Mount Everest 2011

After much debating last night it has been decided that we will have a further day’s rest at ABC and make a summit bid on the 26^th rather than the 25^th. While there were many good points for both dates the general feeling in the team was that we started this expedition together and we should all try and finish it together, and the best way to do that was to have an extra day’s rest to allow everyone the best possible chance of summiting. For me this is great news as I definitely fall into the category of one of those team members who would benefit from additional rest.

For the next couple of days we will therefore be eating, drinking and resting up as much as we can in preparation for leaving for camp 1 on the 22^nd. The feeling in the team is very positive and now that a date has been decided people can start to prepare themselves both mentally and physically. There is a slight air of apprehension in the team, but having 3 people in the team who nearly summited last year and one who successfully summited, with the army a couple of years ago, has helped calm many fears and answered any questions other team members have about what to expect on summit day. This combined with the leadership of Zack and Chris, which has been superb throughout the expedition, and their vast experience of climbing the Himalayas, in my opinion, puts us all in a very strong position to summit. Fingers crossed!!

The majority of the team arrived into ABC this afternoon after trekking up from either BC or interim camp.  I, and three other team members spent last night at interim camp as we felt we would be better prepared for our summit push if we took the long trek up to ABC in two stages. Other team members took different approaches, some favouring to leave a day early for ABC so they could have an extra day’s rest, while others were happy to leave BC as planned and trek up to ABC in one day. Irrespective of how we all got here, the whole team is now here and anxiously waiting to leave camp and progress further up the mountain! We just need to agree on a date.

In my last blog I said that the 25^th was a possible summit date. Due to the unpredictable nature of the weather on Everest this date may be changed. At present there is a potential summit window ranging from the 25^th to the 28^th. It takes three days from ABC to get into position at camp 3 for a summit attempt. Deciding on the best possibly summit date ahead of time is therefore very important as we don’t want to find ourselves spending extra nights on the mountain, thereby wasting energy, especially not above camp 1 where you are sleeping in the death zone and your body is effectively dying due to lack of oxygen.

The group is currently divided as to which date is best. A number of the team are not feeling great after trekking up to ABC and favour spending an extra day resting at ABC, while others want to attempt to summit at the earliest opportunity. Zack and Chris have dismissed the possibility of splitting the team into two as it would deplete our resources on the mountain, and potentially turn the second team into a rescue party instead of a summit team if something goes wrong with the first team’s attempt. My personal preference would be to have an extra day’s rest at ABC before leaving for camp 1, especially after having spent 8 days in Kathmandu, 4400 metres lower than BC and leaving immediately for ABC when returning.

After dinner tonight we will all sit down and discus the pro’s and con’s of each date. By then we should have received the most up to date weather report, which may alter things again completely. Once we have decided on a date I will let you all know.

I’m back up at base camp with the team!! I arrived at 01:00, just a couple of hours ago, 18 hours after leaving Kathmandu. It was a long journey and I am pretty tired now but very happy to be back. At some points I thought we weren’t going to make it back to BC today as our jeep kept breaking down in the middle of the desert or, alarmingly, my driver kept getting lost! But thankfully I have made it back safely, and now all I want to do is climb into my sleeping bag and sleep.

Very kindly Chris and George waited up for me, as the rest went to bed after dinner. It was great to see their faces and hear their news, well nearly all of it. Unfortunately for me the weather window has come early and I have been told that I will have to leave BC tomorrow, to begin the summit push, so as to be in position at camp 3 for when the weather window arrives. This means I won’t get any days’ rest at BC before leaving; in fact I will be departing BC just 9 hours after arriving.

I am slightly worried, therefore, about my acclimatisation. Moving up so quickly after having been down in Kathmandu for such a long period, 4400m lower than BC (nearly the height of Mont Blanc) may pose some serious problems. But after speaking to Chris I am reassured and agree with him that the best thing to do is leave BC tomorrow. There are a couple of team member who plan to spend a night at interim camp instead of going straight up to ABC in one day, and Chris feels that to give myself the best chance of summiting and not getting sick I should do likewise, even if it does mean leaving tomorrow.

The next few days will be pretty hectic, moving up to ABC and preparing to move on to camp 1, 2, and 3 and finally the summit (fingers crossed!!), so it may be hard to get blogs out. But I will endeavour to get at least one blog if not more out before I leave from camp 3 for the summit. We also now have a potential summit date of the 25^thof May. Exciting, put it in your diaries now! Adventure peaks will also be posting a live feed on their website of the progress of each member of the team, so anyone interested can stay up and follow the action as it unfolds.

I am going back!! Just when I thought my expedition was over, and was getting ready to leave Kathmandu and return to the UK, my agent pulled a rabbit out of his hat. Iswari has been working tirelessly to obtain a new permit to allow me to return to Tibet and has finally managed to secure me a private tourist visa. This means I can re-enter Tibet via Friendship Bridge, as before, and will then travel to base camp in the company of my guide, before rejoining my team.

I am leaving early tomorrow morning and there is a lot to do and sort out here before I leave. I also have a shopping list of items to obtain, for other members of the team, before heading back up. This therefore is a very short update, but I wanted to give you all know the good news. Everest 2011 is back on!!

In my last blog I told you all about the American woman who decided to fly a free Tibet banner while at the bottom of the Rombuk monastery. We have been told that because of this act Beijing has decided to issue no more climbing permits!

Basically this means my expedition is over. I had hoped to appeal the decision but have been advised not to bother, as apparently once Beijing has made its mind up about something it is very unlikely to change it. Both my agent and I are looking into other possibilities and even the possibility of climbing the south side of Everest instead, but being realistic it looks like I won’t be going back to Everest again this year.

If anything changes I will let you all know by posting the news here on my website. Otherwise as my expedition is effectively over, sadly, this will be my last blog. In a couple of weeks when I am back home and over the huge disappointment of having to leave the expedition prematurely, I will write a summary of my expedition to the point of my evacuation.

Thank you to all of you who followed my blog this year and I hope you all enjoyed reading it. Hopefully sometime in the future I will go back to Everest and summit, but for now it will have to wait!

My life in Kathmandu, over the past few days, has been very relaxed. The city itself is extremely busy, the number of people always going somewhere and the volume of traffic on their roads is quiet incredible. The tourist district ‘Thamel’ is no exception, but with a little bit of hunting you can find a quiet cafe, restaurant or poolside bar to relax in. It is in these places I have been chilling out, unlike previous trips to Kathmandu and Nepal when I visited numerous tourist attractions. Rather I have decided to rest as much as possible and recover my strength.

Two years ago when I arrived in Kathmandu for the first time, to climb Ama Dablam, I visited the local tourist sites in and around Kathmandu. The city has some amazing sights. One of my favourites is the monkey temple. A temple built on a hillside high up above the dirt and grime of Kathmandu, playing home to monks and hundreds of monkeys, as the name would suggest. A tourist standing at the top of the temple has a fantastic view of the city below and can enjoy feeding the monkeys.

RE; the progress of my permit. My agent Iswari has still not received confirmation from his contacts in China as to whether or not the authorities will issue me a new permit. I was told yesterday that an American woman flew a free Tibet flag at the bottom of the Rombuk monastery, this has created  problems for other English speaking westerns wanting to enter Tibet. All I can do, for now, is enjoy my time in Kathmandu and keep my fingers crossed that the Chinese realise that I will be no trouble and all I want to do is enter Tibet to climb Everest.

Never before did I think waiting for news could be so hard, it’s like I am a wee child again and time passes really, really, slowly.  It’s Christmas Eve and I am waiting to fall asleep so that I can wake up in the morning to see if Santa has come. Fingers crossed this year Santa will bring me a new climbing permit!

For the past couple of days I have been staying in Kathmandu, resting and recuperating, while waiting for a new permit to allow me back into Tibet. Iswari, my agent, is hopeful this should happen within a couple of days. When you leave Tibet your old permit expires, so you cannot re-enter without a new one. The China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA) has to apply on my behalf, to Beijing, for this new permit.

Since leaving hospital I am feeling much better and with the medication I have been given I haven’t experienced any more pain. I even managed to play a game of tennis yesterday with some friends I met last year when staying in Kathmandu.

If and when I get my new permit, I am therefore hopeful that I will be able to attempt a summit bid with the rest of my team.

Yesterday I arrived in Kathmandu and was taken straight to the Chitwan hospital. Driving through the gates of the hospital I was happily surprised to see a large clean modern building. I don’t really know what my expectations were, but the hospital certainly exceeded them, and because I was an emergency evacuation I was seen immediately!

Initially a nurse took my temperature, blood pressure and other basic info. Shortly, a western doctor came in to examine me. I explained what had occurred over the past couple of weeks and after reassuring me that the hospital staff had a lot of experience in high altitude illness said he would like to run a number of tests. I was then shown into a private room, to rest.

Very soon a nurse came in saying she needed to take some blood. While she was doing this we started chatting. It transpired that my friend, Matt, who had been evacuated from our Everest expedition last year, just after arriving at base camp, with pulmonary oedema, was treated by her. (Matt managed to return and summit!)After she had finished taking my blood she took me to another room where another doctor performed an ultrasound of my stomach. I was told that the ultra sound would show up any problems with my kidneys, appendix or pancreas, which was what the first doctor had said could be the cause of my pain.

After the ultrasound was finished the nurse took me back to my room where she carried out an ECG (electrocardiogram). Just as she was finishing the first doctor returned. Apparently the ultrasound had shown nothing that would indicate a problem which would cause me such serve pain but that my liver was slightly enlarged and consequently they wanted to do more tests. In the meantime they would put me on an IV drip as I was severely dehydrated.

Later that evening the doctor came back and said that they thought the cause of my pain was due to serve gastritis. He explained that it can be excruciating and combined with altitude and dehydration it could cause the severity of pain I had described. This was a massive relief as he went on to say that it could be easily treated by adding some medication to my IV line and that as long as I took further medication ,that they would give me, for the next couple for weeks I should be able to return to Everest after a couple of day’s rest. Hurray!

The jeep ride from BC to Friendship Bridge at the border normally takes about 7 hours, 9 if you don’t cut across the mountain tracks but, instead, use the road built by the Chinese to carry the Olympic flame up to Everest. The best way to describe the ride is to imagine travelling in a bumper car at your local fair, but rather than being surrounded by hordes of people pushing and queuing for rides, you have some of the most beautiful views on earth just outside your window. Unfortunately for me the stunning views were the last thing on my mind, all I cared about was getting down to Friendship Bridge, crossing the border and into hospital as quickly as possible.

For the majority of the journey I lay across the back seats of the jeep trying to imagine I was anywhere but there. The constant bumping and jerking of the jeep as it weaved its way between boulders and ditches and up and down mountain tracks made the journey very unpleasant. On a number of occasions I felt so sick we had to stop to enable me to get some fresh air. China, unfortunately, doesn’t let any helicopters into Tibet, so a jeep is the quickest mode of transport. As we were travelling down it really struck me just how bad a situation a climber could find themselves in if they fell and broke some bones. The journey to the border where a helicopter can meet you and take you the rest of the way to hospital would be excruciating.

After what felt like a life time of driving we finally drew near Nylam, but as we did we noticed a massive tail back of traffic. Not long after we came to a complete stop.  It was now 5.15p.m. only 45 minutes till the border shut. Anxiously I asked my escort whether we would make it in time. His answer implied that it didn’t really matter as he would arrange for me to stay in Nylam and cross the border first thing in the morning. I was amazed! For the past 7 hours I had been rolling about, in pain, in the back of the jeep and it apparently hadn’t occurred to him that I would rather be checking into hospital than into an hotel. Unfortunately my protests could not alter anything as the traffic had come to a standstill.

Finally the traffic started to move again and we reached Nylam at 5.50p.m. As the border crossing is a further 20 minutes drive past Nylam I reluctantly accepted that we weren’t going to make it. I really didn’t want to spend a night in Nylam so instead I tried to find out if there was anyone I could speak to about getting special permission to cross out of hours, but I might as well have been speaking to a brick wall. Instead my escort and driver dropped me off at a hotel and told me to meet them the next morning at 7.30a.m. when we would continue to the border.

Thankfully, that night I didn’t experience anywhere near as much pain as I had the previous night and managed to sleep soundly, only waking a couple of times. Whether the decrease in altitude had helped I didn’t know I was just relived to get a good night’s sleep. That morning, as promised, my driver and escort were waiting for me outside the hotel. They showed me a restaurant, across the road, where I could have breakfast while they sorted out my paperwork for crossing the border. As I had not eaten in 2 days I decided to try and eat something.

By 9:00am, when the border crossing opened, I was outside waiting to cross and 10 minutes later had crossed Friendship Bridge and was back in Nepal where I met Iswari’s men who had come to take me on to Kathmandu. The drive from the border to Kathmandu normally takes about four hours while a helicopter takes about 40 minutes.  Earlier in the morning I had spoken to Iswari who was, in Kathmandu, arranging my evacuation. He wanted to know how I was feeling and whether I thought I needed a helicopter. Had it been the previous evening I would have chosen a helicopter without a second thought, but now as the pain was considerably less and I had a good night’s sleep and a little bit of toast under my belt, so to speak, I felt my situation wasn’t  serious enough to warrant one. I would have felt guilty calling one out in case it was needed elsewhere for a real emergency. So, finally, after what seemed like the longest journey of my life I arrived back in Kathmandu where I went straight to hospital.

After deciding that I would leave today things happened very quickly. Zack got on the satellite phoned and started to arrange things with Iswari our rep back in Kathmandu, while Gyanu contacted the CTMA (Chinese Tibetan Mountaineering Authority) to arrange a jeep and an escort to take me to the Tibetan border where I could cross back over into Nepal. The Tibetan border shuts at 6:00pm and doesn’t open for any reason, so time was of the essence. The last thing I wanted was to spend a night in Nylam, when I could be in hospital starting treatment and recovery.

While Zack and Gyanu were busy with that, I set about packing a bag. I still hadn’t given up hope on returning to base camp and rejoining the team on our summit push, so I chose to leave the majority of my equipment in my tent. Heather who had very kindly been looking after me the whole time I was Ill both at ABC and BC helped me pack my bag. Very soon Gyanu and Zack came over to say they had managed to arrange a jeep to leave in half an hour.

By now the majority of the team were up and in the mess tent having breakfast. Things had happen so quickly that I hadn’t had time to tell any of them I had to leave and say goodbye, so I went over to break the news to them. Telling them I was leaving and saying farewell really brought home the fact that I was going to hospital and that I might not be able to return and climb with them. Until then I had just assumed everything would be ok as soon as I returned to Kathmandu and got checked out, and I hadn’t really considered that my pain might be a symptom of something more serious which would prevent me from returning.  However the team were very supportive and attempted to keep me positive, saying they were sure I’d be back to stand on the summit with them.

As I was saying bye to everyone, the jeep and my escort arrived to take me down to the border. I was very anxious to make the border crossing before it shut so I quickly finished saying goodbye and got in the jeep. As we were driving  down the track I remember looking back at Everest and hoping that I would be back very soon, as I knew that it would be unlikely I would return for a third year in a row, if my pain was serious enough to keep me from climbing this year.