To ABC

We have a smooth hike from BC to Advance Base Camp (ABC).

13 Sept to ABC 5640m

Bed tea at 6am! This is an early morning trekking ritual, a polite way of telling you it is time to get out of bed and pack. On expedition we mainly manage to avoid this as once the sun hits the tents they warm up enough to drive you out, but today we were up well ahead of the sun to pack.

Once everything is packed then the weighing ritual begins, below. Most of our gear and supplies is packed into drums to protect it. Another American team had two loads not in drums dropped in the river 50m from camp.

Dawa Gyalgen, with the calculator watches the village headman (white t-shirt) weighing the loads using a traditional scale; Tashi in the red t-shirt, writes the amounts down.

For us the whole process went more smoothly, we had extra to pay a little over the contracted amount, but expected this. We are not a bare bones expedition.

The yak drivers were fantastic, loading quickly, and using mainly older, more placid yaks, so our several tonnes were delivered to ABC in record time, nothing damaged and nothing stolen.

A job well done deserves a tip around here, hence the smiles.
Many expeditions seem to have problems; we rarely do.

Men and women mostly work equally here; however while the men collected rubbish to take down,
she cooked the morning meal.

The necklaces are a traditional sign of wealth; the silver waist buckle, marriage,
and the patches of tape on the side of her face hide traditional medicine.

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