We reached the airport at the allotted hour today and passed through all security and waited to leave. There have been no scheduled flights to or from Lukla since the team came down last week! We waited for 4 hours but to no avail. The weather remains very bad in Lukla with visibility less than 1500m. The helicopter pilot informed us that, understandably, they will not fly until they are totally certain they can land and get back. The accident last week has certainly meant significantly increased safety procedures for all aircraft, which is good. We are now back in the hotel but have left all our bags in the helicopter ready to go. We will be there at the airport at 06.15 so we can fly as soon as the weather clears even a little in Lukla and we get the thumbs up to land and for them to be able to take off.
We have pared down our kit to almost Alpine style travel so we can move fast and light with the Sherpas. Whilst we will not compromise on the rest days going up - so as to ensure Mark Kelly and I (both of whom have not been up to Everest Base Camp already) can acclimatise properly.
We have decided to go slowly but to do long days on the way up to get us as high as we can without the danger of altitude sickness kicking in. We will have to come down fast and with long days to ensure we can return to Lukla to get a flight back in time to get back to the UK!
Inevitably there is a concern that we can not get back from Lukla in 10 days time but the weather is improving slowly and the view is that we should be able to get down OK according to the locals who have never had such a prolonged period of bad weather like this ever before they say.
We remain determined to go through with the expedition and are also looking at delaying our departure back to the UK by a day to increase the 'slack' in the system and increase the margin of safety and decrease the time pressure.
We are dealing with the extremes of Mother Nature here and she is not in a good mood in the Everest range right now! Extreme adventure always has its price and whilst we push ourselves from a physical perspective there is little we can do when nature takes over. Mountains are dangerous places at the best of times and whilst we are trained and experienced in them nothing can be more top of mind than safety. we all want to live to tell the tale!
For now it is more sitting in the hotel, drinking coffee in the Mandela Street coffee and smoothy bar and eating steak!
We will see what Mother Nature thinks about us flying tomorrow.
