We have a multilingual phone call from Camp 1 at 7,800′! Lead guide Eli Potter gave us a nice breakdown of the team’s strategy for climbing this big, cold mountain, which involves “climbing high and sleeping low.” This is an old climbers’ axiom that means you climb high during the day to complete your day’s work, but then drop back down to sleep at a lower elevation.
In the case of the Japan 8 8 Team, this means carrying a load of food and fuel up above the camp at which they will sleep tonight. This achieves two purposes. First, it enables them to efficiently move all their supplies for three weeks uphill without crushing themselves. Secondly, it sort of eases the team into the next altitude bu climbing up into it, which stresses their bodies a bit, but then they drop back lower to sleep, which minimizes the chance of succumbing to altitude sickness. This system will be followed for the remainder of their expedition, until they push for the summit.
Here is the team!
