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...
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...
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