Saturday 11th May 2013.
'Only those who have trudged on foot for weeks on end can understand what magical properties the mind gives to the notion of destination. On the way my body and mind knew no rest, for every halt carried with it a flavour of impermanence, and the idea that there was yet more road to come, more energy to be spent.'
Mustang, A lost Tibetan Kingdom - Michel Peissel.
Not surprisingly this paragraph screamed out at me this morning. A book I had bought on a whim in Kathmandu a few weeks previously, this had been a constant companion ever since, being able to relate to many of the author's words. The one thing I was so happy and relieved about on this trip was my mental attitude. I've gone on long walks before and quite frankly my mind can let me down. It has a tendency to want me to stop walking. I get badgered to sit down, to take a shorter route, to question why I had the stupidity to agree to go in the first place. I suspect a lot of this was to do with outside factors at the time.
Now I had no job, no other life to worry about, only that which I had embarked upon two weeks previously. I woke up and I walked. The caveman in me was sated. The further I walked in, the further I would have to walk out again. I'm sure the other lads won't mind me saying that I didn't get involved in too much of the days proceedings. In the first week I knew I was going to have to go up a lot, and then down a lot. In the second week when it levelled out some it would just be me versus altitude.
I awoke very early today and as usual knew I wouldn't get back to sleep. I dressed and slipped out of the lodge in complete darkness and started to walk up the hill behind Lobuche. One reason for doing this is so that I could get an exact time for sunrise (06.38) which meant we could get a better idea of when to leave for Kala Patthar the next morning. It was a warm morning by the time we left and I'd reverted back to shorts and a T shirt. A couple of hours later we were at Gorak Shep(5140M) The end of the road and our highest sleeping place. A very small town that is sees a constant flow of people and goods to EBC. We overheard a conversation in our lodge between two doctors from London and an Indian Paediatrician. The two doctors were living at EBC doing research into living at altitude. This was the first time they had left for a month and were returning from Namche.
'Only those who have trudged on foot for weeks on end can understand what magical properties the mind gives to the notion of destination. On the way my body and mind knew no rest, for every halt carried with it a flavour of impermanence, and the idea that there was yet more road to come, more energy to be spent.'
Mustang, A lost Tibetan Kingdom - Michel Peissel.
Not surprisingly this paragraph screamed out at me this morning. A book I had bought on a whim in Kathmandu a few weeks previously, this had been a constant companion ever since, being able to relate to many of the author's words. The one thing I was so happy and relieved about on this trip was my mental attitude. I've gone on long walks before and quite frankly my mind can let me down. It has a tendency to want me to stop walking. I get badgered to sit down, to take a shorter route, to question why I had the stupidity to agree to go in the first place. I suspect a lot of this was to do with outside factors at the time.
Now I had no job, no other life to worry about, only that which I had embarked upon two weeks previously. I woke up and I walked. The caveman in me was sated. The further I walked in, the further I would have to walk out again. I'm sure the other lads won't mind me saying that I didn't get involved in too much of the days proceedings. In the first week I knew I was going to have to go up a lot, and then down a lot. In the second week when it levelled out some it would just be me versus altitude.
I awoke very early today and as usual knew I wouldn't get back to sleep. I dressed and slipped out of the lodge in complete darkness and started to walk up the hill behind Lobuche. One reason for doing this is so that I could get an exact time for sunrise (06.38) which meant we could get a better idea of when to leave for Kala Patthar the next morning. It was a warm morning by the time we left and I'd reverted back to shorts and a T shirt. A couple of hours later we were at Gorak Shep(5140M) The end of the road and our highest sleeping place. A very small town that is sees a constant flow of people and goods to EBC. We overheard a conversation in our lodge between two doctors from London and an Indian Paediatrician. The two doctors were living at EBC doing research into living at altitude. This was the first time they had left for a month and were returning from Namche.
This was the biggest and (on the first night) busiest dining room we had yet encountered.
We got our rooms and dropped our rucksacks. By this time James (Aus) had a killer headache and decided not to go to EBC. The rest of us set off but after only a few minutes I decided my shorts were now not a good idea as a cold wind had picked up. I told the others to carry on and I would catch them up. Which is how I ended up at EBC by myself as we didn't see each other again after that. EBC is an hour walk away and is a mess of tents on a glacier! I would estimate it to be about 500M by 1KM.
The weather started to turn and I'm glad I changed into long trousers and brought the Goretex with me.
I got back to the lodge just before a big thunder and snow storm started which lasted all afternoon and totally transformed the place. It also drastically reduced the temperature just in time for our ascent of Kala Patthar (5550M) the next morning!
Sunday 12th May 2013.
The big peak on the right is Pumo Ri (7165M). Follow the left hand flank down to the grey pile of rocks and you have Kala Patthar. It looks so close but was two hard hours away.
It looks very inconsequential in this photo, but at 04.30 in the freezing cold it was as daunting a challenge as we had yet had. And there was a false summit. There real summit is behind the one seen below.
By the time we had summited we were all exhausted, we had all lost sensation in our fingers and toes. The men from the group of Israelis were already on the top. I had passed one of the ladies on the way up and she was fine but when Christian passed her she was sat sobbing, the pain of the cold in her fingers and toes too much. He sat with her for a while and she told him that they thought of us as the 'cool, strong group'. Poor girl was obviously delusional as well!
I stayed at the top for as long as it took to warm myself through again. And for as long as I could stand listening to the big group of Russians that were now here. They talked as loudly as possible to each other and then proceded to one by one get different sponsorship flags out and various members were photographed in front of them. When they all started signing their national anthem I decided that was enough and I descended.
Ama Dablam in the distance....
Everest puffing away behind Nuptse....
My night's sleep that night was the one that I'd heard about but had yet to experience. I was in the process of dropping off when I jerked awake and had to take two big lungfuls of air that didn't feel enough. And this kept happening over and over. It's more frustrating than it is scary. I got up and went to the loo to try and break the cycle but it carried on when I got back. Eventually I did get to sleep and as we started to descend the next day and I never experienced it again.
.JPG)
