Cho oyu abc

Hello Friends,
This is Matt, with an update of our Cho Oyu expedition. We are in Advanced Base Camp, ABC. Our camp is set at 18,300 ft,situated where we can stare down the rest of the route. As I write, what started out as a little thunder has turned into a full on gropple event. Chris and some of the sherpas arrived yesterday, found this site, and set things up. Laurent, Chirring and I came in this morning. Having known Chirring only from summers he spent in Steamboat, it is awesome to see him in his arena. He is so strong, positive, and pretty much has rock star status. He literally knows everyone... And remembers all whom have crossed his path. He can do it all.. Case in point, last night he cooked fried chicken for us.. On a crappy little gas stove. It was the best I have ever had... Ever!! For Gods sake it is all I can do to make grilled cheese at home on thousands of dollars of kitchen equipment, and here he is... The Colonel Sanders of the Hymalya on a cook stove. He is concerned that we maintain our weight, thus we eat well.. Including some form of fried pototoe at each meal. Isn't there some kind of law against that?
It is so cool to have this technology up here... Thanks in whole to Chris. The other night we watched The Best Of Chris Farkey DVD!! We laughed long and hard at "you are going to end up eating a steady diet of Govt cheese, and living in a van down by the river" After hanging out in some of these Tibetan Tea Houses, that sounds kind of appealing! Lots if these tea houses have a tendency to be a little rough.
The Korean team is camped beside us... There are many teams and climbers, but these guys will be entertaining. They appear to be very well funded and organized.. They included in their supplies an Opera singer. Really! For no reason apparent to me he has burst into song today a few times! It was a little startling! His renditions last 2-3 minutes and he sings loud and with conviction! Who knows, I may become a fan.
So, here we sit at ABC.. We will hang for a few days letting our systems adjust. Meanwhile, a shout out to an amazing wife, kids and circle of friends!! Hey SSMS, hope sicence camp is going well... Thanks for the gold watch by the way, it is coming in handy. A sincere debt of gratitude to Eric Meyer for putting Chirring Dorge Sherpa in our lives!!

Regards all, Matt

At Base Camp

We arrived at Cho Oyu Base Camp yesterday morning. Everything is going great. Tents are up, food has been amazing, and everyone on the team is healthy and acclimatizing well.
This morning we went for a hike up to Palung which is the intermediate camp between the Chinese Basecamp and Advanced Base Camp, BC is at about 4855m and Palung is at about 5400m so it did our bodies some good to get the exercise after sitting in a car for the past 4 days.
Our trip to BC was relatively uneventful. We got stopped by one landslide on the Nepal side of the border and then missed the cutoff time to cross the border. Because of that we stayed in Kodari, Nepal instead of Zhangmu, Tibet. We spent two days in Nylam and I have to say how I am amazed at the new road that was put in on the Tibet side. What used to take 4 hours only took 45 minutes. While in Nylam we hiked up to about 5100m and enjoyed ourselves people watching. Then we moved to Tingri and I found it exactly as I remembered it, dogs outnumbering people 3 to 1, dusty and, a bit trying. We were all happy to depart Tingri and head to BC.
Our plan now is to spend a rest day at BC tomorrow and then head up to Palung on the 9th where we load our 4000lbs of food and gear onto yaks for the hike to ABC, and spend 1 night. We should arrive at ABC on the 10th of September and we will spend a day or two setting up camp and getting ready to start moving up the mountain.
Chris Klinke
Cho Oyu BC

Pictures of the Puja for Cho Oyu Trip

Tashi, Laurent, Min Badeau, Chris, Chhiring,

and Matt

The Outside of the Monastery

The Color Palette for the inside of the Monastery Temple

Painting the Murals

The Future Buddha stand over 12 feet.

More Mural's being painted

A Buddha Statue in the making, when finished it
will be over 12 feet Tall and be the present Buddha

Getting ready to leave Kathmandu

We attended a blessing from the Kyabje Trulshik Shatrul Ngawang Chokyi Lodro Rinpoche who is one of the most revered living masters of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the teacher of the Dalai Lama. They are in the process of building a new monastery outside of Kathmandu and it was really quite an amazing site to see the artwork, stonework, sculptors, and masons at work.

I will send some pictures later on this afternoon.