EBC Day 7 – 24th October 2009

The summit was the most difficult and challenging experience I had ever undertaken. We left the warmth of our beds at 0400hrs in the dead of night. I had every layer possible on, except for my down jacket as I knew once I started walking I would be too hot in it. I only took water and some food to keep my backpack light.

We snaked up Gokyo Ri in single file by the lights of our headtorches. I don’t know what the temperature was, but it I knew it way below zero. It was a 567m ascent to the summit from the teahouse. Surprisingly I hadn’t got the headache that had plagued me for the last week.

I felt ok until around the 5000m mark. My lungs were straining to absorb the little Oxygen in the air and the cold was almost unbearable and effecting my hands, they were hurting so much it made me feel sick. It was getting so bad I had to take my gloves off to inspect what was going on. To my horror they were an unhealthy dark red-purple colour and I feared I was getting frostbite. (Turns out I had frostnip, a precursor to frostbite. It also causes the effected area to be more susceptible to the cold, and even to this day, my hands become very painful when the temperature drops below 10 degrees).

The gloves I had were clearly inadequate for such an environment. Having read up on expeditions in the Himalayas, in almost all the literature there are warnings about frostbite. A common method to save your hands, is to stick them down your pants to warm them up.

In fear of losing my digits, I did just that. I laugh now remembering the sight of me, standing on the side of the mountain like a stereotypical ‘Chav’, getting disparaging looks as my traveling companions passed me by.

The feeling eventually and agonisingly returned to my hands, enabling me to continue. We kept a very slow pace with plenty of rest stops to gasp at the lack of Oxygen. The peak just seemed always out of reach and the dawn light at our backs filled the valley below. This meant I would miss the sunrise over Everest.

We slowly plodded on and the flapping prayer flags that marked the summit came into view. The peak was now within reach and the warmth of the Sun on my back spurred me on. I arrived to cheers from Nick and Andre. The elation of conquering Gokyo Ri, having suffered the low temperatures and little Oxygen, with moments where I was unsure I would make it, blotted out any disappointment of missing the sunrise.

I was bouncing around the top of Gokyo Ri (5357m) like Tigger. I grabbed my camera and started snapping away. Eventually the rest of the group joined us; some had struggled more than me, even those who had been taking Diamox! (Medication that is meant to alleviate the effects of altitude sickness).

It is not always guaranteed Diamox will work and today emphasized the fact that the altitude effects people differently. To celebrate I pulled out a Twix, however it was a solid block of ice. There is only one tested way to remedy this, I stuck it down my pants! If it worked for my hands it would work for my Twix! Luckily our guides had a stash of biscuits for us in the meantime. After about 30 minutes we began our descent back to our lodgings.

At about 0830hrs we arrived back; I was still buzzing from the climb. I amazed myself that I had climbed this mountain in such cold and miserable conditions, in an atmosphere that has a significantly lower Oxygen concentration, than at sea level.

We all headed to the common room for a breakfast of porridge and spent the rest of the day relaxing, catching up on sleep. Our room was North facing meaning it never warmed up; we opted to spend the day in the common room. The teahouse was very busy as there was a high altitude marathon passing through the region and this was one of the stages.

I grabbed my book (High Adventure by Edmund Hillary) enjoying the warmth and the views, as I buried my nose into the pages. At one point Andre decided to go for a swim in the lake, for which he won the infamous jacket for the day! The whole group joined us in the evening where we played card games until it was time for bed.