We left high camp at 2.30am and the first two and half hours were climbing over big boulders and rocks in the dark with head torches. A few times we had to rope up for some dodgy bits. I was quite glad it was dark and I couldn’t see the steep drops. But it was really cold and I kept having to wiggle my toes to keep the blood flowing in them. By 5am we reached crampon point where we changed into high altitude boots and crampons. Bob’s toes were freezing again so we spent a long time trying to get them warm. Guide Tim even had them in his armpit. Meanwhile my toes were getting colder but I just waited patiently.
After about 40 mins the sun came up and we were quite warm then. So we proceeded on up the mountain on the snow, roped up.
We came to the summit wall. 400m of hard work uphill. This took us about 2 hours. Although it was higher then Island Peak, it wasn’t as steep. We saw one person with a Sherpa and they were so exhausted, they lay down in the snow at the base of the wall and couldn’t go any further. The Sherpa summited and then went back down and picked them up to take them down. They were done. In every sense.
We reached the summit at 9am and at least it was a bit bigger than Island Peak summit. Island Peak summit was so small I was too scared to stand up on it. We took photos of us in front of Everest and the amazing views. After about half and hour, we rappelled off the top all the way down to the bottom of the wall. I managed to get some Go Pro filming of the descent.
Bob and I were both utterly exhausted. We descended until crampon point which is where we stopped for our packed lunch at 10.15. We changed into trekking boots and continued down all the big rock slabs and boulders, past high camp, arriving back to base camp just before 1pm.
The funny thing is with both my summits I arrived back to base camp at exactly 12.56pm.
Just one more night in this god damned freezing tent and then we walk back down and out the Khumbu Valley. It should take us 3 days to get back to Lukla via Pangboche (where I lost my lovely roomie) then Namche (with the Irish Bar and the Liquid Bar- and believe me I shall do both) and finally Lukla where weather permitting we will take the dodgy little plane back over the mountains to Kathmandu.