Base Camp Life

We were living on the shoulder of a mountain at about 8800' above sea level. It was the only "flat" spot for several miles. Amongst the giant rhododendron trees we dug out places of our tents.

Needless to say, it was cold and rainy most of the time. We managed to get in about a day and half of work before the weather moved in. For the next week we lived inside of a rain cloud. Literally. It rained for a week straight. Needless to say, we were unable to hike up the mountain and go to work. We spent a lot of time sitting around the two fire pits that we built, Eating freeze-dried Mountain House meals, and staring at each other.

Base camp television, same channel every night.

Kitchen photo by Brad Church.

The kitchen. We would filter water with small backpacking hand pumps and then use small backpacking stoves to boil it. The water was added to the Mountain House and in about 15 minutes you had a tasty meal. While they were quite good, there was one serious drawback to them. Even the two person meals usually only had between 600-900 total calories. When you are at altitude, in cold weather, and working hard you need 3000-4000 calories per day. This resulted in needing to eat 4-5 two-person meals per day. Let's just say that I came home creepy skinny.

Thanksgiving dinner.