Oh my god. What the hell was that! This is one heck of a mountain. It’s definitely good training for Everest.
So we leftbase camp (5080m) at midnight last night. From 6am yesterday morning I had one hour sleep during the day. The nerves you feel the night before an ironman race, multiply that by about 75 and thats where I was at.
We had dinner at 5.30pm, rested in our tents and tried unsuccessfully to sleep and then we had breakfast at 11pm and left at midnight. Me, Sam, Bob (also known as Rob), out guide Tim and climbing Sherpa Neema, who summited Everest with Tim in 2012. So we were in good hands. About two hours into the climb we stopped for a drink. Sam said he didn’t feel well and was turning back. He’d been ill for couple days and was on antibiotics. Bob couldn’t feel his toes so he opened his rucksack to get some toe warmers and discovered his water bottle had leaked all over his down jacket which he would need later. He also hasn’t been feeling well and been really fatigued, lingering behind our walking pace. So he decided to turn back too. Now there was only me left. Tim went down with them and I climbed on with Neema. We got to crampon point which is where the ice and snow starts. Up til then we’d been bouldering and scrambling up very steep rock. We took off trekking boots and put on big high altitude boots and crampons and our climbing harness with gear on it. We were already wearing helmets through the rocks. And so we proceeded up a really steep ridge with sheer drops either side and we had to go down a ladder over a crevasse. That was quite scary in crampons and daylight had broken so I could see all the way down into it.
As we approached the last 250m this was sheer and straight up. This last 250m took me almost two hours. Other people were on the ropes ahead so progress was slow but I was pleased for the rest. We summited at 8.15am and I was completely exhausted. 6189m above sea level. But the view was amazing. We took some photos and Neema took a little panoramic video with my Go Pro naming all the mountains around us. It was pretty spectacular. The summit is tiny. It was full with 4 or 5 of us on it. I was too scared to stand up on it lol.
We then rappeled off the top of the mountain down 3 ropes and went back to crampon point where we had our packed lunch.
Then we changed back into trekking boots and returned to camp. I discovered that Sam had said he was leaving right after Tim told him I’d summited. They had been having breakfast and Neema had a walkie talkie to base camp. Also Bob said he might be following him if he doesn’t feel any better. Bob’s done 6 of the ‘7 summits’ with only Everest left now so he’s a highly skilled climber. If Bob went too, it would only leave me on the program. So Tim has decided to change it now to remove Pokalde (the second mountain) so we can go down to a lodge in the hope he will feel better and then the two of us can have a go at Lobouche East. I don’t mind this because that climb pushed me to a place I’d never been before. In an ironman race if you’re suffering you can walk. Here when you’re suffering walking is almost impossible.
Lobouche is a an even tougher mountain (6400m) with lots of rock climbing and the 250m sting in the tail on Island Peak is a 400m one on Lobouche. But apparently the view’s great at the top. This will be a tough one. I hope Bob gets better and I’m not left as the last man standing. It’s 5.30pm now and I’ve been resting in my sleeping bag. I’ve had one hour sleep now in the last 36 hours. Dinner is in half an hour so hopefully I’ll sleep after that. Today’s summit was the toughest thing I’ve ever done in my whole life. Now I have a whole new level to take my ironman marathon pain to lol. I will use this.