Weak as a Kitten?

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The day before yesterday we (the summit team) gathered at the bottom of the Khumbu ice fall and walked in to camp together. As we came over the last ice ?wave? we were overwhelmed by a fantastic welcome as the whole of the base camp team had gathered together with the last trekking group to cheer us in; it was a very emotional homecoming!

So we summited one group on the 23rd May and the second group on the following day. I summited on the 23rd May. We left camp 4 at 9.30pm on the evening of 22nd and reached the summit at 6.30am on the morning of the 23rd. What can I say about the climb? It was supreme agony ? breathing up to 60 breaths per minute, muscles screaming in pain, toes going cold and all the time having to push on upward, step upon step toward the summit. We arrived at the south summit just after 5 am as the sun was rising and at that point we started to believe that we might in fact actually be able to summit. The route from the south summit to the main summit is not that far but it includes a short climb over the Hillary Step and a walk along a snowy ridge to the summit. We arrived at 6.30am. The moment of arrival at the main summit was an emotional experience as the weeks of hard graft and mental preparation finally came together to arrive at the top of the world ? it was hardly believable that we were finally there. There was a very cold wind on the summit, so much so that we decided to stay only for a short time ? you could hardly take off your outer mitts for more than a few seconds and hence even photographing was quite a hazardous endeavour.

We descended to as rapidly as we could, stopping at the balcony (8500m) to take some arterial blood samples and arrived back at camp 4 as weak as kittens! After spending the day and night sleeping and trying to rehydrate I descended on the morning of the 24th May to camp 2 arriving there completely ?spent?. It is amazing how the exertion and the altitude really messes up your constitution ? I couldn?t face any food ? and it was not until the morning of the 25th (62 hours since I had last eaten) that I had something to eat.

So we gathered at camp 2 after everyone had summited and made the last precarious steps through the now quite dangerous ice fall back to base camp together. Since the ambient temperature is now increasing the ice fall becomes increasingly more fragile with snow bridges and seracs of ice falling on a daily basis ? for me it was the most anxiety producing day of the entire climb ? however we all made it here safely.

Each day we are feeling stronger ? we have been joking how nice it is to be back down in the thick, humid air of base camp?..well compared to up high it is actually very pleasant. The coughs produced by the cold, dry air from higher up are starting to settle?.slowly!

This may be the last blog for a while but keep watching.

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Blog by Nigel Hart