Perseverance and Spirit Guide Me to the Summit

In part 4 of my Everest journey, the weather clears, and we move up the mountain. That day I was introduced to the two Sherpa assigned to me, Purba and Neema, and given my oxygen mask and regulator. We had an early dinner and then rested. Then, at 10 p.m. we met in the tent fully dressed to have soup before going out, meeting our Sherpa, and heading to the ice fall.

The ice fall is often considered the most dangerous part of the climb because it consists of towers of ice and massive crevasses that are constantly changing. There is a team of sherpa called the ice doctors whose job it is to keep the ladders, ice pickets and ropes repaired and safe despite any movement in the ice. We leave at 11 p.m. in the hopes that no one else is leaving at this time so that we don’t get stuck in traffic. Also, late at night is the coldest temperature which we hope will limit big ice movements during our move.

It is a long night of about six hours of climbing. Using our ascenders we have to climb up steep walls of ice in places. In other places we jump across small crevasses, or we walk across ladders placed on big crevasses. One crevasse is so large that it has four ladders tied together that bend like a reed when a 170-pound body walks across. The crampons on our feet occasionally get stuck in the rungs of the ladder. But, as the morning light comes into view, we emerge from the ice fall onto the glacier and come to camp 1.

Now we can relax, right? Not really, it is a sunny day and the pounding rays reflect off the surrounding snow making our tents unbearably hot. We are surrounded by ice and snow, but we are burning up. The entire day is spent in the tents, supposedly resting. The following morning, I wake up with a headache and take an ibuprofen on an empty stomach, leading to vomiting. I hope it's a one-time occurrence.

The hike from camp 1 to camp 2 is known as the easiest day. Just a couple rope sections and a bit of uphill. But for me, the day is awful. I’m tired from the day before, and maybe a bit dehydrated from being sick. My slow walk to camp 2 gets slower as the heat rises during my walk. I struggle into camp 2 and immediately vomit again. I sit around camp trying to nibble on food and drink a bit to recover. Later my climbing mates told me that I looked like death that day. The tents again get too hot in the afternoon. I try to eat and drink a bit at dinner and again I vomit. The altitude is also getting to be serious.

In the morning I test my SP02 and it is below 60. That is not a good sign. I’m a bit too slow out of the tent to get breakfast. The lead guide and owner Lukas has a serious conversation with me about whether it is time for me to go down. We agree that I can walk to the bergschrund (the place where the steep Lhotse face meets the more flat glacier) and see how I am then. Lukas does not appear to be very convinced. I put down a snickers bar and some water and start the walk. I walk slowly so as not to disturb my digestion. Now that we have left camp 2, we have started wearing our oxygen masks. Later I am able to also eat an energy bar and keep drinking. I’m not walking very fast, so Lukas reserves judgment. The Lhotse face walk to camp 3 is where he will judge me.

Thankfully, steep climbing is what I trained for. The strength reserve created by the heavy step ups means that even these very steep steps are not tiring me very much. The muscular endurance from doing laps with a heavy pack on the hills next to Crum Creek means that I am able to recover while walking up the steep face. I hold a good pace and am relaxed. Lukas says “perfect!” I live to fight another day. I still don’t have an appetite that evening, and I vomit one more time. I’m still worried. Then, at 2 a.m., I wake up hungry. I’m able to eat some pringles and a date and hold it down. An hour later I’m still hungry and eating more. I know that I am back in the game.

The next morning, I happened to be ready early and next to one of my sherpa on the rope at the top of camp. One of the guides says, if you are ready, go ahead. So, off we go and we don’t look back. The Lhotse face is a 3,700 foot wall of ice that

rises at 40 and 50 degree pitches with occasional 80 degree bulges. You connect to a rope with an ascender and a safety and walk and pull yourself up over the course of several hours. Because of how steep it is, it is difficult to pass people. However, with just two of us we get lucky and can pass some of the groups strung out before us.

I uneventfully cross the Lhotse face, and then climb up through the rocky yellow band. We then start our traverse towards the South col, and come across camp 4 for the groups climbing Lhotse. I get confused and think it is camp 4 for Everest, but my Sherpa corrects me and lets me know that I am not done for the day. We walk across the ice traverse, and then climb up into more rocks. After a bit of climbing, we are almost on a normal hiking path, and then we are in camp 4. I’m here and excited and feel great. I sit and eat and take pictures while my Sherpa Purba starts preparing the tent. While taking pictures, I let my guard down, and the cold wind picked up. Suddenly, before I can get my goggles on, my left eye is cloudy. If you aren’t careful, the mountain can get you quickly. Thankfully it is mild edema that fixes itself over the next six hours.

It is two hours before the rest of the group comes in. As a larger group, they weren’t able to pass other groups as easily as I could. But still, after being on the verge of having my trip canceled the day before, to be first into camp by a big margin feels encouraging. Now we have to try our best to rest so that we can have a good summit day. The guides start talking strategy in their tent, and I can overhear them. There are a lot of people looking to summit. Some will try to leave early to be the first ones going up in order not to get slowed down. Some people might leave as early as 8 p.m. Others will start falling in after that, because isn’t 8 p.m. too early? We finally decided to leave at 2 a.m. There is no beating the people who will try to leave first. So, why don’t we let them get up the mountain. We can walk up freely for the first part, and then just get stuck in traffic a bit at the top. But, at least, we will be able to summit in the daytime for a better picture.

It is 1 a.m. and time to wake up, but no one is bringing water. I hear the other tents murmuring about the same thing. What is going on? I yell out a question to our guides, and one of them agrees, where is the water? Why aren’t we getting up? Then the other guide corrects us. We all have smart watches and our GPS has automatically changed our time to China time. The one guide has an analogue watch and tells us to get back to sleep. We have two more hours.

Finally we wake up and it's time for summit day which I will cover in the next and final installment of the series. My climb of Everest was to support my foundation Afghan Peaks, if you are interested to support, you can do so from the web page: www.afghanpeaks.org.