Mikko called a couple of hours ago via the satellite phone with some bad news. He has fever but fortunately not much, at least not much for him. Usually his temperature climbs right away up to at least 39 but now it’s “only†around 38 degrees Celsius – he has a thermometer with him so this should be pretty accurate. This is some sort of a curse of his – Mikko has had fever on every single journey we’ve made, and sadly, this expedition will be no exception.
Luckily, Mikko’s spirits still seemed relatively high, and he was very happy with everything he has been able to do and experience so far. Besides, all is not lost yet and he may even be able to summit Baruntse at the end of next week. The last chance for the summit push will be on Saturday 5 November, and there’s still plenty of time before that, right?
The others will be ascending to Camp 1 tomorrow and will spend two nights there before moving on to Camp 2, from where they will attempt to summit on Thursday, Friday or Saturday, depending on weather conditions. This means that Mikko will have several days to regain his health and catch up with the others. For now, he obviously has to stay at the base camp in the tender care of the sherpas, but if he is feeling better, he will join the others at Camp 1 in a couple of days.
Let’s all hope that Mikko will recover fast and that this fever episode will be just a minor setback on his way to Baruntse!
