The sun hits my tent at about 7.45am and the temperature quickly rises within the tent from an overnight low of -14 to + 28 degrees c in little more than an hour. As well as the warmth waking you there is the drip drip sound of water falling onto your sleeping bag or worse still on to your face as the condensation that froze during the night quickly melts from off ceiling of the tent. During the night moisture from your breath has also frozen around the top of the sleeping bag like a giant frozen lion's maine.
I choose to slip my outer clothes over my thermals as despite the inner tent temperature it's still -3 outside as I blearily make my way to the mess tent for breakfast. Thoughts of personal hygiene, changing out of my thermals and teeth cleaning can wait until at least 9.30am. This morning I hung out my washing again that had frozen and also read my book for a couple of hours.
After lunch I walked the 25 minutes to the entrance of what is the designated base camp area to try and get a better mobile signal, sadly without success. It was good to stretch my legs but it is really difficult to explain to you just how hard any physical activity is at this altitude. You are constantly gasping for air. Hopefully things should improve over the coming weeks as right now none of us know how we are going to get much higher!
I got back to my tent at about 3.15pm and dozed for half an hour being woken by the dropping temperature. Knowing that it's only getting colder and whilst it's still 8 degrees c I have just got back into my thermals again to save having to do it once it's much colder. With my opened sleeping bag drapped over me rather like a duvet I'm writing this post. Our evening meal will be around 6-6.30pm and I'll be tucked up in my sleeping bag by 8.30 pm latest.
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