Everest Diary: We are now well established at advanced base camp (ABC), but the jump up from base camp, at 5,200m, to our new 6,400m home has taken its toll on the members of the Himalayan Experience (Himex) expedition.
Even before the two-day, 22km trek, one of the team members had been evacuated to Kathmandu for emergency dentistry after an old root canal succumbed to the altitude.
David Tait, a British climber who had had to abandon his 2004 attempt on Everest due to family problems, had had a full check-up, including X-rays, on March 9th.
But the altitude at base camp proved too much for one of his molars, and expedition leader Russell Brice organised a marathon jeep ride out of Tibet and back to the Nepalese capital for Tait to have treatment.
The London portfolio manager, who raised £200,000 (€293,000) for the British charity, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and has fundraised for the same cause this year, was back at base camp 72 hours later, with his tooth restored to some semblance of normality - at a cost of $25 for a gold filling and $2,000 for travelling expenses.
Luckily his dentist in Britain is a personal friend, but Tait's extra excursion meant he missed the party at base camp, which was partly a goodbye to the trekkers who had come to support Norwegian climber Sissel Smaller and partly a send-off for the first wave of team members who were leaving for ABC the following morning.
Russell Brice uses both Nepali and Tibetan Sherpas for his expeditions, so the international team of climbers were treated to both the local and neighbouring cultures. "Treated" might be a misnomer, however, as the noise that emanated from the Tibetan three-stringed, long-necked instrument that accompanied the first session of dancing was certainly not music to our ears.
I never did discover what this instrument of torture is called. Our cook, Lacchu, who is highly educated, said it was a thumza. He is a high-caste half-Sherpa, half-Brahmin, and was probably giving me the Nepali name.
Kasang, one of the Tibetan cookboys, said it was a drumnier, but he could have been confused about the question as it was the next day before I asked him, and English is certainly not his mother tongue.
Whatever it is called, it is undoubtedly the most tuneless, toneless instrument I have ever heard.
The closest approxim-
ation to its so-called music in Western civilisation would be the sound of an orchestra tuning up, but the Tibetans dance to its vile strumming avidly.
Of course, we all tried to join in the apparently simple shuffling dance, but were soon out of synch and out of breath. Dancing at altitude is not to be recommended, especially energetic dancing.
But things got worse when the neighbouring Norwegian expedition arrived, complete with their own music supply, which suited us Westerners much better.
Soon we had the Sherpas and the yak-men jiving, while the Sherpani stood in awe like beautiful wallflowers against the sides of the tent.
But we couldn't stick the pace. Bob Marley's No Woman No Cry apparently lasts a full seven minutes, a fact that has probably escaped all but the most rampant Marley fan. Dancing for seven minutes at over 5,000 metres is a killer.
By the time the song had finished, we knew all about the seven minutes and reckoned that, by the end, we were acclimatised to at least 8,000 metres.
The party went on into what we now call the wee small hours, with everybody tucked up by 10.30pm. But mountain time is very different from sea-level time - that was a big night out.
We'd met one of the Norwegians earlier in the day when Eirik Bjargo had asked us to participate in a medical study. The Oslo-based chiropractor is part of a 10-man expedition led by Jon Gangdal, who spent five months fighting a life-
threatening liver infection after his 2003 attempt on the south side of Everest.
The Norwegians have already had to evacuate two team members with high altitude pulmonary oedema, but Bjargo is hoping the study will identify a specific gene that seems to predispose climbers to success on high-altitude mountains.
The Angiotensin II enzyme was the subject of a preliminary study carried out on climbers attempting Mont Blanc, which straddles the French and Swiss borders. All those with the enzyme reached the summit, but only 60 per cent of those without it did.
Bjargo, together with British climber Julian Thompson, are taking saliva samples from 100 climbers attempting Everest from the north side, and a further 100 samples are being taken from climbers on the south side. I am sample number 29 on the north side.
The results of the anonymous study will not be published until the autumn, by which time I'll either have reached the top of the world or not.