Day 2 at ABC

Wednesday April 28th
Day 2 @ Advanced base camp
Due to the weather, we stayed in our tents until about 8 am when the sun can shine brightly on them to warm them up. As I awoke early the entire tent on the inside was frozen. The sunglasses had a thick layer of frost on them and I just didn’t want to get up until the inside was thawed out.
By 845am the ice was gone and I was able to get up and go to breakfast. Pancakes and bacon was on the menu and I ate about half of it and a couple of pieces of bacon.
The wind had stopped during the night (Thank goodness) but it was still cold. The sun provided a good deal of warmth if you stood in the rays or was in your tent.
After breakfast, we all went back to our tents. The sun was shining and it felt good for about 30 mins. After that I did everything imaginable to try and stay cool but the heat in the tent was unbearable. I finally had to get up around 11 am and went to the dining tent. We stayed in the dining tent until around 12 when we had lunch and then I went back to the tent due to the cold weather again. I thought we were going on a 2 hr hike around 2pm weather permitting but before I knew it Jim was making his 5 pm base camp call. The opportunity to move up another 1000 ft had been lost but the weather was just too bad to go.
The snow had been falling for hours and the temperatures had been dropping and the sun was long gone. We would have another night of -0 Fahrenheit weather. It was a clear night when I looked out at the summit of Everest below a sky full of stars. The snow capped mountains were just unbelievable as the night looked like daylight inside the tent with all of the reflections off the snow.
It is amazing how much one can sleep his life away up here. The altitude, the cold weather outside vs the warm weather in the sleeping bag and the hiking just takes its toll on your body and I am not a lazy person at all.
One thing at this campsite that drove me crazy was the big rock in the middle of my tent. I could not find a way to keep my head up. I moved around every way I could in the tent (didn’t really care about where my feet pointed for religious purposes) and I couldn’t find a way to do it. The rock was perfectly placed right in the middle of my tent. I didn’t have the heart to tell the guys because they would have tried to fix the ground but I had seen the work they had done just to get it at this level which was not easy. The rock was right in my hip bones and it just worked on me all night. I was popping Aleve to help but it was not going to be helped until I got out of this tent site. What these guys accomplish on a “side” of nay terrain and on top of any surface (rock, snow and ice) is an amazing feat so doesn’t let it sound like I am complaining but did want to remember my 2 nights at ABC on my “teeter totter” rock in the middle of my bed.
We got up about 630 for dinner in the dining tent. It was another good meal of chicken and rice but it was so cold I could hardly eat. I had my Mountain Hardwear jacket on and I was still cold. I drank a couple of cups of hot tea but nothing was going to get me warm but the sleeping bag.
We went to bed at 715 pm and the wakeup call was going to come about 5 am for our trip back to home (base camp) and I was ready to go home. These 4 days were good for my acclimatization but I was smelling pretty bad and I needed a shower and I wanted the comforts of my bed in base camp vs these last 2 camps.