Movin' on up!

Sitting around in Kathmandu can be quite hard work, but I've made time in my schedule of lounging, eating, reading, and smashing team members in vicious bouts of water polo for another quick recap. To catch you all up, when last we left our heroes, they were at base camp fighting courageously against a fresh layer of snow and frozen merino wool long undie-pants:

Phase 2: Take a peak

As fun as base camp was, it was time to stop window shopping and take one of those fine snow-capped summits out for a spin on the dance floor. First on the list: Island Peak!

Island Peak standing at 6189 m

Island Peak was so named in 1951 by the British explorer and mountaineer, Eric Shipton, because it's large triangle of rock appears to be an island in the sea of ice around it (important to note, the actual summit is not the pinnacle of rock but the ridge that heads away from the camera just left of center). It is also a bit of an island because it sits in the middle of a valley that is circled by a ridgeline containing several 7,000 and 8,000 meter peaks as well as some visible just beyond the valley rim offering incredible views of Lhotse, Makalu, Ama Dablam... you could say this particular summit keeps good company.

After leaving base camp, one of the Namche labmates and a junior doctor in the UK, Andy, and I took a long day and trekked down to Chukkung to meet our Sherpa guides and two other doctors currently posted in Pheriche at our medical post there - Jim and Sarah Moonie. The next day it was up to base camp.

The windy and dusty trail to IP base camp at 5087 m

Once there we got to experience Himalayn mountaineering with Sherpas. There is a lot that is lost in the experience while climbing with local guides here even though they are lovely and excited people and very knowledgeable when it comes to these routes. While my feelings on the climbing are mixed, there is one thing which I am quite certain about: I don't miss setting up my own tent and if the question is: do you want a steaming plate of delicious dal baat prepared for you while you sit and read? then the answer is a resounding, Yessir!

Dinner and a show (a show that involves starting up the mountain at 2 am...) - Double Threat guy Dorje Sherpa

We ate dinner that night around 6:30 pm and then went off to bed by 8:00 pm so that we would have plenty of time to rest before wake-up call at 1:00 am (the best part of waking up: is hot Tang in your cup! brought to your tent door by a porter). So anyway, we got to bed early and then I laid down to read. And read. And read. And when I figured I should really get some sleep, I put away the Kindle and stared at the ceiling. And stared. And stared. And stared. I'm guessing it was the anticipation of the 6000-meter monster to climb the next day but I just didn't get a wink. It was like Christmas but unlike Christmas, you aren't planning on taking in 5000 calories of food but rather burning the same or more while running low on water and bits of trail food and instead of anticipating a day of lounging and possibly a mid-morning nap you're staring down twelve hours of round-trip climbing plus a quick 2-hour zip back to Chukkung. The anxiety only made my insomnia worse. On the plus side, I did get a lot of reading done and it was very easy to get out of bed even though I knew I would suffer later in the day...

Sporting the pirate look as we near the snowline and the sunrise

 In spite of sleeplessness, it was a lovely alpine start. We hit the trail hard and after just a few hundred meters skirting around the flanks of the mountain we started climbing steeply past High Camp towards the snowline in order to make it by sunrise. And if we were only in for the sightseeing, it may have been easy to turn back around 5:30 am because the views were incredible! I've said it before and I'll say it again, watching the sky and earth change color and light in concert with each other is a beautiful thing and by the time the sun pierced the cold blue sky just behind Makalu, I was already awe-inspired to say the very least.

Early sun hits the lower pitches of the Island Peak snow field with gaping crevasses to the right

We were warned by numerous sources that the fixed ropes on Island Peak were not to be trusted and it wasn't hard to see why. While the ropes' integrity is probably just fine, but as a mostly-rock climber used to climbing on [relatively] new ropes and taking big hard falls, it isn't exactly comforting to see 8mm tri-strand nylon rope - you know the kind that is generally used as the handles on those brightly colored buckets you can get at Toys-R-Us. The lower slopes however were quite tame - little more than a glacier walk. The headwall to gain the summit ridge was the one moderately challenging section mostly due to low snow conditions leaving the steep 50-60 degree slope with large low-quality ice steps. Crowd control was more of an issue than anything with lots of inexperienced climbers kicking off ice chunks - one of which hit me squarely in the helmet as I was looking down for a crampon placement. But the summit ridge was phenomenal and the views from the top were astounding.

Summit shot with Ama Dablam in the distance. Nailed it!

The trip down was long and exhausting as trips down often are - but I can honestly say that I slept much better that night with the relaxation (not to mention about 17 hours on my feet above 4700 m!). Island Peak was the greatest altitude I reached over the course of our expedition, just barely edging out Lobuche East seen below. I definitely felt the effects! I got a headache which is quite common for many people at altitude and not necessarily concerning for altitude sickness - I quite easily get a headache on a long alpine day even at much lesser heights - but more fascinating is an interesting phenomenon known as periodic breathing. It happens when peripheral (outside your brain/spinal cord) chemical sensors play a game of tug-o-war with your central (inside your brain/spinal cord) chemical sensors. Because of low levels of oxygen and resulting hyperventilation, carbon dioxide levels go down which stimulates the central sensors to slow or even stop breathing, called apnea. After a while, oxygen saturation goes down and carbon dioxide goes back up and the peripheral sensor, which triggers a little earlier, kicks in causing deep fast breaths. The result, which usually occurs during sleep but can occur while awake but drowsy, is a long period withing breathing that you don't notice at all until you suddenly have to take deep frantic breaths. I started feeling it while reading when I first got to the teahouse in Lobuche and it lasted for a week or so. The best part is that it isn't too scary if you know it's coming and it doesn't actually correlate with altitude sickness so you can have a very strong periodic breathing episode but not sweat coming down with AMS at all. I thought it was fascinating to feel myself!

Climbers on Lobuche East... I wish I could say that was me. Oh what the heck, you don't know the difference - That was definitely me

After a short walk to Dingboche for a rest day, Andy and I met up with Tom Geliot from our Namche team as well as Tom Smedley and Ori Couppis down from EBC for a bid at Lobuche East. Here's where we got a little taste of the Nepali experience. The full details are neither relevant nor interesting but the facts are these: our guide was to meet us just below Lobuche village around 10:00 am. We divided to look for him while trying to cover all possible bases and not lose each other as we ran around to find someone for many hours all with 20+ kilo packs including me making a 90 minute blast up and down to Lobuche High Camp looking for our tents and porters in complete futility - an ascent of about 900 feet. At three o'clock in the afternoon they finally show up as if it's no big deal and we fire up to high camp (for me it's the second time that day). All's well that ends well I suppose...

The sun sets on Lobuche high camp - Ama Dablam in the background - she is  always photo-bombing - so needy!

Lobuche was much more straight forward. The Sherpas definitely wanted us climbing with the fixed ropes so we team roped until the slope started to get serious and then we had to wait quite a bit, unfortunately, while our guides fixed more ropes. A couple Everest outfits, including IMG, have used Lobuche this year for acclimatization which saves them an unnecessary trip up the deadly Khumbu icefall but by the time we came up their fixed ropes had long since been removed. The delay was a small price to pay for the experience - we were one of only two teams up the mountain that day. It was quite a climb!

The view

The crew

At 6119 m Lobuche East offers a stunning view that is rare to see: a great view of the Khumbu glacier and moraine, EBC, Pumori, and the summit of the great Everest. It's a surprise that it doesn't get the same crowds as Island Peak - but I'm sure that won't last long. What a splendid day on the mountain! The descent below the snowline was mildly steep and rocky but I found it to be pretty fun. And in a rush of only a few days we were able to tick two 6000 m peaks off the list! The experience is beyond words but it sufficeth me to say that it was good: curl-the-corner-of-my-lip-into-a-smile-while-I-type-without-realizing-it good.

That's all for now - tune in soon for the final installment including my return to Namche and Kathmandu!

Namaste

Guess who's back!

What a month it has been! Having closed up the Namche lab at the end of April, I have been on a 26-day escapade cavorting amongst the great and terrible playground that is the Khumbu region of the high Himalaya. And now I sit shirtless with a hot summer breeze at my back under a gazebo in the inner grounds of the Summit Hotel in Kathmandu. It is quite a change of scenery for me, but we'll get to that later. I have decided to make my last few blog posts a month in review and I will try to get three or four installments out this week before I return home to sunny Durham, North Carolina on Saturday (can someone please confirm that it is, in fact, sunny in Durham, NC?).

We're going to take a trip back in time. Are you ready to get into your time machine? Ready? Let's go!

Phase 1: Straight to the Top!

After almost two full months living above 3500 m, we were all very well acclimatized and so there was little time to waste getting up high. Our first day was a full one on the way up to Pheriche at 4200 m. The plan (as will be exposed in the coming days) was to hit base camp and do a little bit of high altitude mountaineering but the details were still slightly less-than-concrete which meant we just decided to porter all of our own equipment which meant we were on the high end of the average trekker pack-weight. My pack weighed about 25 kilos (something like 55 pounds) while others got by with a little less space:

Tom G and his fine packing skills. Our belgium travelling companion, Willem, thought he bore particular  resemblance to those old photos from the Dust Bowl... Needless to say, we made plenty of fun already so don't ask him about it.

On the way to Pheriche we made a quick stop in the incredible Tengboche monastery. I had to throw some rain pants over my shorts to go in but it was so totally worth it. While this monastery has quite a history it is actually relatively new. First built in 1916, it has been destroyed and rebuilt twice - first by an earthquake in 1934 and second by an electrical fire in 1989. To my knowledge it is the highest monastery in the world!

I definitely didn't think they were going to allow pictures - very progressive

Pheriche lies in a long flat valley with Ama Dablam near one end and Tabouche, Cholatse, and the Cho La at the other. It is a very nice place to rest since the next stop for most trekkers is Lobuche at a whopping 700 meters higher and moving too quickly to that altitude is asking for trouble. So we went for an ice climbing day. Unfortunately our guide never showed up so we went for a play on our own.

We asked this yak to guide us but his fees were far too steep

This late in the season, the icefall was in miserable condition and without an experienced local we felt it best to stay far from it as the mid-morning sun sent small cascades of slush spilling down every so often. Instead we contented ourselves to play with our ice equipment on the snowfield at the base. I've always thought ice climbing was a bit crazy, but I have to say that standing near the bottom with technical ice tools and crampons strapped to my brand-spanking-new boots, I have a feeling I'll be returning to the sport sooner than expected...

Here I am feeling particularly manly and stylish - read on to learn how quickly that feeling was undermined.

Going back just a bit, I had a tragic occurrence in Namche in mid-April. While packing for this extended excursion, I discovered that I was missing about 600 dollars - that's Benjamin Franklin x 6. I did my best to remain relatively calm and searched high and low no less than 3 times but finally I decided I should probably inform our lodge owner and the police in order to be able to claim travel insurance later. Only moments after the above photo was taken I went to replace my crampons in their bag and out dropped... you guessed it: a fifty dollar bill. I definitely remember thinking to myself that it would be a good idea to hide my money in my crampon case but I can't say that I remember actually doing it. The bad news: hypoxia has left my mind feeble, confused, and frustrated. The good news: after my parents were kind enough to wire me a loan while still in Namche, I now had plenty of cash to get through the trip quite comfortably.

Looking back down the hill from the Everest memorialsjust below Lobuche towards the Pheriche valley. Ama Dablam seen at left

From Pheriche, the trail turns right near the end of the valley and heads up toward the Khumbu glacier moraine. It is a steep hill to gain the top towards Lobuche. The next day takes you from Lobuche's 4900 m up to Gorak Shep at 5100 m, the last stop before pushing on to Everest Base Camp. As you creep closer to  the head of the glacier, the views become increasingly stunning but perhaps the most noteworthy stop along the way are the Everest memorials - a sombering reminder of how dangerous and deadly this playground can become. I was able to find some notable names including Scott Fischer and his head guide Lopsang Sherpa of the 1996 disaster and Alex Lowe who died in an avalanche on Shishapangma and whose friends and family have returned and ultimately established the Khumbu Climbing Center in Phurtse to educate Sherpas on Western climbing techniques.

Looking back down the moraine from just below Gorak Shep

After a night in Lobuche and one in Gorak Shep, the four of us got an early - 4:30 am - rise and headed up Kala Pathar for the sunrise views. Kala Pathar is often regarded as quite a feat because it is usually the highest that most trekkers visiting the region will go. But at about 5500 meters it isn't even much of a day hike, granted you aren't suffering acute mountain sickness just yet. Still, it is splendid at 5:00 in the morning. Even though we got up rudely early in the morning, we were not the first up the trail - not by a long shot in fact. But that was quickly remedied - I couldn't help but put on the gas to pass the three or four groups ahead of me. I think this comes as a result of both my immaturity and my maturity, let me explain:

While I initially set a blazing pace because part of me didn't love the idea of anyone beating us to the top, once I get ahead into some open air I remembered a chastisement that I got from my Grandmother Nebeker a few years back when I was going on about some mountain bike trail. She complained that I was not taking the time to look around and enjoy the view and I realized that I have really come to enjoy things like sunrises and views. Early starts used to be just a means to get somewhere in time: on the slopes after a powder day or to a peak before the afternoon T-storms bucked us off again, but this was different. Watching the sky and the earth change as you ascend the slopes of even a small peak is something quite invigorating: I highly recommend it! At any rate, all my lung-searing earned me a serene 20 minutes on top completely alone. It was surreal!

Kala Pathar - sunrise - and I still must have had something to say (by the way, that's the big lady there on the right - Sagarmatha herself)

Our last stop on the way up, of course, was Base Camp, the big E-B-C! Seeing the team was incredible there and the set-up was astounding. In addition to the impressiveness of our own laboratory and camp, the air is simply charged up there. We got to see climbing friends, incredible Sherpas, heard weather reports and rumours about tensions on the mountain (many of which you've probably read about in recent weeks). It is a small city up there - a small city with a big attitude. While we hung out, our lab guys were kind enough to indulge my own curiosities:

VO2max test at 5300 m! Not for the faint of heart (nor the claustrophobic)

And were wonderful hosts all around. I was able to wash my clothes but I was a little surprised when I went to check on my thermals and saw them flying the wind - stiff as a board. They'd frozen in the middle of the afternoon. Not to worry, I was told - in the morning they will have been freeze dried and come out with a wonderful freshness - it's the simple pleasures I suppose. Still just to be sure, I ate dinner with a pair of thawing socks hung over my shoulders underneath my shirt. And then it snowed - what a great opportunity to see EBC with a fresh coat.

Looking back from the middle of tent city in the fading light with Everest behind me

In my journal that night, I wrote:

"Tonight, after watching a film, we all walked out to go to our tents and as we looked up to the stars, the views were nothing short of incredible. As everyone went off to sleep I stood [looking up] until my feet were cold. It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes but it felt like forever. The stars seemed so close that they were just holes in a dark violet sheet just out of reach. The icefall constantly creaks - each sound like a sheet of aluminum wobbling and jostling. And after waiting long enough, you might catch the flash of a shooting star. What a place!"

What a place indeed!

I know this has been a long post, but I hope that someone at least managed to scan the pictures through to the end. I'll be back soon with the next installment. Until then:

Namaste!