We were one of the first to summit that morning. So, the crowd that was still coming up towards the summit made going down very hard and very scary. People who were coming up got priority so everytime you passed someone, you had to unclip, go around them and clip back into the safety ropes. As I was already tired coming down, it was quite scary unclipping everytime, especially at the very steep spots near the summit. I saw Mayk and Tim just below the summit. I passed Mike and Louis at the Hillary step. It was harder coming down that hillary step than going up especially when many trying to come up. I had to shout out to the guys to stop them from coming up before I could go down. I saw Jason and Eben near the South summit and I knew they would make it as well. I was happy that the entire team would summit. Awesome!!.
The view from the South summit of the last stretch (You can see people still climbing and the famous Hillary step)
Took a few more photos at the South summit and you could see how strong the wind was at the summit. As we came near the top of the steep rocky section, we saw a climber just sitting and practically sleeping. The guide was yelling at her asking her to get up and keep moving. We were stuck behind her for about 10mins until she gained the energy to move. The guide wasn’t being very helpful shouting at her either. We waited to see if we could help but another guide from her own team made it down to help her, so we decided to keep going. Hope she made it fine to Camp as she looked in bad shape. I decided to abseil down the steep rocky section and I missed the fact that the rope was stuck behind a little rock higher up and had some slack. As I started to abseil down, the rope gave away and I fell about 10 feet and hurt my elbow. Fortunately, it wasn’t that bad but I was in a bit of a shock.
At the South Summit on our way down
Just as I made my way down hard rocky section (strangely this part has never been given a name), I saw a Sherpa roll past me down the snow a few feet from me. He was not tied in and fortunately, he managed to put the breaks on before he fell off the Kanchenjung face. He was possibly trying to avoid the rocky section and come along the side of it, bad idea. The Sherpa was bleeding on his hands but he seemed more in shock than anything else. My Sherpa sat with him for a few minutes until he was ok and we left. It was quite scary to see someone just rolling off next to you. Thankfully, he had found a way to stop himself.
We made it down to balcony with just enough Oxygen left in our bottles. I finally decided to try and eat something as my throat felt better and I was feeling energyless. Changed our Oxygen back to the original partial bottle we used up to the Balcony and down we went. The weather had turned, it was snowing, visibility was low and it got pretty windy. Thank god, we were already down at the balcony. We were slow going down, taking many breaks but we were fairly out of danger and we were starting to enjoy the descent. Tim caught up with us half way down and I finally reached Camp 4 at about 2pm. A super long day and I was tired but hey! we made it to the summit. As I removed my shoes, I realized the damage on my toes. All my left toes were numb and my right toes were partially numb. I couldn’t move any of my left toes but they were not very discoloured. I was scared. Justin, our lead guide, checked my feet and said, they look more like boot ramp than frost bite. Phew!. We used the left over Oxygen in our bottles to rest, enjoyed our summit success and slept like babies. I was hungry but I could still barely eat. My throat problem persisted.
We made good speed until we hit another bottleneck. It didn’t seem so bad at first with only about 10 people in front of us but the queue barely moved. As I got closer, we saw the problem. There was a steep rocky section, with a slight overhang. It was taking people forever to cross that section. I remember there was a guy just staring at it and not doing a thing. Even worse, the guy behind was not shouting at him. We had already been stuck there for more than 20 mins and my feet were getting cold. I lost my patience and just yelled asking him to either move up or move out so others can go. Eventually, he made it up. It was certainly not an easy section but some of the guys in the front were just outright terrible. Fortunately, I had a total of over 40 mins of waiting time to mentally prepare myself and climb through the section a bit more gracefully.
Summit pic with the banner
By the time, I was over, I could see a queue of over 100 people behind me. This was going to take some time. I was just glad I was in the front of the queue. Once we crossed the rocky section, the terrain was much better. The slow rocky section distributed the queue of climbers ahead with big enough gaps. This helped us keep a good pace. I was starting to feel confident that I would make it. The sun started to come up and I could see the South Summit. I could see the shadow of Everest on the left. Just before the South summit, I overtook Ted and another climber. That took so much energy out of me that I fell right on the South Summit and had to take a minute’s break. As soon as I lifted my head, I could see it.
Summit pic with my Sherpa (his 4th attempt and first time to the summit)
The image that I had seen so many times in books and photos, the path to the summit. Everything came back to me. Until then, I had briefly forgotten where Hillary step was, where South summit was and how far they all were from the summit. Now everything was clear. I could see the top. I know I was going to make it. There were still a couple of tough steep sections, but I had absolutely no doubt I will make it. Hillary step wasn’t easy and steep, but we made it through just fine. After that, it was a smooth climb up. I could see about 15 people at the summit as I was slowing inching my way up through the final section. As I was about 5 mins away, I could see the guys leaving the summit, most of them were from the Tibet side. That’s when it struck me that there are people coming from the other side as well on that day.
My favourite summit pic
As I reached the peak, I had maybe a single tear struggling to come out but mostly I was in a state of disbelief. I made it, I actually made it to the top of the world, above the clouds after 55 days of a constant adrenalin rush. Here I am, this is it and its over. We were the only ones at the summit. I got my SLR camera out and it wasn’t working. I got my Canon D10 out and it wasn’t working either. Not good. Fortunately, I had spare batteries that I had kept against my body, nice and warm. Removed my gloves and changed the battery for the SLR, still not working. Did the same for the Canon, and finally, it worked. Phew!! My hands were freezing by this time, and just at that time, a climber from the Tibetan side came up. We asked him to take a photo of me and my Sherpa. Then, I took a few photos of Kaldin and he of me. But, our hands were freezing badly that we had to stop taking photos and put our mittens back on. My hands were so cold that when we were taking photos of the banner, I thought I was holding the banner firmly in my hand but it just flew right out of my hands. The winds were super strong. I looked out to see if there were others were coming up but the next person was atleast 15mins away. It was too long to wait; we were running out of Oxygen and it was getting cold. We had to leave and we did.
We started getting ready at about 6:45pm, just as it was getting dark. I was still very anxious. I was wavering between absolute confidence and absolute hopelessness but I knew I wasn’t going to give up easily. I was up and ready by 7:55pm, waiting for my Sherpa to get ready. He wasn’t ready until 8:15pm. I remember getting annoyed waiting in the cold. We were late by 15mins and that costed us a lot during our summit bid. Within about 20mins, we were stuck behind a few people. As time passed, there were more and more people who were slow in front of us, and soon we were stuck behind a slow moving queue of about 30-40 people. As we inched our way up, the queue started to grow behind us. In a way, I was glad, because I wasn’t sure how slow I was going to be and now I am left with little choice but to be slow. However, after about an hour I started to get worried. The queue was a bit too slow. It is a disaster waiting to happen, especially if the weather turns but more so on the unnecessary wastage of our precious Oxygen and possible exposure to Frost bite, waiting away in the queue and getting cold.
Camp 4 area
Unfortunately, little could be done. Overtaking wasn’t easy, as the climbers were right behind each other. Every 50m or so, you could see the slower climbers dropping off to take a break, and the queue getting a tad bit faster. But, it was inching very slowly all the way to the balcony. We managed to overtake a few people on the way, when we got a chance but everytime I overtook a person, I was out of breath for a minute or two. It was hard work at that altitude. We finally reached the Balcony after 6 hours, 2 hours longer than planned. I had reduced my Oxygen from 3.0 to 2.5 and further down to 2.0 somewhere along the way.
Some emergency Oxygen tanks along the way
The balcony was a small area where climbers would switch Oxygen bottles. One bottle isn’t enough to go up all the way to the summit and back. So, we dropped the bottle we were using and got ourselves a brand new bottle. This process helped relax the queue a little bit. Unfortunately, we had a bit of trouble with my Oxygen bottle and we couldn’t close it properly. That took a fair bit of time. My Sherpa also took sometime to sort his own stuff out. Fortunately, my throat was still in terrible condition that I didn’t waste anytime bothering with food. I knew, it was a bad idea but I just couldn’t manage to swallow anything solid. I just grabbed an energy tablet and sucked on it. We spent atleast 15mins at the balcony when we should have been there for less than 10mins. Neverthless, we left the balcony with barely anyone in front of us.
Day 49 – May 18 – Climb to Camp 2 and sleep
Day 50 – May 19 – Rest at Camp 2
Day 51 – May 20 – Climb to Camp 3 and sleep on Oxygen
Day 52 – May 21 – Climb to Camp 4 on Oxygen and leave by 9pm for summit
Day 53 – May 22 – Summit by morning and descend to Camp 2
Day 54 – May 23 – Descend to Everest BC
Day 55 – May 24 – Rest day at Everest BC
Day 56 – May 25 – Descend to Pheriche
Day 57 – May 26 – Descend to Namche
Day 58 – May 27 – Descend to Lukla
Day 59 – May 28 – Fly to Kathmandu
The guides had a meeting this morning and finally decided on the dates. Even though there is barely a perfect window with sub 30miles/hr winds, the guides decided on a date that was good enough.
Day 47 – Picking our summit food n snacks
Unfortunately, I need to keep it a secret for now until we start moving up. It has been known for other teams to follow IMG’s schedule and we want to avoid traffic on the summit day as much as possible. We started working on getting our summit food n snacks ready and the Sherpas got to try out thier oxygen masks. It is getting exciting and nerve-wrecking at the same time, as we approach closer to THE date.
