Live Wilderness Adventure

Chapter 390 The Wind in Howling Valley

Three Sherpas, one guide, three team members, plus Jarrett photography, a total of eight people, the standard configuration for climbing Mount Everest.

It is worth mentioning that the photographer had to stay in the base camp due to physical reasons.

His sister, it's so cold.

Yao Jun tightened his neckline, and the cold wind gushed in, as if his body was covered with ice.

Bi Fangha let out a breath of hot air, white steam could still be seen in the headlight column, but it was pitifully small, as if it was about to disappear, the temperature was already close to minus 20 degrees, and even the white steam would not appear any lower.

Rob pulled out the altitude measuring device: It's 1:47 in the morning, the altitude is 5432, come on, there are still 300 meters, just pass the glacier.

Yao Jun asked, Is it easy to cross the glacier?

Rob nodded, and the morale of the team rose instantly.

It's less likely to die after passing the glacier.

Everyone: .

Yao Jun tightened his hat, feeling that the weather was getting colder.

[Is this a cold joke? 】

Even the audience felt a cold wind blowing over their bodies, looking at the dark mountain in front, as if watching a group of people marching towards hell.

The double torment of cold and lack of oxygen made everyone a little dizzy. Bi Fang followed at the back of the team. As the last guarantee of the team, Edinburgh was ahead of him. Don't worry, you can only come by yourself.

5,400 meters. At our current speed, we can rise 100 meters every 40 minutes. If there is no traffic jam, we should be able to reach camp C1 around 5 o'clock. Bi Fang breathed out the air and said slowly , At this height and situation, even with his physical fitness, speaking too fast can easily disturb the rhythm of breathing, resulting in a great exhaustion of physical strength.

[Traffic jam? 】

[What the hell is a traffic jam? 】

The audience is confused, can there be traffic jams on Mount Everest?

Bi Fang swallowed his saliva and nodded: Because it is extremely difficult to go up many places on Mount Everest, and the route selection is very simple, once the right time comes, many teams will climb together and block the route. There was a traffic jam at 8,000 meters in 2019. As I said before, above the South Col, 7,600 meters above, the human body begins to die slowly. What we have to do is before the body dies. Climbing to the summit and then returning, the result of the 8,000-meter traffic jam was that three people died at once.”

As if to verify what Bi Fang said, a very familiar voice appeared.

Hey, look, isn't this our big anchor? I thought you would directly pay a hundred ugly gold for the Sherpa to carry you up the mountain!

Bi Fang dug his ears, and the moment he heard the voice, he knew who it was. He didn't say anything, and followed the Sir in front of him.

Sir Grande also heard the movement behind him, he gave Bi Fang a look with his eyes, and made a gesture of whether he was OK or not.

Bi Fang shook his head: Don't worry about him, let him shout if he feels too much strength.

Climbing the mountain at a distance of more than 5,000 meters, I am afraid that my brain is not frozen.

A person can be strong and violent, or weak and gentle, but not weak and violent, which is why many people hate Chihuahuas.

Bi Fang's reaction made the audience laugh like crazy. Originally, they were a little angry with Withers, who was eccentric, but Bi Fang's words made the other party look like a clown all of a sudden.

Hey, hey! Can't you hear me? Looking at Bi Fang who ignored him, Withers yelled twice in a row, but there was no response.

Saito, who was on the side, jumped over Withers to keep up with the large army, and glanced at Withers. The contempt in his eyes was self-evident, and Withers' teeth itch with anger.

Saito shook his head and went up without looking back.

Although Saito was a little surprised that the two teams met again, it was not incomprehensible. Everyone came late and was in a hurry. It was normal to meet each other on the third day after arriving at the base camp.

Shit! Ahem.

Withers cursed inwardly, and was immediately swallowed by the cold air, coughing provocatively.

The snow is getting thicker and thicker. Not only does it take a lot of energy to pull it out, but it is hard to know what you are stepping on when you step on it. It may be a stone, or it may be a bottomless glacier in the next second. This kind of blindness The box feels very uncomfortable.

Yao Jun shook off the snow on his boots: Grandma, is there no other way to go?

Bi Fang affirmed: Yes, the glacier on the north slope is more stable, there are not many cracks, and the road is built all the way, the risk of slipping and falling is low, the risk of rockfall and ice avalanche is also relatively small, the route between camps is short, and the risk of physical exhaustion is small; the climbing team There are also few, and the risk of traffic jams is low.”

In contrast, the south slope is slightly shivering, and there is a huge risk of ice and avalanches in the Khumbu Glacier; rockfall and ice fall on the Lhotse Wall are serious; there are many cracks in the glacier; the distance between camps is long, and it is easy to overdraw; there are many climbing teams on the south side, Easy to get stuck in traffic.

Then why don't you go to North Slope?

Bi Fang rolled his eyes.

Yao Jun suddenly realized: Damn, I remembered, Beipo wants a certificate, ahem, damn, I feel so uncomfortable.

Yao Jun, who was talking continuously, coughed violently. Rob in front of him quickly handed over the oxygen tank, helped Yao Jun to sit aside, and took a few minutes of breathing oxygen before he recovered. Yao Jun was still very reluctant when he put away the oxygen tank.

Wait, let me take another breath, just one breath, huh, ha, it's refreshing and comfortable.

Bi Fang rubbed his chin, and said hesitantly, You have a kombu cough? It was the same when you slept last night. You coughed all night, didn't you sleep well?

Ah? Yao Jun was startled, and just about to put the oxygen bottle back into his bag, he hugged him tightly again.

Because the air near the Khumbu Glacier is dry and cold, the lungs are prone to inflammation, so many people have a persistent cough, which is called Kumbu Cough. Once this symptom occurs, you can't continue climbing, you can only go down the mountain, and then wait for rescue.

Rob on the side waved his hand: Mr. Yao is still a normal reaction. Although the frequency is very high, it is related to our tight schedule. The kombu cough has already damaged the trachea, and it is impossible to relieve it by taking a few mouthfuls of oxygen.

Rob is rich in experience, and has led many teams so that he has sufficient experience in judging the symptoms of the players. Although Yao Jun's cough frequency and symptoms have reached the category of kelp cough, it still depends on the specific situation. People like Yao Jun are already in a better situation, and it is not normal for people like Bi Fang to look like they have nothing to do.

No matter how experienced climbers are, they will experience discomfort in the first few days of reaching high altitudes, more or less, but no one is immune.

When Yao Jun and others first came to the base camp, even if they didn't do anything, they would sometimes feel dizzy, let alone Bi Fang after exercising.

Rob, who finished the training yesterday, looked at Bi Fang's back, and his heart was almost like a dead dog, full of doubts: Is this guy able to survive without oxygen?

Fortunately, Bi Fang's breathing was also a little short at this time, which made Rob dispel the idea that the other party was a robot, not relying on oxygen but on electricity.

In fact, Rob guessed wrong, Bi Fang is not unresponsive, even though the maximum oxygen uptake may have exceeded 80, but it is not the level of a monster after all, the only problem is that Bi Fang is strong because of adaptability and emphasis on breathing methods .

Bi Fang's breathing is not simply a step-by-step exhalation and a step-by-step inhalation, from amplitude to rhythm, abdominal breathing, reverse abdominal breathing, etc. are adjusted almost all the time.

The wilderness traveler has almost carved many things into Bi Fang's DNA. No matter what harsh environment he encounters, Bi Fang can always use various subtle ways to adjust his body to the best.

The orange-level skill allows Bi Fang to clearly know when to run, when to walk, when to drink water, and when to replenish energy... Don't look at these things that seem simple, but they are actually very scary thing.

An entry-level marathon runner, who has run for three or four years, may only be able to estimate when he should resupply in a simple environment like road running so as not to suddenly lose power, but Bi Fang has already understood his body and environment. Far beyond ordinary people's imagination, this is why he can travel lightly through the forest casually, and do hundreds of kilometers.

To be strong is to be free.

Bi Fang nodded and said no more: Pay attention to keeping your mouth and neck warm, and drink plenty of water.

After a few simple instructions, everyone moved forward again, and at about three o'clock in the morning, they finally arrived at the edge of the Kumbu Glacier.

Thousands of glaciers flow here day and night. Some ice towers are even taller than buildings, and there are bottomless cracks. You will never want to fall into them. The ladder you built the day before, the route you walked out, It might be completely unusable by the next day, so we have to climb over there as soon as possible.

Rob gasped, clutching the side ascender they were going to use to climb up the glacier.

Wait, flow? Can glaciers flow? Yao Jun was a little confused, feeling as if he had heard something subversive, Is it something like an avalanche?

No. Bi Fang shook his head, Glaciers do move.

On the tops of some tall mountains in the world, as long as there is perennial snow, glaciers may appear.

There are glaciers in my country's Tianshan Mountains, Kunlun Mountains, and Qilian Mountains, the Himalayas on the southwest border, the European Alps, the Antarctic Continent, Alaska and Greenland in the Arctic.

The glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland are called continental glaciers, and the glaciers flowing in mountain valleys are called mountain glaciers.

There's another story about that.

Bi Fang also came to the ascender, looking at the bottomless abyss under his feet, and spitting out thin and pitiful white mist: More than a hundred years ago, the Europeans who lived in the Alps did not know that in their The ice in the valley around him was moving slowly.

And a beautiful wild rose grows in the Alps. The local people have a custom, that is, when a young man woos the girl he loves, he has to risk his life to go over mountains and mountains to gather roses and present them to the girl to show his bravery and loyalty.

At the beginning of the 19th century, several young men went to the mountain to pick flowers, but they never came back. Because they were buried in the ice and snow for thousands of years by an avalanche. The unfortunate news brought great pain to the villagers down the mountain. As a result, a glacier researcher reassured them that in about 40 years, the bodies of these young people would appear at the front of the glacier.

The villagers at that time didn't know that the glacier would move, and they were angry and funny when they heard the scholar's words. As a result, people did not expect that after 43 years, people really found these unfortunate young people at the front of the glacier.

The glacier not only brought these corpses to the villagers, but also the corpses did not decompose due to the cold storage under the ice. One of the lads is said to still be holding a rose in his hand.

[Strange knowledge has increased. . . 】

[Why does Lao Fang know everything, and this is what you can know? 】

【you know too much】

The flow of glaciers is difficult to detect because it flows very slowly. The speed of glacier flow is determined by the thickness of the ice layer and the slope of the terrain. The flow speed of each glacier is different, but they are all slow, only a few centimeters per day. At most, it is only a few meters. On the north slope of Mount Everest in my country, there is a Rongbuk Glacier about 20 kilometers long. Chinese scientists conducted observations from 1966 to 1968 and found that the annual moving speed of the Rongbuk Glacier was 117 meters. Only flows 0.3 meters.

Bi Fang fastened the safety rope tightly to his body, looked at the abyss under his feet and continuously inhaled to increase the oxygen content in his blood.

【So why is it moving】

It's very simple. The mountain depressions located on the top of the mountain are often the source of glaciers. This is called a 'snow basin'. The snow particles falling from the sky will first gather in the snow basin. After being heated, the surface layer melts and the melted water seeps down. Freeze the snow grains; as the snow accumulates thicker, the lower layer of snow will recrystallize under pressure. Over time, it becomes glacier ice. But glacier ice is formed under pressure, which is different from natural ice.

The most important thing is that there are many voids inside the glacier ice, which are filled with air, and each ice crystal is wrapped with a thin layer of liquid water. It's like having a ball bearing in a machine, smeared with grease. Therefore, glacier ice is easier to deform than natural ice, that is, it has better plasticity.

This plasticity is really what makes glaciers move. Under the gravity of a certain slope, the plastic ice changes the shape of the glacier and slowly moves down the valley. The flow of glaciers in valleys is the same as that of rivers, with fast flow in the middle and slow flow on both sides. If a row of wooden stakes is inserted horizontally on a glacier, over time, you can see that the middle of the row of wooden stakes protrudes downstream and becomes curved.

Bi Fang stepped forward to hold the ascender similar to the handle of a bus. This simple tool has an eccentric device inside. It can produce one-way movement with the rope and can tighten it in time.

Hang the safety hook, headlights down to search, and you can't see the end at all. This may be a glacier with a depth of tens of meters. Once you fall into it, you are very likely to die on the spot. Even if you don't die, you may freeze to death on the spot.

Bi Fang clenched the handle tightly, moved his body's center of gravity forward, kicked his legs suddenly, and the ascender and the rope quickly rubbed and slid.

The wind whistling in the valley, the person holding the rope, the bottomless abyss, everything flies by with the cold wind in your ears.

Wuhu!