At our June meeting Hilary Cox entertained us with the story of her trip to Everest Base camp.
Our attention was grabbed at the beginning as we were asked when we last had a bath/shower. Hilary had to go without either for 21 days on this trip. We were kept enthralled as we followed her journey walking over numerous, flimsy looking, narrow, swinging bridges, up rocky paths or over areas without defined paths. There are so many visitors on this track that the Nepalese government is improving the paths.
Whilst the walkers carried rucksacks other luggage was carried by Sherpas and Yaks. Walking 6 to 8 hours a day the trek covered 96 miles there and the same coming back.
Climbing higher than helicopters can fly due to lack of oxygen in the air, at times it was so cold that you have to keep your face covered, allowing the moisture of your breath to keep your mouth from going dry. We had pictures of Hilary wearing increasing layers of clothes as she got higher. Food was of limited variety: hog dog sausages, corned beef or tuna. Also they had to drink every 20 minutes so sterilising their water was another saga.
The highlight of the trek was reaching the base camp at 17,000ft an event celebrated by photos of the Group. Coming down wasn’t quite as good, as altitude sickness took its toll, Hilary was so sick she was lifted off by helicopter as she was not allowed to fly in the small plane with the others. The group was delayed for 2 days due to bad weather resulting in lost flights back home.
Why did Hilary do this? Because she could and through sponsorship for the trip (and subsequent talks) raised funds for Cromer Youth Football Club.
The Society does not meet in August so our next meeting is September 19th when we will hear of another journey ‘Travelling to Vietnam with Traidcraft'.
Judy Leggett