20,000 Leagues Over the Sea (Part II: Climbing)

Island Peak base camp was quite a site, probably a smaller version of Everest base camp despite the peaks' 3000m difference, though we never went that far north. Here we congregated with one of the British climbers who stayed a night at our flat and took an extra rest day as it looked like Mana was inheriting the bronchitis that Brendan was enduring. Both were slowed down by the infection and a lot of weight was shifted between packs, but we knew that if we took it easy and made sure it didn't get any worse than bronchitis we'd be fine. Maybe with this on our minds we didn't pay enough attention to acclimatization, because at base camp Brendan and I both got headaches, which is pretty normal though, and just means we gained altitude too fast. Here Brendan decided to take Diamox (helps your body acclimatize) and we found out that the peripheral tingling side effect might be worse than the small headache you were trying to get rid of. Really ibuprofen was the only drug we ever really needed on the trip.

After some advice from a friendly Canadian doctor Brendan decided to give it another rest day while Mana and I tried the southeast ridge. I decided against making a high camp above base camp, so we went to bed with the sun on our rest day and woke up at 3am for an "alpine" ascent from 5,070m to the summit, 6,189m, and back before the winds pick up in the early afternoon. My body didn't like something about the food, altitude, and early start so I ended up vomiting a few times, but I figured if that was the worst of it then I'd be fine. So we geared up and set out under a moon so full we needn't use our headlamps. The route climbs steep and loose rock of varying quality and color all the way to the snow line, and without a clear path we sometimes veered into rock climbing territory, which at least once ended up with a fantastic shortcut.

After an incredible sunrise we were nearly at the snow line when I looked up to see our British friend stumbling his way back down with his Sherpa. I knew he didn't have enough time to summit and thought something might be up, so I asked how he was and got a confused answer involving a headache and chest infection. "Jez" claimed that he was just dehydrated and that the dry cough was from well before, but he was completely disoriented, stumbling, and for how high we were, was presenting just like a cerebral or maybe pulmonary edema patient. I'm not a doctor, but Jez is an army medic and reasonable climber in his mid twenties, and even ataxic he agreed that I should go down with him. I sent Mana ahead to look for oxygen and a stethoscope at base camp in case he worsened, while Jez's Sherpa and I slowly helped him to the bottom. I was hoping to never need the dexamethasone we brought, but after little improvement in 2 hours of descending and sipping water I was seriously considering it. Fortunately he wasn't getting any worse, the cough didn't become productive and after some oral rehydration salts and a nap at base camp he was fine. I couldn't believe that on the best day of weather we had seen yet and after rallying after being sick, that our first summit attempt would end this way. But sometimes these things happen and there's nothing to do but keep a straight head. Jez if you're reading this, you owe me 4mg of dex that I gave you to hold on to, a packet of rehydration salts, a Snickers, and my first 6000m summit attempt. Just kidding, I'm pretty glad he pulled through alright. As Mana put it "its pretty exciting that our first summit attempt ended in failure."

The next morning the three of us woke at 2am, an hour head start and a better idea where the route went would be helpful if we we were slowed down. Thick clouds rolled up the valley the afternoon before, but lucky enough it was a perfect sky when the sun came up over Tibet. Brendan and Mana did at least as well as the clients for having bronchitis, and soon we were at the middle of the pack of 30 climbers, stopped to put on crampons and don ice axes. We quickly went over glacier travel basics but the hike up to the summit ridge was well beaten around the crevasses and most parties went unroped. I was in shock that clients who had never self arrested (stop your self from sliding with an ice axe) in their lives would be allowed to walk around on a glacier without a rope, but soon I found out that most Sherpa can't belay and don't think twice before rappelling (coming down on a rope) off an unlocked, locking carabiner. So really we were one of the safest parties out there.

Standing in an almost flat snowfield a few acres in size, we panted and wheezed and coughed up different colors while looking at the summit ridge a few hundred meters above a 70-ish degree snow face. The commercial groups were all jugging, or ascending, up fixed ropes with expensive and heavy jumars, which we didn't bring. I had planned on leading the face with an axe and a picket (snow stake), but seeing 70 degrees in real life I reminded myself that neither Brendan nor Mana could self arrest if I fell. I decided against it and moved to plan B, which was to wrap cord around the fixed ropes in a safe "prussik" friction knot and shamefully jug up to the summit ridge like the clients. Brendan, I think feeling bronchitic and intimidated, abstained and felt content hanging out in the sun with the people coming off the summit. So I lead up the face for awhile and then tied onto a fixed rope, and Mana and I made for the summit two or three steps at a time.

The summit ridge was incredible, we got our first views of four of the world's tallest mountains up close as we clipped in to more fixed ropes and carefully walked the knife edge ridge up another hundred meters or so. The summit of course was breathtaking. The top was intimate, with no room for more than a couple people at a time. Which was good, because we summited late and were lucky to find one other person to take a picture. It wasn't like some of the paperback novel sized rock belay ledges in Red Rock Canyon, NV, but the 1000m luge down to rock on either side of us gave us pause. I wish I reflected here and thought about building rural schools next, or thanked Dartmouth, my mom, and the academy - but actually I remember just feeling supremely spent and pretty satisfied to have a slug of whiskey higher than any point in North America. Cheers, to the guy holding his white Russian staring out the window of his mountain flight.

After Island Peak Brendan headed back south to Lukla and then Kathmandu, where he would find out by email that he'd been accepted as a Rhodes scholar in an Oxford physics graduate program. Congrats Brendan, that's what granite does for your brains. Mana and I then headed up a valley north towards Everest base camp, but turning west towards Lobuje East base camp. One day in Dingboche we went to buy bread and the shop owner offered us tea. Nothing is free on the way to Mt. Everest, so it took five minutes in Nepa-glish to find out he didn't want anything but to know who we were. He told us about a gompa (monastery) high on a hill that most tourists avoid because of the walk, so that afternoon we dropped our packs and checked it out. Two hours later we understood why tourists avoided it, but the view was one of a kind as we could see up and down two of the three major valleys in the region. In Lobuje we ate in a shack that was clearly meant for Sherpa guides and porters, but the Dal Bhaat was the best yet and we met an outgoing Israeli couple who were also carrying all their own stuff and living simply. Yoav was a bio student in Israel had a lot to say about conditions there and relations with the US, and I mustered what I could from a high school middle eastern history class, enough to make conversation anyway. I lamented that every time I met someone we defaulted to my first language instead of another, but after trying to describe US economic sanctions in Spanish we fell back into English and I felt very self consciously American.

Though we only had a climbing permit for Island Peak we considered doing Lobuje East, of similar height but slightly harder. When we asked around for a Sherpa guide we were introduced to a man who's name I can't remember, but had summited Everest over ten times and said he happened to have a few days off when he could take us up Lobuje East for $1500. We quickly told him we didn't have that kind of money, to which he replied that if we were thinking of climbing without a permit it could cost us three months in a Nepali jail. The small crowd that built up around our conversation gave me the feeling that we just had a brush with a celebrity, and google confirms that only around seven active Sherpa have summited Everest over ten times. I'm humbled to remember that I instinctively used the most respectful forms of 'hello' and 'you' in Nepali. Later we found a liaison officer camping with an Ama Dablam expedition warming up on Lobuje East, so with a third world country prison in mind we moved onward and upward to Cho La pass and home, there would be no more 6,000m peaks in our near future.