September 11, 2006 – Pooja Day!

BAI Basecamp: Berg Adventure’s new home for several weeks

It’s Monday September 11th and I’m calling you from Berg Adventures 2006 Everest Expedition Base Camp.  The team did walk into base camp the day before yesterday actually and we’ve been busy getting set up.  It’s a pretty big job moving in to a base camp that will be your home for at least 4 to 5 weeks if not quite a bit longer maybe even 6 or 7 weeks.  This is not the way most people imagine it, it’s a vast, glacial rubble, very rocky and icy but we find it comfortable.  Kit said today, ‘I’m focused and this is my home and I’m staying here until I get this thing done’, and I think that is the way we all feel.

Today was Pooja day.  Pooja, as you probably know, is the day we have a Lama begin praying early in the morning.  We go up near the center point of our base camp, the chorten that the Sherpas circle every day before they go into the icefall and begin climbing.  We burned juniper, we pray, we laugh, we take a lot of photographs and we string more and more prayer flags and of course Canadian and American flags to remind us of…[lost transmission]

The team gathered around the chorten for Pooja day

Praying during Pooja today

All Text, Images and Audio Files © Berg Adventures International 2006