Heli to Everest Base Camp

We were up early for an early heli, but the clouds were thick and there was no way a heli was coming in. I showered, had breakfast, but went back to bed to snooze as I felt tired. I got a knock on the door around 10am, the clouds were clearing and Karma was trying to get us a heli. But after 15-20 mins, we realised it was not going to be possible. By about 11:15am, the clouds were clearing more and we could hear heli's, and 3-4 heli's had landed at Dingboche and taken off again. I said to Karma, let's try from Pheriche. He made a call. Then he said, 30 mins, heli at Pheriche, you need to go now. We got our bags, a porter, and off we hurried. About 200m in to the walk I realised I had left my Garmin InRreach3 on charge, so I ran back to the lodge. Ran is another word, after about 100m I was exhausted and breathing very deeply and very short of breath so had to walk. I got the Garmin, and walked and jogged back to Dhanu. Then we hurried as fast as we could to Pheriche.

About 1 minute after getting to the helipad, the heli came. We had made it! They bungled our bags on the bag seat and we jumped in, and about 1 minute later we were airborn and low-level flying under thick clouds right into EBC. It took about 7 minutes and cost a total of $400 but saved us two days trekking uphill.

We arrived at EBC in light snow, clouds, and chilly. I had a fairly warm welcome from the other team members and we had lunch. I was surprised most of them were still coughing and spluttering everywhere, several of them not wearing face covers or buffs, which I found annoying.

After lunch I packed my kit bag and Gelbu Sherpa re-packed it into his rucksack in preparation for a 1am start to go up to Camp 1. Gelbu really is a great strong guy.

We had dinner, followed by a poker tournament between 7 of us. I finished 2nd and won 2000NPR (£10) although I put in 1000 NPR to play.

After poker, I went to bed and I was grateful that Gelbu was up early to move my kit up to camp 1. The night was not easy. I had tummy aches, got woken up a few times by people wrenching and coughing, and sounding very unwell. I am really trying to avoid getting ill up here. There are so many bugs going around.