Today we woke up to a cold glacier! Our breakfast was pancakes and porridge. Then we were off to River Works, David Breashears’ project documenting the loss of glaciers by comparing his modern photos to photos taken in history. This huge tent at base camp tent is a beautiful gallery. The photography is impressive.

Next was a walk through the edge of the ice fall. This was one of the highlights of our stay at base camp. We got some great shots of the glacier, as well as some pretty entertaining photos of our Sherpa friends clowning around. On a serious note, we found out today that a Sherpa from another expedition died today high up on the ice fall while crossing a ladder over a crevasse. Sherpas work very hard to please their clients up here. Often, they take risks in order to save time. The death of a Sherpa was hard news after getting to know these exceptional people.

Today was Big Ed’s birthday and our camp cook did an amazing job with two birthday cakes. We also got to meet Pemba, Karma, and Mingma Sherpa, who are all climbing Sherpas. These three are all very experienced and well known climbers. In fact, Karma has summitted Everest 11 times, with Mingma and Pemba summiting 4 times each. These three Sherpas are guiding 3 of our group up to Camp 2. These guys are impressive and Wongchu has a lot of confidence in them, so we think our colleagues are in great hands. Tomorrow we leave base camp to trek back down to Pheriche.

Another amazing day in the Himalayas