The Chomolungma Diaries: What a commercial Everest expedition is really like (Footsteps on the Mountain travel diaries)

by Mark Horrell

  Margaret has been throwing rocks at Grant, but neither of us have noticed, so engrossed are we in the conversation. I look at her and see that she's only carrying a very small pack today.

  "Margaret, will you carry my pack for me, please?" I ask her.

  But Grant hasn't finished yet. "And then at the weekend she does 200 kilometres of cycling as well. So I said to her, 'How many days per week do you train like this?', and she said, 'Oh, just seven'."

  They continue onwards, and I'm left to consider that I'm almost certainly going to get beaten up the mountain by a 62 year old lady. There was a time in the past when this would have shamed me beyond words, but now I'm not so sure.

  I continue plodding slowly, unconcerned by the pace. I reach Japanese Base Camp, a flattish area where the high-walled valley widens, and I remember it from when I camped here with Mark and Ian in 2007. I'm making good time and find a comfortable rock to sit on while I stop for a packed lunch. In the afternoon the weather changes, and I complete the rest of the rocky ascent to Interim Camp in a light snowfall, with a cold wind behind my back. My thin liner gloves are not warm enough, and I have to put my trekking pole away so that I can walk with my hands in my pockets. A mist descends and visibility is reduced, but there are lots of people walking up today, and there are always figures ahead of me to show me the way.

  I reach Interim Camp at 3.15. I'm happy that my Achilles tendon has held up pretty well. It's been troubling me for the last three months and has limited the amount of training I've been able to do for Everest. I was still feeling the injury when I came out to Nepal, but perhaps the week of doing nothing at Base Camp was just what my tendon needed. Total rest wasn't possible while I was still working, and now I just need to hope the many years of preparation for this adventure overrides my lack of training in the run up.

  Interim Camp isn't the most comfortable place I've ever stayed. There are lots of pointy rocks underneath my tent, and we've christened it Yakshit Camp - Phil said it's one of the dirtiest places he's ever stayed, with so much yak shit lying about that it floats around the air and gets into your lungs. Someone always ends up getting ill here, he told us, but I presume the aerial yak shit only appears when it's hot and dusty. With the damp mist and snow we've had today the air is much cleaner. I find myself sharing a tent with Grant, and he turns out to be a good tent mate, with one reservation: he's a talker. Tired after the big jump in altitude today, I'd prefer to spend the afternoon snoozing, but instead we talk for the next two hours. It's not that Grant's boring; it's just relentless. Among other things he tells me about getting high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) at Advanced Base Camp last year.

  "We were going to climb up to the North Col, but I didn't get very far before I felt like shit and had to come back down again. Then I woke up in the middle of the night and I was coughing blood. I could hear my lungs gurgling – the classic symptoms of HAPE. I had to get out of my tent to go and be sick, but I could only crawl about five metres. I had no energy."

  "Did Jamie hear you and get up to help?" I ask (Jamie McGuinness was Grant's expedition leader last year).

  "Everybody was up sleeping at the North Col. There was just me and one Tibetan kitchen boy down at ABC. I had to lie awake for the next five hours until I could make a radio call up to the North Col at 6.30. Jamie told me what drugs to take and instructed me to descend immediately. Going back down to Base Camp was hell. I had no energy and there were times when I had to crawl."

  Remarkably, Grant recovered sufficiently to make a summit attempt a few weeks later. He seems to be acclimatising much better this year.

  12. The Magic Highway

  Sunday 22 April, 2012 - Advanced Base Camp (ABC), Everest, Tibet

  We're woken up with breakfast at the tent door at around six o'clock. I can't face the noodle soup Pemba brings at this hour of the morning, but I accept a bread roll. Grant, on the other hand, eats not only his own noodle soup but mine as well, and continues to talk for New Zealand. By 6.30 he has already asked me whether I have any plans to write a book, whether I'm interested in travelling to the polar regions, and if I ever write technical blog posts. All of these questions require considered responses which my brain isn't capable of processing at this time of the morning, and to make matters worse my bread roll is demanding all my attention. I chew and chew and chew, but nothing seems to be happening. It takes me literally half an hour to finish it, and most of it is still sticking to my teeth to be digested in my body's own time.

  Grant and I leave Interim Camp at 7.30 for what is going to prove a tough day. Immediately out of camp the trail drops about 50 metres to cross a cleft in the ice, then rises steeply again to join the Magic Highway, a strip of moraine (known as medial moraine) up the middle of the East Rongbuk Glacier. This remarkable natural highway provides a non-technical trail up to Advanced Base Camp which even yaks can follow. It's a tough climb and I tire very quickly, but up ahead is a closer view of Everest and the Northeast Ridge, our first since yesterday morning. The glacier all around us is formed of dramatic ice pinnacles which we christened sharks' fins last time we were here. The glacier would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to navigate without the solid surface of the Magic Highway.

  Everest and shark's fin from the Magic Highway

  It's not easy terrain underfoot, though. At the top of the hill we have to stop to let some yaks past, belonging to the large Russian 7 Summits Club team. Grant shoots off ahead of me, and from now on it's going to be a slow plod with a reasonably heavy pack resting on my shoulders, containing the sleeping bag and mat I needed at Interim Camp. As I slowly place one foot in front of the other, I calculate that I have 600 metres of ascent today, which means I can expect to have six hours of it. Although it's bright and sunny, a bitter wind whips up, and I stop to put on a windproof layer.

  After three hours of walking the trail descends off the moraine to Changtse Base Camp, where we camped after our second day up the East Rongbuk Valley when we were here five years ago. I'm now directly beneath the northern flanks of Changtse, the smaller 7583 metre peak which lies between Everest and Base Camp, and Everest itself is out of view behind it again. It's a spectacular area of ice lakes and ice pinnacles, but I'm exhausted and not appreciating it like I might. I stop for a bite to eat while the wind blasts spindrift into my face. It's not pleasant and I stand up to continue. Immediately a gust takes the green rubber sit-mat I was resting on, into the air and hundreds of yards over a snow mound. There's no chance of recovering it, and in a few short minutes it will probably be miles away.

  It's 10.30 and I've completed only a third of today's ascent. I steel myself for another four hours of slow plod, shoulder my pack and continue. About fifteen minutes out of Changtse Base Camp I catch up with Grant and Margaret taking a rest, and we complete most of the ascent from here together. There are some interesting ice formations to negotiate to get back onto the moraine, but once back on the Magic Highway it's a very monotonous trudge. As we round the eastern edge of Changtse, Everest appears again, and its black face now looks daunting and too much to contemplate. The bitterly cold gusts of wind begin to take their toll, and I can feel my fingers getting cold in the inadequate liner gloves that are all I've brought with me for this two day hike. I pack my trekking pole away and walk with my hands in my pockets again, and this helps a little. I'm glad when one of our Tibetan kitchen boys appears over a ridge of moraine about half an hour out of camp, carrying a flask of hot lemon. I stop for a few short minutes to warm my fingers on the hot metal cup, and I find this as pleasing as the drink itself.

  Seeing the tents of ABC up ahead is a morale boost. We have to wait for more yaks to pass, but otherwise I'm able to continue without a break and arrive at 1.30. The Sherpas have pitched our tents at the top end of camp, so we have further to walk, but I don't mind. Phil is there to welcome us, and Pasang Wongchu brings my big red North Face duffle bag, which the yaks carried up here yesterday, over to my tent. It's been an exhausting day, but I'm not
concerned by this. We've made a very quick jump to 6410 metres, an extreme altitude, carrying quite a big pack. Phil tells me even some of the Sherpas are feeling tired, although this is probably just to cheer me up. They arrived a day earlier and have been busy setting up camp.

  It's great to be ushered into a cosy Mountain Hardwear dome tent as soon as I arrive, with table and chairs, hot drinks and biscuits. We try to force some lunch down, but it's going to be difficult to eat here until we're properly acclimatised. ABC is in a beautiful location, but I have days here to admire the scenery and don't take it all in now. It's not very pleasant outside while the icy gusts continue, and much warmer inside the tent with the sun on it. It's an afternoon for snoozing indoors and getting some energy back, though my tent takes one hell of a buffeting and sleep isn't easy.

  13. Everest lassitude

  Monday 23 April, 2012 - Advanced Base Camp (ABC), Everest, Tibet

  In The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W.E. Bowman, they called it base camp lassitude, the desire to be in your sleeping bag and do nothing all day. There's a lot of it about today. Everything takes so much effort up here, from climbing out of your tent to visit the toilet, to sorting out kit, to walking the few short feet to the dining tent for hot drinks, the smallest of tasks leaves you out of breath. It's not been aided by the wind, which has remained gusty all morning. It's not very tempting to get out of your tent when it's bending at 45 degrees.

  Fortunately we don't have to do anything for a few days. Phil's weather forecast says it's going to remain windy until the 26th, which would mean us resting and acclimatising in ABC for three days. Certainly I don't feel like going up to the North Col in the gusty winds we've had this morning. If it's calmer tomorrow I may go out for a wander around camp, but for now I'm content to rest.

  14. The view from ABC

  Tuesday 24 April, 2012 - Advanced Base Camp (ABC), Everest, Tibet

  When I experience broken sleep – waking up incessantly throughout the night with a banging headache, rolling over and trying to go back to sleep again – it's difficult to imagine that I'm becoming acclimatised, but hopefully I am. After two days here at ABC I still have very little appetite. I chew and chew and chew, and try to force down a tiny plate of food. In the evening it's worse. At six o'clock it's so cold that it's impossible for my food to stay warm for longer than a couple of minutes, and I end up eating most of it cold.

  I'm not alone, though. Everybody is suffering, and I can't expect to climb this mountain without enduring hardship. Margaret has twice been on the south side of Everest, and summited last year. She looks as rough as anyone at breakfast this morning, even Mark. Well, OK, maybe not Mark, but she says that it's harder here on the north side, with two big leaps to high altitude, firstly to Base Camp at 5160 metres where we spent a week, and now here to ABC at 6410 metres, where we intend to spend a week more. There's none of the gradual gain in altitude that you get trekking into Base Camp on the south side, or any of the climb high, sleep low style of acclimatisation which triggers the body to generate red blood cells, helping you to acclimatise more quickly. Although I feel like I lack the energy to climb up to the North Col to tag it, I expect it will do me the power of good when we eventually get round to it. We still have high winds forecast for the next couple of days, so the plan is to go up to the North Col on Thursday if everyone is feeling up to it.

  Tent lassitude prevails this morning, and it isn't aided by the bitterly cold wind that continues to gust from time to time. From my tent I keep hearing people getting up to go outside, and uttering various expletives of a similar nature: "fuck me, it's cold" or words to that effect. There's not much variation, but it persuades me to stay indoors for much of the morning. I do manage to get some jobs done inside my tent, though. I practice with all the straps, pockets and zips on my new Mountain Hardwear down suit, and discover that it has a shit hole down the back and sides, which enables me to unzip and take my trousers down while still wearing the suit. With practice this is likely to come in very handy. There are stories of mountaineers having to pull the entire suit down around their ankles in order to take a crap, only to shit in the hood and not realise until they pulled it back over their head. There are few things more unpleasant than this, and I think on balance I would rather stick my arm down the suit and crap into my cupped hand. After the marvellous discovery of my shit hole (a sentence I would never have predicted myself saying), I experiment with various glove and camera combinations I expect to be using at different stages of the climb, to ensure I'll be able to operate the cameras effectively. What I don't know yet, and won't know till I get up there, is how the gloves and cameras will cope with the cold.

  Just before lunch I go for an hour's wander around camp, my first since arriving here. I walk down to the bottom of camp and watch some ice climbers practicing with ropes and ice tools on the edge of the East Rongbuk Glacier. This brings back some memories, for it's what Mark, Ian and I did when we came here five years ago, much less experienced climbers than we are now. At the time I had never abseiled properly or used fixed ropes and a jumar before, and I would be needing the skills for our ascent of Lhakpa Ri and climb up to the North Col. Lhakpa Ri is a gentle mountain that rises up to 7045 metres across the East Rongbuk Glacier to our east. Or at least it seemed quite gentle five years ago, just an easy snow slog, although it was rendered more tiring because we ended up climbing it in a blizzard. This year it looks much harder, with a couple of steep ice sections to negotiate, although it may be possible to weave around them. To the left of Lhakpa Ri is another slightly rockier peak, Khartaphu, and to the left of this the glacier swings round to the left behind the flanks of Changtse and disappears from sight, the route we came up a couple of days ago. To the right of Lhakpa Ri is a gentle snow col, the Ruba La, before Everest's ragged Northeast Ridge rises sharply. The view of Everest from ABC is dominated by a feature on this ridge known as The Pinnacles, a difficult section where the legendary British climbers Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker met their end in 1982. The summit itself peeps up inconspicuously to the right of The Pinnacles, and we'll actually be taking an easier route up to the Northeast Ridge which avoids them. This involves climbing a wall of ice rising some distance above camp at the top end of the East Rongbuk Glacier. This wall leads up to the North Col, the saddle between Everest and Changtse. It looks daunting and quite sheer from here, but I know from experience that it isn't. Changtse itself towers directly over ABC in a wall of rock which cuts off the sun at about 3.30 in the afternoon, making it instantly very cold. I wonder what it will be like climbing up to the North Col the day after tomorrow. Other peaks that I've repeated on, such as Mera Peak and Aconcagua, have been much easier second time around because I was much more experienced. I hope it will be the same here.

  Lhakpa Ri from Advanced Base Camp

  Pemba serves a delicious meal of fried yak and chips for lunch. Although I still eat very slowly I can feel a little bit of my appetite returning. For a couple of hours after lunch it's bliss lying in my tent and snoozing with the sun on it. The hardship begins when the sun dips behind Changtse in the middle of the afternoon, and I know it will continue until it rises again tomorrow morning. Pemba produces yak steak and roast potatoes for dinner, which is very tasty but exceedingly tough. In fact, it's so tough that I wonder if I expend more energy sawing it into pieces than I gain from eating it. My teeth take a particular pummelling. After what seems an age I do eventually finish it though, and take consolation in the fact that my appetite seems to be improving.

  15. A walk to Crampon Point

  Wednesday 25 April, 2012 - Advanced Base Camp (ABC), Everest, Tibet

  Some of the early forays up to the North Col are made today. Our Sherpa team leave at 7.30 this morning to deposit a cache of equipment up there, and we intend to follow them tomorrow to tag the Col and gain some altitude.

  Every night here at ABC I seem to sleep a little longer and wake with a little less of a headache, but I don't think the latter will vanish complete
ly until I've climbed higher. After breakfast I decide to go for a short walk up to Crampon Point, where the moraine ends and the glacier begins, and therefore the place where you need to put on crampons if you want to climb any higher. It takes me about an hour to get there, but it's good exercise up a trail of moraine and over patches of ice which are relatively easy to cross in just my approach shoes (I don't mean just my approach shoes, of course. I wasn't naked, but I wasn't wearing my heavy mountaineering boots). I walk very slowly, almost as slowly as I've been eating, although with walking there is evidence of progress at every step, which hasn't always been the case with chewing. I reach Crampon Point at 11.30, and according to my altimeter I've ascended 150 metres from ABC, which is good headway.

  Above me is a plateau of ice, at the end of which the North Col Wall rises up to Camp 1. This is the steepest, most technical section of the whole ascent, and it looks quite daunting, but Mark, Ian and I completed it as far as the North Col in 2007, and this gives me more confidence. It looks like quite a few people have chosen to climb it today, and I count around 50 figures on the Wall, nearly 25 of whom are bunched together on a steep bottleneck section through seracs just beneath the col. Although I can't see the very base of the climb from where I stand, this looks to be the hardest bit.

  Climbers on the North Col Wall

  Pleased with my little outing, I wander slowly back to camp. I need to take care crossing a couple of the ice sections in my shoes, but I get over them without a hitch and arrive back in camp at 12.30. It was an easy stroll completed very slowly, and it's raised my spirits a great deal. There's nothing worse for morale than cowering in your tent all day listening to the wind bash against it, and it's been good to get out and about.