One festival that is certainly worth including on your trip to Everest Base Camp, is the Mani Rimdu Festival.  A festival that is celebrated annually in accordance with the Tibetan lunar calendar, and the completion of the harvest, Mani Rimdu brings together villagers from many areas of the Khumbu region, which lies to the Nepalese side of Everest Base Camp.

The Mani Rimdu Festival originates from the Tibetan Monastery, Rongbukh, though it is now held at the Thyangboche Monastery.  The Monastery itself sits at an altitude of over 12,887 feet and a stop here will certainly prepare you for the next 5,000 or so feet you will tackle before reaching Everest Base Camp.  The celebrations consist of prayer and dance ceremonies, during which monks will don masks that represent the divine personages they worship, whilst performing ritual dances as they re-enact Buddhist stories of old.  The monks dress in orange robes, with crescent-shaped, yellow hats adorning their heads, as they announce the beginning of the festivities with a cacophony of instruments ranging from bugles and conch shells to long brass horns.

The festivities continue for at least three days and both travellers and Sherpas alike can enjoy entertainment as well as an education on the history and fundamental beliefs of Buddhism.  The dances performed by the Monks purportedly mean many things, but one in particular appeals to the Gods for protection of the people.  This, alongside the blessing you can receive from the head Lama once you have made a contribution of corn or grain to the monk community, is bound to ensure that you have safe passage as you continue on your way to Everest Base Camp.

Arriving at Everest Base Camp tomorrow is a charity expedition aiming to raise money for
the support of people with severe learning disablities by cooking.

Yes, that wasn’t a mis-type: a chef is currently moving along the Everest Base Camp Trek
armed with the ingredients of a meal she intends to prepare for her team at an altitude of
5,360 metres, with a glacier below and the mighty Everest towering above.

Sounds like the perfect setting for a breakfast, and were not talking about milk & cereal;
the trekking chef aims to make a posh salmon and caviar breakfast on the mountain.
Suddenly I’m feeling hungry.

This amazing photo was taken by mckaysavage1 and posted on Flickr. Many thanks.

Click on the image to navigate in a light box.

image by mckaysavage on Flickr

This is the view from Kala Pattar: the sharp peak of Nuptse and Everest rising mistily behind it.

Hi.
This is a video I found showing what we can expect Rosanna and David to be seeing and doing between Day 8 and Day 10 of the Everest Base Camp trek.

This video was posted on Youtube by wwwcelticvideocom. I quite like the narrator’s accent.

After a week, Rosanna and David and all the others on the Childreach trek will be well on their way now. Everest Base Camp Trek routes. The latter stages show the Kala Pattar variation of the Everest trek where you climb to the summit of the neighbouring mountain to overlook Everest base camp. I just posted this video really to give a sense of Kathmandu and the first few days of what Rosanna and David will be seeing.

Here is a video I found showing the opening locations on one of the

Thanks to justindav1s for putting this up on Youtube.

I’ve just seen Monday’s episode of Everest ER which I downloaded off iPlayer. It’s a good show and it was great to see the BBC’s film of the place where I’ll be trekking.

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ktb46/Everest_ER_Episode_1/)

The programme follows the doctors at the Base Camp on the southern side of Mount Everest, and how they deal with the injuries and illnesses of the climbers tackling the mountain. They deal with climbers with frost bite and fluid on the lungs – even swelling of the brain – all “without the facilities of a modern hospital”.

And this is where I began to worry.

Next they showed a lone volunteer doctor in a small clinic at a village about 4240 metres’ altitude. She was waiting for a helicopter to collect a patient that she was unable to treat. Apparently, she has to deal with “hundreds of trekkers that fall ill on the trek to Everest Base Camp”.That could be me!The narrator (David Tennant – Doctor Who!) went as far as saying “even trekking here can be lethal”.

Lethal!

Perhaps the show was just exaggerating the dangers to make things seem dramatic, but now I can’t stop thinking about what might happen if things go wrong.

Rosanna

PostScript: 

Hi folks,

Just a note to say that since I wrote this I’ve had some reassuring advice from Kirsty at Mountain Kingdoms, and I’ve posted it for everyone to see:

http://www.mountainkingdoms.co.uk/blog/experts-corner-kirsty-on-altitude-sickness-part-1/

Check out what she has to say. It made me feel better.

R

With the Everest Base Camp trek in a few weeks, I’m getting quite excited about the prospect of tackling the massive mountain, but I’m also rather worried about my lack of climbing experience! This weekend I’ll be going to the Yorkshire Dales, but so far this year, so far I’ve only climbed one mountain. That was in the Lake District with Dave …it was an interesting experience.

We climbed up Red Pike Mountain which is 826m (2710ft). I found it pretty tough partly because it was raining the whole time, but also because Dave decided to make his own route up – we didn’t follow a path/advised routes. We started by climbing past a sign saying ‘Danger! Do not climb’ and then proceeded to scramble up a waterfall! I wasn’t too impressed, especially when we got to the top of the waterfall and there was a demented sheep in our path!

Half an hour of climbing felt like two hours. It was exhausting, but getting to the top felt amazing and so worth it, especially for the spectacular views! At the bottom of the mountain it was very lush and green, but as we climbed closer to the top it got colder and once we were there, it was amazing to see that the lake had frozen and it was snowing!

I wouldn’t have been able to manage the walk had it not been for Kendal Mint Cake – a fudge textured energy bar made almost entirely of sugar (100% carbohydrate!) but tasting like peppermint. It was used in the first British expedition to the summit of Everest. Dave introduced it to me about half way up the mountain – it was a saviour! I’ve got an incredibly sweet tooth so I am a massive fan of the Mint Cake.

Although I was wearing walking boots, the rest of my attire wasn’t particularly suitable – jeans, a pashmina, and a hoodie, topped off with a ski jacket. The rain and moisture made the red dye from my scarf run all over my top. I borrowed Dave’s waterproof trousers (which were massive and wouldn’t stay up!) but they helped all the same.I’m very glad I had this experience as it gave me a very small taste of what it may be like on the way to Everest Base Camp, which will be much tougher!

I’ve found that there are some songs/artists/genres that help my training more than others. Anything lethargic and slow, makes you feel lethargic and slow - so that’s definitely off the list – i.e. Coldplay, who I love, but just don’t do it for me whilst skipping!

 

Here are a few more additions to my training playlist: 

 

• I’m Sitting On Top of the World – Bobby Darin 

• I Say A Little Prayer For You – Aretha Franklin  

• Ain’t No Mountain High Enough – Diana Ross
  

I’m now back in Leeds and there’s disappointingly no swimming pool at the university. So, I have decided to make a new regime: I skip every day for 20 minutes and then go to the gym and do an exercise class (either aerobics, circuit training, ‘legs bums and tums’, ‘Fab abs’, or yoga). – I really don’t like going to the gym unless it’s for a class as I get incredibly bored after about 15 minutes. But the classes really make you work hard.

 

When I first started skipping each morning, I thought it would be really easy as I used to do it all the time for what seemed like hours as a kid. However, it is really one of the hardest kinds of exercise I’m doing – way more exhausting than jogging! I thought that once I started, I could be on a roll for about 20 minutes (like with the jogging), but after an intense non-stop 3 minutes, I want to collapse on the floor. It’s also incredibly painful when the rope thrashes your legs – it feels like you’re being whipped!

 

When we were told we had to wait until 2 o’clock for our ‘shift’ at Bag Packing we didn’t know what to do. With four hours to kill, some members of the group couldn’t be bothered to wait around, so I didn’t get a chance to meet them properly, but three others from the group stuck around with me - eager to do some fundraising!

We had a small bonding session over a breakfast bagel and then we decided that instead of wasting time and money eating, we would go around the shops, restaurants and cafes to see if anyone would donate. (These places are privately owned, so with the letter of authorisation from Childreach, which luckily I had on me, I could ask permission from the mangers to collect on the premises from their customers.)

 At first, I found this quite daunting and slightly embarrassing, especially after rejections from many managers, however, my confidence soon picked up and I think that being bubbly  enticed people to want to help us. I also discovered that if I said something like: ‘Would you like to donate to Childreach International to help kids in Africa and Asia…?’ barely anyone gave anything, but If I started with: ‘I’m climbing to Mount Everest base camp to help raise money for Childreach…’ then 80% of the time, people would give money!  

I got donations from many different people – cafe staff, shop staff, jewellers…the list goes on.  The majority of the donations were small change, but one woman gave me £5 and another cafe emptied their tips jar into my bucket! Most cafe owners (understandably) didn’t let us collect in their cafes, but one cafe manager told me I could stand outside his cafe and pester his customers as they came and went! This was very effective!

By the time our slot had come for Bag Packing, we were already exhausted, but it was well worth the wait. It was a fun experience and I met so many interesting people and had some very random conversations!

 Rosanna