Part 4. Himalayan Diary, 22 Nov 2009.

I can't express my gratitude for Mindu's affection and humility. He (a thirteen time Everest summiteer plus many more mountainous achievements) took the time, for what was to him a walk in the park, to make us feel like we had achieved something close to what he is capable of. A remarkable man.

An abseil descent to the ice and snow plain below then connected to each other by our accomplishment and again the link-line we headed back to the crampon point, or is it the cramp-off point? After despiking in the glaring and thankfully warming sunshine we opened our packed lunches. We each removed sweetened breadsticks, cheese, biscuits, a Snickers and all laughing aloud a frozen hard boiled egg. Frozen solider than its hardened covering.

Bellies full we made our way down the mountain, me at the rear with a pounding, vision and balance impairing headache. More to do with dehydration than altitude; attributed to my camel-back's frozen drinking tube. An apparently notorious equipment fault above four thousand metres, so Mindu told me. Mindu's patience and compassion prevailed again as he slowed his pace to accompany my slow and laboring one. By one pm we made it back to base camp. I sourced myself some warm liquid water and the strongest pain killers I had with me and collapsed happily into my tent where I slept until they woke me for dinner.

Part 3. Himalayan Diary, 22 Nov 2009.

Having reached the base of the cliff, Dawa, with Mindu at the top, helped attach my juma and safety line to the nylon rope and with the spiky assurance of Spiderman I was on my way up. Now to say that this exercise was exhaustive would be to say that a marathon was a stroll around the block with the family cat; not very difficult and only a little unnatural.

The best I could manage up this slippery cliff was: stab stab with the spikes of each boot, an arm length slide up the rope with the juma and slump... into my harness until my breath made its sedentary way back up the six thousand metres where I sat hanging from a sheer ice cliff. This pattern repeated itself until the one-hundred fifty metres up to the ridge line was covered. A quick turn and in a proud and energetic stance, belying my real state, I offered myself to Matt for a photo.

The thing with altitude is while you're not moving you feel great. Exercise the energy to restrain a flatulent expression and presto you're panting like a greyhound on race day. And like a plumbers crack it dawned on me why Mindu had shown no remorse for his lack of restraint earlier in our journey.

So, attached to a different nylon "safety" line heading right, perpendicular to the last "safety" line I continued. One panting footstep after the other up the knife edge ridge made of snow to our glorious goal. Mindu of course had glided his way upward like Disney on skates, looking down, waiting for me Cheshire and all.

Although the seventy odd metres may have seemed daunting I covered the distance in the anticipatory bliss of reaching my first Himalayan summit, 6189m above sea level. A height, for fear of asphyxiation, I dared not climb to in the light aircraft I used to fly. Today, I walked up here!

Not one to dissatisfy, as on hands and knees I folded myself over the precipice, Mindu greeted me with cheers and embraces of gleeful congratulations eschewing a feeling I could not have hoped for. Such was his jumping-around contagious joy my own was amplified to the point of a frozen tear on my sun burnt cheek. I met first Matt then Dawa with the same enthusiasm. We all hugged and shook hands and of course paraded our proud selves for the media spectacle that was our own compact cameras.

Finally, part 4...

Part 2. Himalayan Diary, 22 Nov 2009.

It didn't take long to get used to the imposed security of my crampons as we traversed our way round the left of a large icy embankment. By now the sun was beginning to rise and the previously hidden magnificence of the Khumbu Himalaya was laid out before us. Stunning enough to hinder my pace to a fault quickly realised by the tug of the rope attaching my harnesses to Mindu in front; who hadn't stopped to admire the view.

Lurched onward I matched his pace round the ridge and over a very precarious looking crevasse off to the right. Easily seen was the disappearance into the void of the path that used to be passable. Had the path fallen through last year, yesterday or ten minutes ago? I asked myself as I passed within two feet of the crevasses opening still creeping its way toward the very path our feet now trod.

From there we made our way onto a magnificent upwardly sloped plain of ice and snow that extended for about five hundred metres before disappearing over an edge. It was as I admired this landscape that I noticed the pain. My right thumb was screaming in agony. My bargain bin gloves from Albury had just a few days ago been the victim of an attempt to dry them on a yak-poo-powered space heater. Of course a whole was melted partly through on the right thumb section. A section now become blazingly important. More stressful was the fact that the excruciating pain in my thumb was beginning to fade to numbness, a sure sign of frostbite. The only option at the time was to remove my thumb from its ineffective covering and place it fist like into the undamaged palm section. All this while trudging along attached to three others people. Not thinking that it could get any worse the rewarming pain came on like fire and I felt a blister form, another sign that frost bite had occurred. Thankfully I got my thumb back at full capacity not long after. I think it was more a frost-nip than a bite.

Screaming high into the sky on our left was the ridge leading to the summit of Imja Tse (Island Peak - of the Everest Massif) Mindu pointed out the sheer cliff face further on that climbers were already ascending and indicated with a grin that we would be following. Either the thought of that climb triggered Matt's fear flight response or it was working its way out all morning but he suddenly declared in thick Italiano, "ai av to sheet!". Removing himself from the safety of our link-line he wondered into the open-for-all-to-see ice field and copped his squat. As his deposit melted into an unknowable abyss he returned, all smiles and fearless relief, to our roped and connected safety.

Detaching himself from the line and handing over control to the camp cook, Dawa, Mindu went ahead and seemed to simply walk up the cliff he had just indicated. Thankfully he was checking the secureness and safety of the frequently used fixed line. This line, in complete opposition to everything I understand about safety and precaution was a simple nine or ten millimeter nylon rope. The kind one might use to tie down garden clippings on the way to the tip! In any case I'd come this far and wasn't about to let a bit of western-eastern disparity get in the way of me and my photo.

Continued, part 3...

Part 1. Himalayan Diary, 22 Nov 2009.

It's the day after our successful summit attempt; amazing feeling still remains. I got the photo's I wanted. The proof! The reminder...

A 0130 start and in pitch black headed up the south face of the mountain. My head torch quickly failed me. I'm thankful to my caving experience as I felt no discomfort and happily continued with the light of those in front and behind. Mindu lead the group of six at a slow and steady pace, I was astonished and humbled that he actually chanted softly up the windy path. With the rhythm of his and therefore our/my pace the steep incline was barely felt and I found myself smiling inwardly enjoying every step... Ah Rigpa!

Early on and from my place third from the front, a smell of something dead and digested regularly wafted back down the line. By the fifth or sixth time everyone was aware and quietly assured that the emanations were from our chanting Buddhist Sherpa. At one stage, when the group had become vocal about our leaders atmospheric offerings, repeated moans of disgust and accusation sequenced their way rearward. Until, the stench still so powerful crunched into the sixth, Phenzo, coursing the shocked guide (different to Sherpa) to bend double and offer his breakfast to the mountain in waves of pious supplication. Mindu barely noticed if at all and the rest of us laughed our way onwards. Until Mindu's next offering which, in fear of Phenzo's demise, shut us up completely; as if to remind us that Phenzo's plight could befall anyone of us and taking pleasure in another’s discomfort was just bad Karma.

By now the track had become more of a scraggy scramble and the light provided by others was blindingly insufficient. Phenzo asked and Dawa gave over his head torch in place of my now dead one. We pushed on until Andrea (Italian; fellow client) could tolerate the incline no more and insisted that he return to base camp, which he did in the company of Phenzo. Maybe it was altitude sickness, maybe simple unfitness. Our six was now four. I feared for a moment that in the absence of Andrea, until now our slowest member, it would become me who set the pace. Quickly these thoughts were replaced by ones of task at hand.

With a steady assent and constant reminders to "please be careful" we made it to the crampon point.

Until now this point meant little to us tenderfeet but became blaringly obvious once there. The track suddenly became a rise of slick solid ice that only twelve or more two inch spikes strapped to ones boots offered the confidence to continue, that or ice skates. In the biting gloveless cold our crampons were fastened tight, a linked rope line was connected to each of our harnesses and onto the rink we climbed.

See part 2 for more...