Marty Schmidt's lastest Blog update

May 10th

Hello again to everyone following us up Everest, 2012. Peak Freaks is also sending many dispatches so please follow along with us through    www.peakfreaks.com <http://www.peakfreaks.com/>     and you will get all the information that you need while we are ascending this powerful and beautiful Sargamatha, tallest mountain in the world.

 

 Right now, Ben, Joshua and I trekked down to Pheriche, 4200 meters from base camp in under 4 hours yesterday to have a complete rest in lower altitude, 1000 meters lower than BC. Eating, resting and just being happy this full 24 hour day of rest is fantastic. Catching up on emails, with loved one and clients around the world, makes me so excited to be living on this earth and while living this full life, I can look up at any time to see the magic of the Himalayas surrounding me, looking down upon me, letting me know my place on this earth and allowing me to vision climbing upon these sacred faces and ridges. This expedition is all about getting our clients up to the summit of the highest mountain on this earth. But when I look around and see Ama Dablam behind me, Toboche to my left and many more beautiful summits all around, my heart and mind goes wild with ideas of climbing and skiing. I am very fortunate to be living in the land of New Zealand, where we still have many new route to ascend in the Southern Alps. All this adds up to adventures and to finding who we are while being in the hills. It is a pleasure to be helping these wonderful clients from around the world now upon Everest. Our days are fast approaching towards us to pack up and ascend back up to our camp 3 and then beyond to the South Col, with this action we will be preparing to make the final ascent of the Southeast Ridge of Mt Everest. So very exciting and it is a pleasure to keep in close touch as we make the last moves upon this mighty ridge.

 

 Thanks Denali, for sending this out to everyone again. And looking forward to our climb together, along with Parker, Gray, TK and Kenny; up upon your name sake of Denali, the West Rib, again in June. And this will be after the wonderful Kilimanjaro climb and Safari with the 4X Katz women from NY.

 

 Always something to look forward to on this earth and sharing life with amazing people in the mountains.

 

 I will be in touch from our summit push. All the best from the Himalayas, cheers, Marty.

 

16th April 2012

Namaste everyone following our climb of Everest in 2012. All is going well with our team. It is so important to stay healthy upon this land of the Himalayas. The famous Everest Base Camp trek is well known around the world for being one of the most beautiful walks on this earth of ours. We had a wonderful trekking team that followed us to our Everest BC and made it one day behind the climbing team. They would have been trekking alongside us the whole way but for their flight into Lukla was 15 minutes too late for the landing and so they had to turn around and land at another airstrip. The trekking team made it to EBC and enjoyed a day and night with the climbing team. During this time, one of the climbing teammates, AB is his name and he is from Australia, needed a bit more time to acclimatize during our trek and so I stayed with him in Periche. We started our trek to EBC and came across the trekking team coming out. We had a good catch up and congratulated them for a great accomplishment. I especially enjoyed seeing Jack and Steph complete this goal for they both were with my son and I on Rainier last year.

 

During the past 3 days we have been enjoying Base Camp, resting, getting our summit gear together, making sure it all checks out, training on the steep ice with getting use to swinging tools and cramponing, using the fixed lines, taking a half day to climb up the Khumbu Ice Fall to train on the ladders that span the deep crevasses. More rest time with plenty of good food to eat each day.  Joshua from Eucador, my follow guide, and I are having great chess matches. Reminds me of glorious days on Denali with my son Denali playing endless matches of chess, what a treat to look forward to.

 

Our team is now down the valley climbing Kala Pattard, at around 5,600 meters to sleep the night for another acclimatization training day. This all helps us be prepared for when we move through the Khumbu Ice Fall and on to our camp 1 at 6000 meters. All this will happen in a few days from now.

 

With this dispatch, I want to send more photos. There is one with a monk trekking to EBC; another of Oasis Sun, a great sponsor for many years during my expeditions; a photo of my EBC home away from home, inside working with the best Intel computers and the SSD, fast, light weight tools that I am finding out to be working better than ever in these extreme environments, (if this Intel works so well up here just think how it works around the cities.) I will be climbing with my Intel computer to each camp and boot it up on the summit of Everest. The last photo is with Sonam and his cousin. Giannina, my lovely wife and I have been sponsoring Sonam and his family with putting them through their schooling in Kathmandu since 2008. This is when we met, Sonam was on an Everest Expedition and Giannina and I were guiding Tim Burns on Everest, climbing it in fair means, with no Sherpa's or no 02 and just a 1 to 1 ratio. Good thoughts to Tim about having the best go on Everest with this purest style of climbing the highest mountain on this earth. Miss you Tim. What a joy it is to be back on Everest with Sonam.

 

These words will give you a good update with what we are doing in the Himalayas during this pre monsoon 2012 season. Looking forward to getting the team to camp 1 and 2 during the next few weeks. I will send more words to my son Denali for him to send out to you all about how our days are getting on while preparing for our summit bid by mid-May.

 

So it is my pleasure to send these words to you all with joy and contentment of working hard on Everest, a mighty goal for any human being.

 

Till next time, much love and light from the Himalayas, cheers, Marty.

6th April 2012

Namaste everyone from Gorek Shep, the last village before entering Everest Base Camp. Hoping to use the wireless system to send these words and  photos of Ama Dablam, Lhoste, Nuptse and the summit of Everest to you all. It has taken 8 days of trekking to get to Everest BC and we are planning to rest a day, then head back to Gorek Shep to acclimatize on Kala Patthar which will be just under 6000 meters in height. This sets us up for climbing the Khumbu Ice Fall to our camp 1 in a few days' time.  The weather has been kind to us with only a few snow showers and when the sun burns through these clouds we are greeted with intense heat. It is trekking and climbing season in Nepal and one feels the impact of many people wanting to view the famous Mt Everest and get a true feeling of this land and the people. There will be many climbers on the south side of Everest this season, mainly following the SE Ridge to the summit. The trick is to know who is in front of you and who is behind you as our team ascends this route. Knowing this knowledge will prepare our team for the best time to make our summit bid. All this depends on many things; the weather, the condition of the route, how everyone is feeling on our team……a lot needs to happen to get a whole team to the summit of 8000 meter mountains and we are on a good path to make this happen.

 

Working with Tim and Becky from Peaks Freaks is very special, since we have known each other for so many years climbing and guiding on the mountains around the world. It is a real pleasure to be with them and with Joshua from Ecuador, my fellow guide on Everest this year, on this journey to the summit of Mt Everest with our team from 9 nations.

 

I want to thank all my sponsors for their support in producing the best gear and food on this earth, which will be tested to the maximum at all times while ascending Mt Everest.  New to my sponsor list is Intel and San Disk.

 

Like I mentioned before, I wish I could send more dispatches daily, but this year the Nepal politics are not the same as the past and so we just can do what is allowed.  Hoping that the wireless will work and not be to slow to send.

 

All the best from the base of the mighty Himalayan giants. Till my next dispatch, cheers, Marty.