, the trick is to make sure you are too". - Hervey Voge

Today was a rest day and I was quite glad for it, mostly due to a time consuming misadventure. I decided after much internal debate that it was a good day to have my one and only shave of the trek. The single razor I had brought along became dull after having only finisihed the right side of my face, it was clearly not up to the task of handling a week and a halfs worth of stubble, piece of crap! I continued trying to shave with it for a 1/2 hour but to no avail, the blades wouldn't have cut though butter. Believing it unlikely that any of the tea shops would sell razors I gave into the fact that I was going to have to look like an idiot for the remainder of the trek, or at least till we reached Namche Bazar and its many shops. My only hope for redemption was that the other trekkers would assume that I was being avant garde and setting a new fashion trend. Dindy and I then went for a short hike up the hills above the village, after he and the other porters had a good laugh at my expense, who could blame them? On return from our foray Kaji presented me with a razor blade, I was so happy and touched by his gift, it gave me hope of better looking days ahead. I made steady but painful progress as I was operating with the blade only and more often than not the hairs that were removed were done so by being pulled out as opposed to cut, at this point hope was starting to dim again and I decided that I would sport a goatee, situation was better than 2 hours earlier but I would still look rediculous. And then Nima came to the rescue with a shaver and new blade, I was so thankful I could of kissed him. So in the end, after 3 hours of shaving I was left with a clean shaven yet painful face.
After lunch Kaji set up a fixed line and we practiced ascending and descending the line, it was great to finally break out the climbing gear and put it to good use, it also got me quite
pumped up for the days ahead when we would finally step onto the glacier at the foot of Mera and begin our ascent. We were also supposed to practice self arrest but it started to snow and get cold so Kaji decided to call it a day.
Hail and snow today, same as yesterday, same as tomorrow.
I started taking my altitude sickness meds (acetozolmide), hopefully they'll help. It would have been nice to have some for Island peak as well, but at least this way I can see if I can handle the altitude on my own. We start climbing tomorrow, we'll establish high camp and then the following morning we'll make our summit push. I'm unsure as to whether we will only be climbing Mera central or Mera North as well. If we ascend only one peak I hope its Mera North as its the true summit, roughly 15m higher.
There has been another change of plans, instead of heading to high camp tomorrow we will spend the night at Mera base camp on the otherside of Mera La and then head up to high camp. I hope this doesn't mess up the meds as it states to take for 2 days after ascent and now I only have enough for 1 day after.