Oh No—No OOOOO’s!!!

[I’m almost done stepping back in time to give you a daily account from the time we left Everest Base Camp on May 17 through the already reported summit on May 24.]

Just below the South Summit there’s a small landing that provided the first real opportunity for a break since our stop at the Balcony. Ang Passang helped me get my pack off and changed out my oxygen bottle to insure I had a sufficient amount to get me to the summit and back to the South Summit cache. I was feeling pretty good. By all accounts, I had conquered the hardest parts of the summit assault and, with the exception of the Hillary Step, had a relatively easy 90 minute climb to my final goal.

As the break ended, Ang Passang helped me get my pack on again (it’s not easy to do when wearing an 8000 meter parka and oxygen mask.) In doing so, he inadvertently pulled the plastic hose feeding oxygen from the regulator my mask — and neither he nor I realized what had happened. I started to proceed towards the summit but after just 3-4 steps, I couldn’t breathe! I didn’t know what was happening but I knew I couldn’t go forward — indeed, I collapsed backwards on to my pack gasping for air and trying to remain calm (not too easy to do!) so as not to exacerbate the situation. Very fortunately, Vern Tejas, who had been assisting Mike Kraft coming up behind me, realized what had happened and ran to my aid. He grabbed the oxygen tube and quickly maneuvered it back into place.

I know the oxygen level at this altitude is just 1/3 of that at sea level, but I would never have guessed that the lack of it would create such immediate consequences. Suffice it to say that I’m in awe of those who have climbed Everest and other 8,000 meter peaks without supplemental oxygen. They have to be superhuman!

With my oxygen flowing again, I picked myself up and continued the final leg of the summit assault, which began with another rock scramble, which was first thought to be the Hillary Step but turned out to be just another unnamed obstacle. After mounting this, we began another intimidating traverse across a knife-edge ridge of snow some 400 feet long. This ridge was done in daylight when you could see the very steep falloffs into Nepal and Tibet — to the left its 8,000 feet down the Southwest Face and to the right, 10,000 feet on the Kangshung Face. I just kept looking forward and had a much better appreciation of the Sherpa Team that placed the anchors and fixed ropes in early May.

Immediately ahead of our break point was what everyone first thought was the Hillary Step — but it wasn’t. It was just another unnamed rock scramble. Once above this obstacle, we could see the real Hillary Step, although it didn’t appear that much more difficult — and I don’t think it was. It’s steep and rocky, but it was easy to jockey up using your ascender and some good footholds. There is one point where you have to straddle a huge boulder and then carefully jump one foot into a 6” wide crack below. Maneuvering around this boulder caused a bottleneck, but there were relatively few climbers this day, so it wasn’t a big problem.

Above the Hillary Step, the trek to the summit was easy, although that’s a relative term. You still have to take 3-4 breaths for each step and just plow on — but you’re on a beautiful ridge and can see the crowd (20-30 people were ahead of me, including my teammates) sitting just to the side of the summit. More importantly, you know with certainty that you’re going to reach it after eight weeks of waiting!

AND I MADE IT!

I’m embarrassed to say it felt a bit anti-climatic! After eleven hours of exhausting climbing, I simply hugged Ang Passang and then sat down and took in the limited view (it was too cloudy to see anything farther than the south summit). Mike Kraft joined me and we looked on with some surprise as another climber came up behind us from Tibet! We took some photos with our trusty Sherpa guides and I tried to call Joyce on a satellite phone (I could hear her but she couldn’t hear me but later learned she was sure it was me given the call came through after midnight in NYC).

Before I knew what was happening, Lakpa Rita Sherpa was yelling at our team to “…get down before the weather turns — it’s dangerous to stay here.” Only then did I realize I hadn’t taken pictures with the banners I had laboriously carried from Base Camp. Fortunately, Garrett Madison (the AAI expedition leader) came to my rescue. He pulled the banners out of my pack, grabbed my camera and started shooting. He then whisked me off the summit and I tried, to no avail, to catch up to my teammates who had run ahead. Ang Passang and another Sherpa, Dorje, followed in front and behind me to insure my descent was a safe one and their assistance was greatly appreciated.

Just how difficult the ascent was did not hit home until I recently read that the distance from Camp 4 to the summit is just 1.07 miles. I was incredulous. It took me eleven hours (which was slower than four of my younger teammates who made it in 9-1/2 hours, but still a respectable time when you consider that some climbers take up to 16 hours). In other words, my average speed was just a tenth of a mile per hour. It sounds almost impossible to go that slow, but you have to realize that you take 4-5 breaths after each step and that the better part of the climb is VERY steep.

Gravity works in your favor going down, although you are quite exhausted from the ordeal of ascending, which is why most mountaineering accidents occur going down rather than up. But thanks to my invaluable Sherpa, my descent was uneventful and took just four hours. However, during the last half-hour, which is on a smooth snow slope leading into to Camp 4, my legs started to get a bit shaky. Seeing I could do with some help, Dorje, who had been assisting me clipping in an out of the ropes on the steeper sections of the descent, grabbed my hand and looked at me with a broad smile on his face. I was especially touched by this act of kindness. It was just the boost I needed after a physically and emotionally exhausting day and we happily walked hand in hand as he escorted me the remainder of the way to my tent.

It was only 1:15 PM, but I had been awake almost 24 hours and climbing or descending for 15 hours. I slipped into my sleeping bag but the exhilaration I felt (or perhaps it was the endorphins running through my veins) made it impossible to sleep. It was a nice afternoon!

//Don

Moment of Fear, and a Night for Knights

[NOTE:  I’m continuing to step back in time to give you a daily account from the time we left Everest Base Camp on May 17 through the already reported summit on May 24.]

There’s not much to do on the South Col, to say the least! Most groups spend less than half a day resting here and then move on to the summit. Alpine Ascents brings sufficient oxygen to spend more than 24 hours providing extra time to rest and improving summit chances. Thus, we spent the day (5/23) in our tents in anxious “anticipation” of the summit assault, which precluded much sleep.

I did venture out to take in the view of our goal. I could actually see much of the well-trodden path we’d be taking which I’ve outlined on the photo below up to the South Summit — the actual summit is another 90 minutes beyond the South Summit and not visible in this photo.

We received the morning weather forecast from the AAI base camp manager. For over a week, our seasoned guides had been carefully monitoring these expensive, private reports to peg the right summit day. Throughout this period, “May 22-24” continued to be reported as the best window, but high winds prevailed on the earlier dates, so our guides were aiming for the 24. There is also much jockeying for position on the mountain, with a certain amount of misinformation about a given expedition’s timing of their assault put forth in an effort to encourage other teams to go earlier or later in the hope minimizing traffic jams at the Hillary Step and other bottlenecks. In any event, we were down to the wire — we’d head for the summit this evening or the whole eight weeks of trekking, training and acclimatizing would be for naught. Most groups had chosen to peg their summits to 5/22 or 23, so there wasn’t much concern about jam-ups on 5/24 and the weather forecast was still very positive.

Around 3:00 PM, we received some good news. Mike Kraft, who we had to leave behind at Camp 2 because of illness, had made it up to Camp 3 the previous day and was now approaching Camp 4. Vern Tejas, my guide and tent mate, jumped into the tent and told me to immediately prepare room for a third tenant — Mike would be joining us shortly. I scrambled to rearrange sleeping pads and bags as well as oxygen bottles and packs and shortly thereafter, Mike arrived, pretty spent from his trip up the Lhotse Face, accompanied by Michael Horst, another AAI guide. Kraft is over 6’ tall and he took the middle spot in the tent. There wasn’t much room for anything else.

As the afternoon wore on, very high winds whipped against our tents and the temperature dropped dramatically. Light snow also started to swirl in the vestibules. Around 5:30 PM, as I lay in my sleeping bag, I began to panic — could one climb in this weather without serious risk of frostbite?? When I climbed Denali in June 2009, I suffered bad frostbite on three fingers of my right hand (which have fully recovered). Hence, I was particularly sensitive to the weather conditions. I actually asked Vern if it was safe to climb in these conditions and he replied “…Oh this is quite normal for Everest!!” Reassured, I attempted to get some sleep (to no avail) before heading for the summit at 9:30 PM. (He later admitted they were the worst conditions of his nine Everest ascents.)

Around 6:00 PM, Lapka Rita Sherpa, one of our four AAI guides and the expedition sirdar, came to our tent to introduce our personal “Climbing Sherpa.” I was assigned Ang Passang, who has assisted Alpine Ascents for a number of years and had already summited Everest on four previous occasions. It was nice to know I’d be accompanied by such an experienced mountaineer. I was advised that he would return around 9:00 PM to help me prepare for the final assault.

For the balance of Sunday evening, I tried to sleep, but apprehension and lack of oxygen had me too restless. Around 8:30 PM, I started to double check my gear and clothing which I had already organized earlier in the day. At the appointed hour, my tent vestibule was unzipped and Ang Passang appeared with his ever smiling face. “Must get ready now!” I put on my expedition boots as fast as possible, zipped up my down parka and grabbed my pack and other gear and headed out of the tent, as did Vern, who was going to personally lead me up the mountain an hour before the rest of our team was to depart.

As I stood in the blowing snow, Ang quickly went to work to finish the preparations. As my teammate Victor Vescovo noted, one felt like a knight with his squire assembling his armor in preparation for battle. I was helped into my pack, which was immediately loaded with two oxygen bottles. My mask was connected to one and placed over my face to keep me conscious as the rest of the preparations continued. Crampons were placed before me and my feet gently ushered in. My climbing harness was pulled around me and the leg and waist straps quickly doubled-backed. The hood of my parka was pulled tightly over my balaclava covered head and the headlamp I was holding was whisked out of my hand over the hood, as were my goggles. Finally, my heavy expedition gloves were pulled tightly over the liners I was wearing. As indulgent as all this may sound, getting myself in a heavy down suit and breathing through an oxygen mask would have taken me an inordinate amount of time to do on my own, assuming I could even find the straps of my crampons or harness to cinch.

Ang double checked everything and then said, “Ready?”

“I’m ready,” I responded with some hesitation, as the snow and 20-30 mph wind continued unabated and the temperature hovered in the single digits.

Although we didn’t get a revised “special forecast” until an hour or two into our ascent, we learned that a depression moved in from Tibet quite unexpectedly. Instead of a relatively calm night with mild winds that had been promised, we were heading upward in a blinding snow storm!

//Don

Upward Bound!: The Assault Begins

[NOTE:  I’m stepping back in time to give you a daily account from the time we left Everest Base Camp on Monday, May 17 through the already-eported summit on May 24. Also included is an account of the two day descent and my return to the real world!]

After seven weeks of acclimatizing, training, rotations up the mountain, drop-backs, rest days and waiting for the right “weather window,” we were finally ready to start our ascent of Mt. Everest.  We had breakfast at 3:00 AM and at 3:45 AM, I called Joyce on the AAI satellite phone to wish her “Happy 41st anniversary”. (It was still May 16th in NYC, but I feared I wouldn’t have the opportunity to call later in the day — which proved a good assumption.)

I had some inkling of a G.I. problem the night before, but chalked it up to nerves. Over breakfast, however, I was struck by a bout of nausea which I rarely experience — but still thought little of it. We started off at 4:00 AM promptly, passing by the camp Puja altar and throwing a gift of rice towards the mountain we were hopefully about to conquer. 

We headed once more through the maze of the Khumbu Ice Fall, this time en route all the way to Camp 2. I continued to be amazed at the scale and difficulty of navigating this temple of ice. There were more ladders than on our earlier rotations as the huge seracs and crevasses had shifted and expanded with the warmer spring weather. As the hours dragged on, I felt weaker and weaker and was also beset by a splitting headache. I was moving more slowly than the rest of the team. Senior guide Vern Tejas recognized I was hurting and took some of the weight from my pack to lessen my burden.

After eight hours of arduous climbing, we made it to the site of our old Camp 1 and had a big break. Self-doubt filled my mind — would I be able to make Camp 2, much less the summit in my current, weak condition? Did my drop-back all the way to Kathmandu (at 4,500 feet) versus Deboche (at 12,100 feet) cause a loss of acclimatization? (The five teammates who did not go to Kathmandu had concluded this was the case.) Was I now suffering from Acute Mountain Sickness and not a G.I. problem?  This was the first time in seven weeks that I was seriously ill, and the timing was not good, to say the least!

At the guides’ urging, I reluctantly gave up my pack and began the long slog from Camp 1 to Camp 2, as my headache continued to insidiously sap my strength. It was now after noon, and the sun was beating down on the glacier creating intense heat, which only made me feel worse. After three hours of slow climbing on the glacier, you approach two pillars of ice that form a portal to the moraine where Camp 2 begins. You think you’re home free, but it’s a cruel joke — the AAI camp is another half-hour climb uphill on rough scree. At this point, I was also freezing, having shed all but a thin top to avoid the heat, with my other layers inside my pack carried ahead by the guides. Fortunately, they had anticipated the problem and met me at the entrance to Camp 2, immediately handing me a jacket and wool cap to get me through the final half-hour to the AAI tents.

Even with the luxury of being pack-free, I was a full half-hour behind my teammates. I was totally spent and my head continued to throb. All I wanted to do was crash in my sleeping bag, but my teammates convinced me to first have a hot drink and snack in the dining tent. I couldn’t look at food, but did manage to down some broth. Fifteen minutes later, I was struck with both nausea and chills. In the background, I heard my teammates whispering “…it’s classic AMS — he shouldn’t have gone to Kathmandu.  He’s down for the count…” and I thought I was!

Vern, who was my tent-mate in addition to my key guide, saw my condition and immediately instructed me to get on my 8,000 meter down parka and pants and get inside my negative-40-degrees sleeping bag. He said he’d bring supper to my tent, but I urged him to bring only soup — which he delivered an hour later. I discussed my condition with Vern who confirmed my own diagnosis that the problem was not AMS but rather some type of G.I. bug.

I still felt like crap, but settled into the voluminous cocoon of down and fell into a deep sleep. Indeed, when I awoke at 4:30 AM, a solid eight hours later, I remember thinking that it was the best sleep of my life, and I still believe it was. The early morn was relatively warm and still as I headed to the tented latrine and then immediately returned to my cozy nest for another four hours of deep sleep.

//Don

The Summit!

Attached are a few photos from my summit on Monday 5/24 at 8:50 AM. The weather was foggy (as was my mind) and worse, so I did not have the opportunity to take many photos on the eleven hour ascent. I’ve also included a photo of me shortly after returning to Everest Base Camp — 15 pounds lighter than when I began the trek to EBC eight weeks ago!

This morning, I trekked two hours to Gorak Shep to take another Fishtail Helicopter flight back to Kathmandu, where I am now ensconced safe and sound at the Yak & Yeti hotel with a number of other Everest summiteers. This evening I had drinks and dinner at the infamous Rum Doodle restaurant and bar.

Over the next day or two, I’ll be writing up a day by day account of the summit assault which began on 5/17 and culminated with the summit on 5/24, then our safe return to EBC on 5/26. STAY TUNED!

//Don

Everest Ennui

It was strange to sleep in a sleeping bag on a cot again, but I made it through the night at the simple guest house at Lobuche. After a simple breakfast we started trekking to Everest Base Camp at 8:15 AM, stopping in Gorak Shep en route for tea. We arrived at EBC at 12:30 PM — a considerably faster trek than the original trek in. (The trekkers actually stayed over at Gorak Shep at that time.)

I continued to feel the altitude change — just walking from the dining tent to my tent left me breathless and I came down with one of the few headaches I’ve had on the trip. That afternoon, we all took showers and naps and 24 hours later I was pretty much back to normal — all the more so, since Saturday was a rest day as well.

The weather at the summit was still not good. The best the guides could tell us was that we’d likely start heading up around May 18 as the weather window for summiting looked good for May 22-24. We’re all getting antsy to get going.

Sadly, this morning  (May 16) John (“J.R.”) Rudolf of Seattle advised the team that he was flying home. He had a recurrence of the GI problems that sent him to Kathmandu the prior week and, although he appeared to have recovered, he felt too weakened by the successive bouts to attempt the summit. John is a superb athlete and mountaineer as well as a great teammate.  He had already completed all of the “Seven Summits” (including both the Carstensz Pyramid and Mount Kosciuszko). His presence will be sorely missed.

While I was in Kathmandu,  I learned that another teammate, Jan Smith of Melbourne Australia, had also headed home. On all the climbs I’ve done to date, I’ve always been the oldest climber (usually by far!) but Jan one-upped me. She’ll be 66 on May 26. She had stayed at Camp 2 with three others when the five of us returned to EBC on May 4. She made it up to Camp 3 on May 5 and was quite strong on the uphill but technically weak on the downhill and the guides advised her not to go for the summit. 

Sunday (May 16), the remaining seven team members underwent refresher training on rappelling to insure we were prepared for the arduous descent we’d be facing within a week. It was well worthwhile on many fronts. After our “drop-back” over a week ago, and doing relatively little physical exercise other than trekking from Lobuche, it was good to get back into my climbing boots and harness and work up a sweat again.

Over lunch, the guides continued to be coy about the date we’d head to the summit, but shortly thereafter, word spread that we’d be heading to Camp 2 Monday morning (May 17).  We immediately began to prepare our gear and load our packs for the 4:00 AM departure. We are all full of excitement, not to mention some apprehension!

//Don