Following Frank

Full team official “stache” before pic! We do have to fully clean shave for the oxygen masks to fit best. Apparently i’m allowed to say it’s GO TIME TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💪💪🙏🏻🙏🏻⛰️ About to head to the sherpa puja ceremony where we and all our gear get blessed for a safe and successful climb!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻

Well friends, it’s getting real and close now!! We just got our mask and oxygen briefing. This mask is gonna take some getting used to, but I think we’ll come to LOVE it, or at least what it does for us at some point. So again, only my family really knows when we’re starting because of the strategic nature of this and trying to avoid the crowds. I’ve pretty much shared everything there is to share at this point, so I think this will be it. I HOPE to be able to have short updates shared once we start, like “We’ve reached Camp 1”…but I can’t be certain. THANK YOU in advance for the thoughts and PRAYERS!! They mean to me more than I can express. It’s time to LOCK IN and turn into Frank the Tank again!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻⛰️ Fear is a reaction and courage is a decision. Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear!

Our team did a 5.5 hour hike today, with a pretty legit climb. Important to stay active as we get closer to GO TIME!! We do know about 80% when we’re starting but with so many climbers here, it’s very strategic and I can’t really say…but we’re getting closer. Team is strong. Everest is the 2nd peak from left, with the sort of mushroom cloud over it. We had some great views of its summit today and yikes it looks FAR away!!

I bought a SIM card in KTM to try and get my SAT device to work. The shop needed my passport and thumb prints. This is a good reminder not to take my gloves off this time!!!! 😳😆 Hey if I don’t laugh…

It was so cool meeting the Mountain Queen, Lhakpa Sherpa!! She is the first sherpa woman to summit Everest and live (another woman sherpa summited but died on the way down). This season she is going for her 10th summit. If you haven’t seen it yet, check the documentary about her story on Netflix…SOOO good and a great story!!

Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa https://share.google/hStGJYHs5IYjkTGPn

Yesterday we got the really GUTTING news that one of our guides (tall center in the pic…and from Scotland coincidentally😉) has an emergency back at home that is preventing him from continuing, and he’ll be leaving us. Hearing it was like a punch in the gut. Scott is such a nice and positive guy and very skilled and knowledgeable guide. More importantly he’s just such a part of our team now and it’s a bit like losing a family member. But wow, this whole expedition is a reminder and lesson that rarely do things go according to plan. The goal must remain the same even if you have to change directions and pivot…but we just need to try and remain mentally strong. But my God the ups and downs and anxiety od this whole thing, could send any strong minded person over the edge. He’s going to replaced with a guiding sherpa who has like 16 Everest summits so the skill level is not an issue 💪💪🙏🏻, but of course it’s not Scott. 😔😔 We’ll miss you Scott and we hope everything gets worked out at home for you!!

BIG Everest update: Because of our delay here in EBC (been here for 6 days already and probably another week to wait) and that the majority of us have some type of ailment (I’ve got the traditional Khumbu cough and a couple guys are on antibiotics) we’ve been given the opportunity to fly back down to Kathmandu for 2-3 nights for some R&R. This would allow our bodies a chance to reboot, recover, and reset…SLEEP like we’re dead and eat ravenously, and fly back here ready to GO UP!!! We don’t even know if helis will fly tomorrow, so either tomorrow or Monday!!!

Lots of people are asking questions after seeing the video of our group lounge and how all these big items, like couches etc, get up here. It’s tough for me to reply on multiple people’s comment/questions about the same question or miss all together. Anyway I just asked the owner Lukas, and he says before each season, they are allowed to fly helis up with the cables hanging down to carry large loads. So no, the sherpas aren’t carrying this stuff up here.

And obviously yes we have internet wi/fi here. And besides doing activities each day for a few hours (yesterday we did a few hour acclimatization hike up to about 18,500 feet) and this morning we’re do a couple hours of training, we are just sitting around killing time. There’s. big mental component of “staying in the game” when you’re sitting around coughing and wondering when we’ll get to go up…and feeling like you’re getting “stale”. We’re laying on couches now, but soon we’ll likely be doing the hardest thing we’ve ever done. It’s all really hard to wrap your mind around and not lose your mind.

But we want to be smart and not all bum-rush the mtn when it’s go time, and face crowding on single fixed rope lines waiting for people. That’s a recipe for disaster. So if we have to wait longer for things to settle down, then that’s what we’ll do. SOOO many things to juggle, not even taking Mother Nature into account which can blow any plan away. oh boy 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

I can’t imagine how bad I’m gonna look after this, if I look like this now!!! But at least I’m starting to look like a fn mountaineer!!!