Blessings from the Lama

Since we last left you, we have gained 3,000 feet in altitude and the all-important blessings from the High Lama Gesche of Pengboche. He presented us with ceremonial Kata scarfs which symbolize good luck and safe passage up the slopes of Mt. Everest. Here we are at the Tengboche Monastery, the largest monastery in all of Nepal and prior to our ritual blessing by the Lama:

A German trekker apparently did not receive these blessings and found herself in very serious condition afflicted by HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema). If it wasn't for her good fortune to stumble in to our lodge which we shared with a group of doctors, she may not have been as lucky to have the benefit of a Gamow Bag. This pressurized inflatable chamber where she slept inside for the night, simulates a much lower altitude and very likely saved her life.

After spending a night at Debuche at approx. 12,300 feet we continued up to Dingboche yesterday at 14,250 feet. We are staying here at the Snow Lion Lodge which has magnificent views of Lhotse, Island Peak, and Ama Dablam. ...all from the window of our own private bungalow! (Being the only couple on the expedition has its fringe benefits). We had our first snowfall last night and woke up to sunshine, blue skies, and a pristine white blanket covering the entire valley.

We plan to stay here another two nights to aid in the acclimatization process, and prevent any Gamow Bag incidents. :) Pictured here with us are Temba Sherpa (red hat) and Wang Chuk Sherpa (blue hat). We are very fortunate to have these two hearty and personable guys accompany us on our expedition!

Hey, is that really Everest?

Greetings from the bustling Sherpa Village of Namche Bazaar at 11,300 feet in the Solu Khumbu Valley! Getting here was quite the experience beginning with an exciting landing at the Lukla airport at 9,350 feet on Thursday April 8th. This is a notoriously scary landing strip carved into the mountainside at a very steep angle and it's only 1,500 feet long! We had the added fun of strong cross wind gusts just as we touched down aircraft-carrier style. Next, we hit the trail and passed by terraced-fields and quaint Sherpa homes nestled in the hillsides with views of majestic Himalayan peaks towering above. We spent our first night in the village of Phakding and the next morning we continued onward and upward to Namche Bazaar.

After a good meal and sleep we awoke this morning to spend an acclimatization day here in Namche. We decided to hike up above the village to 12,600 feet where we were able to get our first sighting of THE mighty Everest!

Chatting with some of the local Sherpas we heard rumor that Brad Pitt is actually here right now as well. Evidently he must have found out the Fejteks are on the mountain and decided to follow along because all the cool people are climbing Everest. Speaking of which here is our cool Mountain Trip Expedition Team:

Pictured from left to right are Scott Woolums, Bill Allen, Ania Lichota, Cindy Abbott, Vivian Rigney and us. A brief summary of each was listed in a prior post entitled, "So Here's The Plan". ...and on that note, we plan to pack our bags and head higher up to Tengboche tomorrow morning. We hope all of you are well back home and will check back in with you in a few days.

Let's Get It Started Now

Greetings from Kathmandu, Nepal! After flying for 22 hours we arrived at the famous Yak & Yeti Hotel yesterday with all of our gear (whew!). Lengendary mountaineers Edmund Hillary, Rob Hall, Scott Fischer, Ed Visteurs (to name a few) have all stayed at this hotel so there is truly a magical feeling walking around the grounds. We had a team meeting last night and will visit a few temples here before we fly up to the mountainside village of Lukla tomorrow in order to begin our trek to Base Camp.


The video below has, up until now, only been available to paying audiences attending select fundraising events benefitting the Challenged Athletes Foundation. Fortunately these guests did not pay merely to watch this performance, otherwise numerous refunds would have been requested. Nonetheless, as we make final preparations loading gear and supplies and get ready to begin our very, very long-awaited journey into the Himalayas - it is only appropriate to sing ..."Let's Get it Started Now!"






Thank you again to Everybody to Everest team members Julie Hoppe and Tina Pauley for organizing separate fundraising events in which your invited guests were subjected to this WAY off-Broadway performance. And another thank you to all of the 23 members of the Everbody to Everest Team profiled at http://www.everybodytoeverest.com/ and also listed below in "ranked" order by greatest amuonts raised for CAF. Together we have raised $92,513 for a great organization and appreciate each & every one of you who have contributed to the cause!


Karen Robinson
Stacie Fejtek
Tina Pauley
Greg Hancock
Colin Campbell
Mike McCarthy
Sara Neilson
Rod Evans
Shawn Sedlacek
Julie Hoppe
Camille Attell
Caryn Kralovansky
Bryce Cripe
Branden Rubasky
Jeff Roberts
Nancy Wallace
Cory Markin
Jaymen Greenslade
Fritz Wickman
Lou Alvarado
BJ Wahl
Edgars Gulbis
Dace Sprukte

P.S. If you have enjoyed our blog so far, please pass along a link to all of your friends and have them subscribe by entering their email in the box at the upper right part of the page.

Look Mom, we're on TV!

NBC 5:00 News on Thursday night with Dr. Bruce Hensel featured an "Inspirational Journey" highlighting the Challenged Athletes Foundation and yours truly, blogmasters Paul & Denise! We are heading to Mom's house for Easter Sunday and then straight to LAX to catch our flight to Kathmandu! Enjoy the video and if you haven't already subscribed to our blog, make sure you do because the next post will feature another video that you absolutely won't want to miss! (click on screen 2nd time to see larger view)



Special thanks to our longtime friend Cindy Bertram for arranging this great media coverage! Speaking of which, LOOK MOM! ...we're also on the huge billboard in Times Square in New York!! It just goes to show that you don't have to be all that special to get this kind of publicity, you just need to have a very special publicist!



In case you can't read the print on the billboard it says; "Paul Fejtek, with wife Denise, to climb Mt. Everest" ...so I guess that's what we better go do!

So Here's the Plan...

More than a year of planning, training, collecting new gear, mentally preparing ~ and now it's finally time to leave for Nepal! We are so excited, anxious, and ready to get this monumental adventure started, ...and thrilled to have you along for the journey! Many of you have asked why it takes so long to climb Mt. Everest and the itinerary below will give you just a bit of an overview of the days ahead for us. Weather is a huge variable on Mt. Everest and after allowing our bodies the necessary time to acclimatize to the progressively higher altitudes, we will patiently wait for good conditions. The jet stream that normally scours the upper reaches of the mountain with 100+ mile per hour winds for most of the year, will be pushed North sometime in May, and we need to be ready for the very brief period of time that this occurs.

Fortunately we have a great team with whom we will spend our many days on the mountain:

Leadership:
Scott Woolums - One of the most experienced, full-time, professional guides currently working in the USA, Scott has 27 years of experience in leading remote, high altitude expeditions around the world. He has summitted Everest 4 times, via both the north and south sides and is an AMGA Certified Alpine Guide. We have shared with Scott boxes of Chilean red wine, late nights playing monopoly, close quarters in a small tent, and the summit of Vinson Massif in Antarctica.
Bill Allen - Bill is one of the owners of Mountain Trip and we are privileged to have him leading our Everest expedition along with Scott. He has guided extensively in Nepal and around the world, including 22 Denali climbs, a dozen Aconcagua ascents, six Carstensz Pyramid trips, and several Vinson expeditions. Bill lives in Ophir, Colorado and sneaks out of the office to also work as a heli-ski guide.

Climbing Team:
Ania Lichota - Born in Poland and currently living in London working for UBS as a director in international banking. We met Ania in Russia climbing Mt. Elbrus and have now climbed three of the Seven Summits with her. ...and we have shared many nights in a tent together enjoying her good humor!
Cindy Abbott - A health sciences professor at Cal State Fullerton and living nearby in Irvine with her husband Larry, who will be cheering Cindy on from home.
Vivian Rigney - Born in Ireland and has lived and worked for global companies in Germany, France, the UK, South Africa, and Finland. He is an executive coach currently living in New York and will help balance this heavily estrogen weighted team!
Paul & Denise - That's us. Most of you know our story but if not you can get the mushy details on the About Paul & Denise page of our Everybody to Everest website.

This schedule below WILL definitely change, but this is the plan for now. In addition to checking here on our blog for the latest, Mountain Trip has an expedition blog for you avid information junkies who want even more details on what we're up to: http://mteverest2010.blogspot.com/ This same link also appears on the upper right hand page of our blog under the list of "Links to Check Out". While you're looking up there, make sure to enter your email address in the box to subscribe to our blog. You'll only receive an email when a new post has been made.


Day 0 4/04 Depart LAX Thai Airways via Bangkok
Day 1 4/06 Arrival in Kathmandu – Team Meeting
Day 2 4/07 Kathmandu - Visit Temples
Day 3 4/08 Fly to Lukla: 9,350’ - Start Trek to Base
Day 4 4/09 Trek to Namche Bazaar: 11,300’
Day 5 4/10 Namche Bazaar - Acclimatization
Day 6 4/11 Trek to Tengboche: 12,887’
Day 7 4/12 Trek to Dingboche: 14,250’
Day 8 4/13 Dingboche - Acclimatization
Day 9 4/14 Dingboche - Acclimatization
Day 10 4/15 Trek to Lobouche: 16,175’
Day 11 4/16 Lobouche - Acclimatization
Day 12 4/17 Trek to Gorak Shep: 17,000’
Day 13 4/18 Trek to Everest BC: 17,575’
Day 14 4/19 Everest BC
Day 15 4/20 Everest BC
Day 16 4/21 Everest BC
Day 17 4/22 Climb to C1: 20,000’
Day 18 4/23 Carry to C2: 21,500’ and return to C1
Day 19 4/24 Climb to C2:
Day 20 4/25 C2 Acclimatization
Day 21 4/26 C2 Acclimatization
Day 22 4/27 Descend to BC & Arrival of Everybody to Everest Trekking Group
Day 23 4/28 BC - Acclimatization
Day 24 4/29 BC - Acclimatization
Day 25 4/30 Climb to C2
Day 26 5/01 C2 - Acclimatization
Day 27 5/02 C2 - Acclimatization
Day 28 5/03 Climb to C3 - Lhotse Face: 24,000’
Day 29 5/04 C2 - Acclimatization
Day 30 5/05 Descend to BC
Day 31 5/06 BC - Acclimatization
Day 32 5/07 Descend to Dingboche
Day 33 5/08 Dingboche - Acclimatization
Day 34 5/09 Dingboche - Acclimatization
Day 35 5/10 Trek to Louboche
Day 36 5/11 BC - Rest
Day 37 5/12 Climb to C2
Day 38 5/13 C2 - Acclimatization / Rest
Day 39 5/14 Climb to C3 - Lhotse Face
Day 40 5/15 Climb to C4 - South Col: 26,000
Day 41 5/16 First Summit Day
Day 42 5/17 Extra Summit Day
Day 43–53 5/18–5/28 Extra Summit Days
Day 54 5/29 Descend to Camp 2
Day 55 5/30 Descend to BC
Day 56 5/31 Trek to Pangboche
Day 57 6/01 Trek to Namche
Day 58 6/02 Trek to Lukla
Day 59 6/03 Fly back to Kathmandu
Day 60 6/04 Fly to Bangkok
Day 61 6/05 Fly to Koh Samui, Thailand
Day 62-64 6/06-6/08 Four Seasons Resort
Day 64 6/8 Fly back to LAX

Countdown to Everest!

Adios Antarctica - Hola Patagonia!

A belated Happy New Year from Punta Arenas, Chile! It's been a while since our last update and we've covered a lot of ground since our very white Christmas in Antarctica:
After Christmas (and fun times at the "ice bar") the weather improved dramatically allowing the big Ilyushin-76 to fly in to Patriot Hills to pick us up and make the next leg of our journey possible ...Patagonia! Some of those photos are immediately below and we've also incorporated many new shots from the climb into our previous blog posts, so please scroll through the old posts and take a look. New text is in bold so you can easily notice the additions.

After returning to Punta Arenas we took a boat to Isla Magdalena to visit a colony of more than 150,000 penguins. Since we didn't get to see any of the much larger Emperor penguins while we were in Antarctica, these Magellanic penguins were still a pleasure to watch as they waddled around. ...very cute until one of them decided to peck at our shoes and then proceeded to bite my leg! Ouch!

A three hour bus ride north from Punta Arenas took us to Puerto Natales, and after spending a night there, another two hours to the famous Torres del Paine National Park. This is one of the most popular trekking destinations in all of Chilean and Argentine Patagonia, and after seeing the Paine Massif up close, we understood why. The torres "towers" were formed some 12 million years ago and the dark upper part is sedementary rock, while the lower part is granite.

We covered 43 miles over 5 days carrying backpacks that were a bit too heavy, but it was good training! We stayed in tents with the exception of Denise's birthday on the 30th, where we were treated to a warm shower, a nice dinner (complete with a birthday cake made with layered crepes), and a night in the luxury of a private cabin at a secluded and scenic spot beneath the towers at a place called Los Cuernos. This route is known as the "W Circuit" and finished with a view of the massive Grey Glacier below:

Remember, take a look at the old "2009 Posts" again to see all the new photos. ...and if you want to see even more, here's a link to additional photos on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=171310&id=580718981&l=826d20851d