Grant 'Axe' Rawlinson

April 14th – Video post from Everest Base Camp

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by

Grant ‘Axe’ Rawlinson
in ,

Hello folks!

We we have safely arrived here at Everest basecamp, 5200m elevation on the tongue of the mighty Rongbuk glacier. It is windy as usual and the summit of Everest is covered in cloud and looking exceptionally windy. We have had a busy day setting up tents and organising the camp, but it has come together very nicely and I am very inmpressed with the organisation of the Altitude Junkies team.

Attached is a short video post, 60 seconds only but it gives you an idea of where we are. I am a little hazy in the thinking department as it was a jump from 4400m upto 5200m today. Hence I mistakenly mentioned the date was 24th April instead of 14th April in my post!

Click the following link to watch the video on YOUTUBE.

Over and out from Everest basecamp in Tibet!

Axe

Comments

16 responses to “April 14th – Video post from Everest Base Camp”

  1. Jayden Avatar
    Jayden

    Well done Axe on your voyage so far. That mountain sure looks fantastic! Warm thoughts from Kiwi land mate 🙂

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  2. Anne-Marie Avatar
    Anne-Marie

    Two little boys, very interested. Bit worried about the date slip and a little freaked out about altitude effects. Now discussing how well the Kiwi flag will look up there again!

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    1. Grant Rawlinson (Axe) Avatar
      Grant Rawlinson (Axe)

      Hello AM!!! Great to hear the little fella’s are interested. Hope all is well in Singapore and TK is not getting any skinnier?

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  3. Kate (Isadora) Smith Avatar
    Kate (Isadora) Smith

    Thanks for the short video. As you said earlier the north base camp looks very very quiet compared to SBC and one can hear that wind you talked about.I suppose the wind is one of the great enemies on the open expanse of the North Ridge where it is easy to be plucked off.Despite your skill I fear for you already, comfort is gained by your sensible
    approach on whether it’s an (all systems go” ) or not.Whilst you have been quiet I have been playing your compilation summit video to family and friends. We have been looking to download the beautiful song by Hayley Westenra but couldn’t find it.Please could you tell us the title and is it found on single or album?.Back to the mountain I suppose it’s lots of altitude treks and brushing up climbing skills now. How do you fill your resting periods, apart from sleeping, checking kit and up-dating your blogs?I shall be so sad when the excitement concludes. Stay safe Kate

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    1. Grant Rawlinson (Axe) Avatar
      Grant Rawlinson (Axe)

      Hello Kate, The song is called ‘Pokarekareana’. I have asked my wife to email you the song as its on my PC in Singapore. Hopefully you will receive soon. Its a beautiful song. We have about 7 – 8 days here at BC so your question below about how to fill in the time is very relevant. Updating blog’s is good way of burning some time. Today for example I plan to do some washing in the morning, sew on some sponsors logo’s to my climbing suit, set-up my climbing harness, fit my crampons to my boots, take a short walk around basecamp, and drink plenty of fluids. Finding ways to use the time-up without getting to bored and homesick etc etc is an important part of being on Everest. There is alot of waiting around! Thanks for your interest and nice comments Kate, much appreciated! Have a nice day in the UK.

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  4. Mike and Mish Pinnington Avatar
    Mike and Mish Pinnington

    Just to let you know we think your blog is awesome especially the video clips. We are planning a trek to EBC next May and this is bringing it alive for us. Also enjoyed your Singapore clips as we lived there for 20 years and it was good to see some of the places we used to go to and to relive the traffic issues. Keep up the great work and have a safe trip. Mike and Mish.

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  5. Dazza Avatar
    Dazza

    Grant, if you’re still having trouble getting on wordpress, have you tried a vpn? If you aren’t able to search for them due to the firewall, let me know and I’ll send you some links. Dazza

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    1. Grant Rawlinson (Axe) Avatar
      Grant Rawlinson (Axe)

      Hi Daryl,

      Great idea – if its simple and I dont need to download too much can you email me details?

      Cheers!

      G

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  6. davelim8850 Avatar
    davelim8850

    Hey Grunto – nice video clip – very posh intro titles as well – do you do it all on your laptop then and then post it off your same laptop using the Chinese wifi dongle? To think in 1998, ont he south side of Everest, we had to spend an hour of satellite time (nearly $1000 ) to send a minute’s worth of broadcast footage back to the television people in Singapore – and that was considered very high ‘tech’ – and we were the only ones in basecamp equipped with 330kgs of satcoms gear, 2 desktops, 2 laptops. a CISCO server, 10 heavy solar panels yada yada yada! Our best ‘digital’ camera was a clunky Kodak shooting a 0,9mP resolution (!)

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    1. Grant Rawlinson (Axe) Avatar
      Grant Rawlinson (Axe)

      Hi Dave, yes times have changed. Everything is done by my pentax point and shoot camera, and windows movie maker software. I compress the final movie size to 2mb or less and email it to stephanie who uploads to youtube. Easy peasy and very fast. Of course the quality is nowhere near broadcast but to give people an idea its works pretty well.

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  7. Dazza Avatar
    Dazza

    Grant,

    I looked up some proxies that you may be able to use:

    http://hidemyass.com/proxy/ (free)
    http://hidemyass.com/vpn/ (not free, but will more likely to work)
    https://www.express-vpn.com/ (not free, but may be more likely to work than hidemyass)

    If you can’t get any of these to work, I’ll find you some others to try.

    Stay safe.

    Dazza

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  8. Susie Burridge Avatar
    Susie Burridge

    Hey Axe, We are loving the Blog and Vids, looks amazing……
    Cheers
    Susie & Rick Burridge

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  9. Greg and Yoke Avatar
    Greg and Yoke

    Mate,
    Was surprised you got to EBC so soon…it’s all happening very fast, keep the blogs coming, the whole family is following you!! Yoke has goosebumps, nonie wants hubby to follow in your footsteps!!!
    Take care
    Greg and Yoke

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    1. Grant Rawlinson (Axe) Avatar
      Grant Rawlinson (Axe)

      Mr Greg! Great to hear from you! I have goosebumps here also, mainly due to the cold! Hope all is well in Indon, pass my love to Yoke and the family.

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  10. Abi Dunsmore Avatar
    Abi Dunsmore

    Hi! We met briefly at Phil and Blairs wedding in NZ, I’m her Scottish cousin 🙂 Just wanted to say that you blog is brilliant and I’m really enjoying following your attempt at everest. The view from your video at base camp is just breathtaking. Best of luck! Abi

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  11. Ove Hognes Avatar
    Ove Hognes

    Grant

    Greate movie. Nice to see you look fresh and fit. The sorroundings looks like late spring in Norway

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