Why?

To bring this particular blog to an end, I thought I would try to answer the question I received most often – why? I’d really like to borrow George Mallory’s “because it is there”, but I will have an attempt at something more original below:

- “the Power of Now”. My Sister-in-law gave me this book to read while I was away. It was certainly an antidote for high altitude-induced insomnia (sorry Kirst) but I did manage to get through a few pages. For those familiar with the book it seeks to provide remedies for the problems of an overactive and cluttered mind that inflict many people. I confess that my mind often struggles to cope with too many inputs and undue concerns. While a more spiritual/holistic approach may work for some, I find that an annual adventure or two provides a good mental house clean. It is very difficult to focus on anything else when all your energy is focused on surviving the next piece of single track, rock face or check point.

- Back to Basics. Most events (and certainly Everest) involve a pretty substantial reduction in living standards for a while and a focus on the most basic of things – eating (normally very basic but whatever you can get in), drinking water (to the point of over flowing if possible) sleeping (normally under canvass on something hard) and, well, let’s call it bodily functions (think hole in the ground if lucky or behind a rock if not). It certainly makes you appreciate the finer things in life (including our wonderful and supportive families) on your return and how lucky we all are to have access to and enjoy these things.

- People. – I have met some truly exceptional and interesting people on the various expeditions I have undertaken and Everest is no different. While typically like minded, I often would not come across these people in my traditional “walk of life” and I feel lucky to have met and become friends with many of the people I have met during these experiences.

- Can I? – I think it is important to push and test our limits – physically and mentally. I have now completed several things that at one point in time I would not have thought I was capable of.

So, there you have it. I hope that makes some sense. Finally, the good thing about going on one event is that you typically hear about or plan another one before you get home. While I’m currently banned from talking about a new adventure, it is fair to say that we have something pretty epic in the pipeline for 2013!

Watch this space….

Suffering

Over the course of a few endurance events I have come to the view that they largely break down as follows:

- 85% suffering. Whether it it is climbing everest, running across a 50 degree desert for several days, or riding your mountain bike up the equivalent of 3 Everests you spend an awful lot of time suffering during a serious endurance event. The nature of the suffering itself tends to differ from event to event (from feet covered with sand filled blisters, bum covered in the equivalent of grown ups nappy rash, total physical and mental exhaustion to the thought of having to endure another dehydrated chicken korma!), but it is suffering nonetheless.

- 5% participation. Taking part in an unusual/exceptional event always brings some great moments and experiences. Whether its standing in the middle of a desert at sunset, watching the sun rise from the highest point on earth, or the exhilaration of going downhill at 100km/h on two thin tyres, these experiences you are unlikely to ever forget.

- 5% success. Hopefully self explanatory but if you’re lucky enough to complete an event it provides you with a tremendous amount of satisfaction.

-5% camaraderie. Typically, you meet very like minded, but different people during an expedition or event and often form long term friendships through the shared suffering and experiences noted above.

For a host of reasons, Everest probably rated 90% on the suffering scale. Half the battle of completing an endurance event is knowing (or at least hoping with some degree of optimism) that the suffering will end at some point. And, thankfully, like child birth I’m told, post event the suffering fades rapidly from your living memory and you are left revelling in the joy of the remaining 15% and rapidly contemplating what’s next!

The photos below show Pierre and I back at camp 4 after a long day! Not a pretty sight!

Recovery

Just arriving back at Base Camp. I think it is the first time that I have opened one before the other!

Our Trip to the Top of the World – the Good, the Bad, the Ugly!

Well, our expedition is formally over. I have just arrived at the Hyatt in Kathmandu by chopper from Base Camp. I can tell you it sure beats walking down. All of our team was able to hitch a ride so are now in the process of trying to feel a little human again (hot showers, shaves, running water – oh, and beer!) but the 5000m+ drop in altitude certainly helps. Thank you all for your well wishes and support. They were truly helpful and motivational. It has been suggested that I should provide a few more details of our experiences over the last few days. I think some of the words that I stuttered over the sat phone to Nicky were completely unintelligible although I think she managed to deliver the main message well – I summitted and returned and it was hard. When thinking about providing more details it has been difficult to strike the right balance between the short, snappy summary update that my friends have the attention span to read and the more detailed emotive view of the world that Nicky and some of her friends would prefer! So, I am going to try and do both (that is if my attention span allows me to do the later). This entry will try to summarise, as the title suggests, the best and worst bits of the last few days. I will, energy permitting, then try to provide a more detailed version of events for those that are remotely interested. I also have a few partially finished entries that attempt to answer some of the many questions that I have received so will try to complete and post these as well.

The Good

- I summited (at 12pm), and returned, safely (at 6pm), despite this being quoted as the worst year ever to be on and try to summit Everest (causing teams led by well known names like Russell Brice to leave the mountain early).

- I didn’t find the climbing quite as technical as I expected and managed to cover the terrain relatively easily.

- Overall, my fitness (and reserves that I didn’t know I had) would hold out pretty well.

- Our expedition leader planned our preparation well and called the weather window perfectly.

- Our Sherpas were excellent

- Just above “the balcony” I turned around and unexpectedly caught the sun just starting to emerge from the lower clouds. It felt like being on the moon and was a truly exceptional experiance.

- The weather remained as predicted – starting off ideal but slowly deteriorating later in the day.

- Once we had reached the top we more or less had the summit to ourselves for 30 mins. Something that on our particular summit day was pretty rare and special.

- The decisions made by some of our team.

- I survived with my fingers and toes intact (though I did have to work diligently on this).

The Bad

- The round trip from the South Col took more than 20 hours (substantially more than our expedition leader’s normal cut off time of 15 hours). This delay, as partially expected, was caused by the large number of people (around 160) trying to summit on the same day as our team (given all of the previous issues on the mountain). In total we were on the go for more than 36 hours including the journey from camp 3.

- I’ve never been as dehydrated or “empty” food wise. I could barely swallow my throat was so dry.

- I climbed without O’s on 3 occasions for a total of around 2 hours, including 45 mins to the summit. It is amazing what a difference oxygen makes. Without it, it is like someone has switched the light/engine off and it is scary to realise what happens without this temporary artificial support!

- I had to dig extremely deep to find the energy reserves to get up and down. There is little doubt I, like many people, were at (or in some cases beyond) their physical limit.

- Unfortunately, one of our team did not make the summit but their decision to turn around, while extremely difficult I’m sure, shows extreme sense and is one that I’m very proud of. As reported by a number of guides, many people were slightly possessed, operating beyond their limits/capabilities, and only survived due to good fortune. There was absolutely no margin for error, something which sadly comes all too frequently with the territory on Everest.

The Ugly

- Several people (some of whom I had spoken to) died our summit day. As far as I know, none of the deaths were related to conditions on the mountain but rather people succumbing to fatigue or high altitude-related illnesses. While the absolute number deaths seems high, and no deaths are good news, I would not be surprised that as a percentage of the large number of people attempting to summit it was proportional to, if not better than, previous years. I’m sure the people with the statistics will have the answer in due course.

- In retrospect (and probably on an ex ante basis as well) I think the objective danger was too high on our summit day. Many, many things can and do go wrong and I believe that many people are lucky that an alternative history did not prevail on the day as they would not have had the ability to adapt and survive . In the end, I think we were generally saved by the relatively good and stable weather.

- A combination of no O’s and very high winds on the summit meant the Haka had to be sacrificed. I’m not sure I will be back to cement the world’s highest Haka record!

So there it is – a brief account of our summit day. Given the combination of factors we experienced, climbing Everest is definitely the hardest challenge I have undertaken to date. Something which, despite my scepticism, the 15kg that I lost can probably attest to!

Woohoo!

An update from Nicky after a phone call from Paul at 10am GMT

Goughy is back at Base Camp – he has done it!!

He described the last 4 days as ‘gruelling’ and said it was a blessing to be down at Base Camp. He is booked to fly to Kathmandu tomorrow and is looking forward to a hot shower! We will get the full update then, once he is reunited with his full range of gadgets and internet connection.

Down to Camp 2

An update from Paul by satellite phone at 12.45pm GMT (Nicky)

Today it was with relief that we arrived back at Camp 2. During the trip down the risk was from tiredness and incompetence rather than a random event as can occur in the Khumbu Icefall.

We head to Base Camp through the Icefall early in the morning. No doubt, once there, I will have the energy and time to update in detail the events of the last couple of days.

.

All fingers and toes present!

An update from Nicky after a satellite phone call from Paul at 2.40pm GMT

Goughy has successfully summited Everest and is now safely back at Camp 4. He is exhausted and will provide a proper update tomorrow after a long awaited sleep.

Into the Death Zone

An update from Paul by satellite phone at 12.30pm GMT (Nicky)

Summary: Long, slow, painful.

It all started well with the team leaving early (although not early enough it would turn out) and feeling good having slept on oxygen. Things soon took a turn for the worse: first, we saw the remains of a team’s camp taken out by an avalanche (or perhaps the serac which injured the Sherpa yesterday) and, second, it quickly became apparent that all the issues on Everest this year have resulted in almost all teams, including ours, attempting to summit on the same day.

What did that mean? Major traffic jams. The trip to Camp 4 took twice as long as it should have with many teams (I would estimate 150 – 200 climbers) on the mountain at the same time.

If we are to try to avoid some of the crowds during our summit attempt we have time for little more than a one hour lunch break before we leave Camp 4. This doesn’t allow much time to refuel before making, what is expected to be, a 16 hour round trip. It means we could be on the go for more than 30 hours. (Hopefully some of the late night partying in my younger days will help get me through!)

While extremely rich coming from me (as very much an amateur climber) I do question whether, given their level of fitness and skill, some climbers should be attempting Everest particularly in a year when summit attempts are compressed into one or two days. I imagine that some will miss their opportunity to summit after such a long climb today and little time to rest.

I now need to end this call and go on to oxygen so that Pierre and Nathalie are not too much stronger than me!

Go, Abort, Go

An update from Paul by satellite phone at 10.30am GMT (Nicky)

We awoke early this morning to make our way to Camp 3. We were all packed and ready to go when we received a call from Base Camp. One of the climbing Sherpas had been hit by a serac* and needed to be rescued by the other climbing Sherpas. We held back while plans were made for the rescue. We finally set off at 9am, by which time the temperature had risen from -20 to 40 in the Western Cwm. This unhappily coincided with the day we needed to wear -50 one piece down suits.
Today was probably the toughest day for me so far due to a combination of the heat, the new longer route to Camp 3, slower climbers already on oxygen on the steep part of the climb, and some muscle wastage. (Some, probably most, would say I didn’t have much to begin with!)
Tonight we sleep on oz** before leaving for Camp 4 with oz at around 5am. A number of people planned to summit on the 18th but given the recent accident I expect they will now also be trying to summit on the 19th. It could be busy…

* (Nicky: for the non-moutaineering among us: a block or column of ice formed by intersecting crevasses on a glacier)
** (Nicky: oxygen)

Two down, three to go

An update from Paul by satellite phone at 11.30am GMT (Nicky)

Our team has arrived at Camp 2 after successfully navigating the Khumbu Icefall for the third time. We were pretty tired after a gruelling 7 hour climb, but glad it was not the 10-12 hours it has taken some of the other teams.

While still enchanting, the Icefall does appear to be becoming a risker place to be and I am glad I will only have to go through it one more time. It could be my mind playing tricks on me but I thought I could hear and feel it moving much more than earlier in the season. At one point my Sherpa’s foot broke through the ice plunging him knee deep into icy water.

After a short rest we will be setting off on the new route to Camp 3. While this route will take a little longer, hopefully it will avoid the persistent rockfall of the previous one. We also hope by the time we arrive at Camp 3 the team of rope fixing Sherpas will have completed their job of attaching the ropes to the summit. Otherwise it could be a lengthy stay up high or the end of our expedition.

Currently we are experiencing heavy snowfall, but the winds are low.