Well the time has finally arrived

Well after having sat at basecamp for a couple of days and having done our training walk the time has finally come to head up the mountain.  I don´t think you ever get used to the different level of oxygen as there are still a few time, putting shoes on etc, where you need to take an extra breathe or two so will be interesting to see how things go further up the mountain

We saw the basecamp doctor this morning and i got the all clear, oxygen was back up to 89, blood pressure is good, and whilst they heard something in my lungs they said there was nothing to worry about so here we are about to go up the mountain.  One of the guys on our trip is having issues with his blood pressure and oxygen so not sure how he will go but we will wait and see

Have i got nerves, hell yes!!  but at  the end of the day all you can do is listen to your body and as long as you do that you should be fine.  I dón´t think you can really walk into this mountain thinking yes I am going to climb you, there is so much that can conspire against you that all you can do is put yourself in the best position and hopefully your body and mother nature can agree to let you up there for that window.

So to give you an idea of the timetable for the next couple of days i´ll put this into Sydney local time.

Around midnight Friday night we will leave for the walk up to Camp Canada which is at 5,000m
Around the same time Saturday night we will leave for Nido and then the next day we will head to Berlin which will be our highest camp at 5,900m

Then sometime Monday probably around lunch time we will crawl out of our tents and make the approx 8 hour push for the summit.  As i said there are a number of things that could through this schedule out such as weather but we have two days up our sleeve if we can´t get up on the first day.

We were chatting to some people when we were at the doctors and they said they got stuck at Berlin for 2 days with bad weather with there being no reprive in site so they had to give up the summitt and come back down.  For one of the guys it was his second attempt with no luck.

I am prepared not to get the summitt, it will be a dissappointment but at the same time I am not going to go up there and risk my life unneccessarily just to try and stand on top of a pile of rocks.  Now I know some of you are saying that´s what i´m doing anyway but there is a difference.  There´s calculated risk and then there´s stupidity.  I am not going to lose my life over this mountain.

Now for those of you who can´t wait for my updates to come through there if another option.  You can follow our progress at www.aymara.com.ar/spot_in.asp and then put int the code ayrn19ene2424.  These reports come from basecamp so could be a little delayed however it will keep you more up to date until I can get back down.

Well I will sign off now and will hopefully have some good news for you all in a few days.

Stay safe everyone and catch you on the flipside............