I'm still here at base-camp, at 5340m, having decided, at least for the time being, NOT to descend down to 4000m. We have decided, between us that we're comfortable enough here, surrounded by our books, games and other little luxuries, and we have no illnesses of note...going down valley has much more to be said for it if one is unwell,chesty or whatever. We may well go to Pangboche before our final long ascent to the summit, hopefully in 2-3 weeks time, in the hope of regaining some strength and weight after our prior efforts to get to camp three and 7200m etc.
So today has been spent washing clothes, self ( including a much needed shave),and blissfully charging up batteries using Rob's borrowed solar panels...a joy. We may well not ascend towards ABC and then camp three until perhaps the 7th or 8th, the other group probably going up before us, CHINESE PERMITTING.
On the subject of shaving, those who know me well will be amazed to hear that I have had some of my most distinguished facial whiskers ever over the last 10 days or so, and I seriously considered leaving things alone to see how things progressed towards a sort of half-beard, the likes of which I''ve never had before. There was a lot of grey in it though, so it's gone again now!

Acclimatisation

I thought I'd use the continued lull in activity to have a waffle about the important subject of acclimatisation....that is the adjustments taking place in the body to enable better functioning, and indeed, actual continued survival at higher altitudes than normal.
It's a fascinating process really. Honest!

When anyone starts moving upwards in the hills, the laws of physics dictate that the density of the air begins thinning, the pressure decreasing, so that by the time you get to base-camp heights the air is about half as dense, with therefore about half as much oxygen available as at sea-level. So as I write, the barometric pressure shown on my watch is 530mbars..a quick check of your local weather chart will show it's probably around 1030mbars where you live?.
On the top of Everest itself, there's around a third of the usual level of oxygen available.

Now, you might reasonably think that all that means for around base-camp is that we just need to breath TWICE as often, and everything would be just fine. Similarly, just breath THREE times as often around the summit. Problem sorted!!! What is the problem?
If only it was that simple!
Trouble is, the way the body works to control breathing depends normally on both OXYGEN AND CARBON DIOXIDE levels. As the oxygen levels in the blood/ brain drop in the short-term, at some stage the respiratory rate begins to rise to get levels back towards normal. This response to the drop is variable from one person to another, and if one is a bit slow to respond, that makes you perhaps slower to adapt in the early stages of ascent, and feel pretty rotten. Some believe that a prompt response to lower oxygen levels is a good sign for future excellent acclimatisation and good performance on the higher mountains etc.
Paradoxically, the increase in respiratory rate in the " quick responders" has the effect of reducing blood/brain carbon dioxide levels below normal,and anyone who is familiar with the idea that "over breathing/hyperventilation" produces a bunch of physical symptoms will understand that one might become unwell purely from this breathing response. Hence a lot of the climbers/trekkers who will LATER do well are often the first to feel unwell early in a trip!!
Now, as the body realises that this lower oxygen level is going to persist for a while, it begins to make other changes, very cleverly too. The blood will be more alkaline than normal, which contributes to malaise, so the kidneys begin to excrete extra bicarbonate into the urine to compensate. The red blood cell numbers slowly start to increase, which carry the oxygen around the body etc, and the heart rate rises, with a firmer contraction ( so most of us are aware of our stronger heart thump in our chests in the early days at new heights, especially if lying on our left side in bed!).
The blood thickening is good up to a point, but coupled with any changes of dehydration (almost inevitable as one goes really high up), this can lead to issues with sludging or clotting of blood in blood vessels, giving strokes, heart attacks or similar. Normal blood initially runs almost like water if one takes a sample out of an arm, whereas towards the end of a mountain expedition, especially when in a period of bad dehydration, the blood is thick like treacle,and can even be hard to get up a needle into a syringe! Ugh.

These changes take anything from hours to weeks to take place.Whilst doing so, the other unwanted affects of altitude, such as poor appetite, poor bowel absorption of food, poor sleep etc, make one physically decline over the same period of weeks that one is supposedly adjusting to the altitude in other ways, which enables one to walk and climb a bit more efficiently and speedily than at the beginning of the adjustment ( though never at quite the same rate as at sea-level!).
So the secret is to try and get up the mountain when reasonably acclimatised, but before becoming too weakened/emaciated. In the case of Everest, that's typically by eight weeks into the trip...most people start fading fast after that, despite the apparent acclimatisation.
Some people have big trouble acclimatising satisfactorily in the time scale required, though most would do so eventually if given long enough.If pressing too quickly upwards,some will develop bad reactions described as "altitude sickness", which in the various guises of Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), High Altitude Cerebral Oedema (HACE),or High Altitude Pulmonary Oedema (HAPE) will make you very unwell at times, and can be fatal very easily.
There is probably a genetic element to one's ability to acclimatise at reasonable speed, and some say if they have summitted Everest or similar that the biggest reason they have managed to do so is their parents!! Hmmm.

So, there you go, I hope that wasn't too boring for too many of you, but when we try to climb up here we are clearly not just fighting the mountain obstacles, nor the psychological obstacles (that's a whole other story for some!), but clearly we are fighting changes in our body too.
I said it was HARD didn't I ??!!
Can I be bothered? We'll see.....
So we are NOT just being lazy lounging here, we are still acclimatising, every passing day adjusting a little bit more, reducing the chance of later serious altitude illness, and hopefully enabling better performance up on the hill later on.

Messages

Thanks to Jonny for keeping me up to date through last night's Liverpool game. Well done to Chelsea, grrrrr, and of course to the Red's for doing their best. I'm sorry to have missed it all, but I did the best I could in the circumstances. Never mind Tom, there's always next year, as J said!
Debs, great long message, glad Dan's looking sorted out as planned, and it's funny that you've been able to watch my Jonathan! You said you all "were" missing me at work, and I rather hope you missed out an apostrophe somewhere??!!
By the way, Ruth, I LOVE Michelle Pfeifer.

Responses from Ray:

Dave
Hi Dave, glad to hear the cycling training is going well. Have you been practicing drinking to keep up with Colin? Things are very quiet here until we get the go ahead to set camp 3 up. Until then we just try to keep healthy, infact today I actually done some washing. They look a bit cleaner, but not quite the same as having been in a washing machine. Anyway that's as domestic as I get here, see you in June.
PS I'm still not missing work!

Greg says to Wayne
Hi matey, great to see your message on the site, thanks for the well wishes, all is well currently, not much for us to do at the moment with the current situation except eat and play cards! Best wishes to all the family, Greg.