“Mountains are not Stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion”  –Anatoli Boukreev

Click here to go to the photo album for this day

We were woken at around 4 AM, having breakfast and getting our layers on. Huey & I were the last to get ready, though I really didn’t feel like we took that long – clearly I’m not a morning person. It was of course still dark so we had headlamps on as we started out. The first section was decently steep and we moved at a decent clip as well. I began wondering whether I’d be able to maintain this pace for the rest of the climb, but thankfully after about an hour and a half we came to our first break, right as dawn broke giving us a view of a phenomena I still can’t quite explain. We saw the shadow of this gigantic mountain break the horizon, yet we could see rays of light break the horizon at the same angle as the mountain’s shadow. It’s a really cool effect that occurs on huge mountains like these when the sun is low.

It’s chilly up here, but thankfully there was little wind. I missed many photo ops on this day unfortunately because quite frankly it took most of what I had to stay on top of getting food & water in during the breaks. Forget about taking photos while climbing, there’s no way I had enough energy for that.

We set out again after our break, ascending up moderate slopes. We got stuck in some traffic but other groups were courteous and let us by. It’s amazing how efficient a team can be if it sets a steady pace. Many other teams were constantly starting and stopping, and were much slower than us even though we were practically crawling. We ascended to what is known as The Traverse – a narrow but initially flat exposed section.

About halfway through, Luke received a status update from Tincho who was leading Omar & Jamie a little bit behind our lead group. It looks like Jamie had developed frostnip – the precursor to frostbite, so Luke made the hard call to have them turn back for Camp Three at this point. Meanwhile we stopped right in the middle of the Traverse to take a break and put our crampons on. Given the narrowness of this path we had to climb up out of the way of people onto the steep slope to do this. The winds and cold weather didn’t help at all and it took more effort to take this “break” than it did to climb! After a bit everyone was good to go and we continued on.

The Traverse became extremely steep at this point, steeper than any portion of the climb so far. It was an hour of hard slogging at a snails pace to get up to “The Cave”, a rock overhang that serves as a rest stop(photo below taken from this stop). I felt pretty strong during this section but strong is of course relative – we’re near 22,000 ft (6700 m) now and the air is thin.

We hung out here for about 40 minutes, waiting for our other team mates to catch up as some had fallen behind, while shoveling as much food and water into our systems. Appetite is non-existent at this altitude so eating was a chore, even though I was eating delicious chocolate bars. The views however, were incredibly breathtaking. To be able to see two miles or more down into the valleys far far below is really out of this world. It’s an indescribable feeling being so high above everything, and knowing that you got there on your own power.
Unfortunately the hardest part was not behind us. We now had to conquer even steeper slopes – around 30-35 degrees, and ever-increasing altitude. We were taking one step every 5-10 seconds, to give you an idea of how slowly we were going. Even that pace took just about everything we had. The human body really does not function at this altitude.

That said, we persevered. And we made it. I was the first in our group to summit(how does that feel, Craig?!) but the others were right behind. I will admit that this was a very emotional moment for me. The culmination of two weeks of slogging, good weather, luck and perfect guiding have all resulted in this singular moment. I can not really describe the feeling – you’ll have to climb your own mountain to experience it, but suffice it to say that it made all of the hardships we went through absolutely worth it.

Mountains generate their own weather and while we were a mile above the highest clouds an hour before, here we found ourselves in the midst of clouds rolling in. That said, being at eye level with – and right next to a cloud is such a unique and incredible experience. No metal airframe surrounding us – just us, the mountain and the clouds. It really feels like another world up here. Luke mentioned that as the Himalayan climbing season has yet to start, we were likely the highest humans standing on Terra Firma at that time. It was quite an incredible feeling! Unfortunately we saw a few climbers clearly suffering from pulmonary and cerebral edema, though we didn’t hear about any injury reports so we trust that they made it down safely. Either of these conditions are very scary and these people should have been descending instead of ascending but clearly lacked the presence of mind to make such a decision.

The clouds brought snow with them and soon visibility was very poor. On our way down we experienced whiteout conditions with almost zero visibility – this when there was not a cloud in sight on our way up. Mountain weather is unpredictable and can change instantly as we observed today. Craig took a pretty nasty spill, somehow managing to tumble head over heels three full times before he was able to stop himself. Luke called out for him to self-arrest – a technique used to prevent yourself from tumbling down a mountain just like Craig. Unfortunately he was not very successful but it was certainly hilarious to witness. (Craig was fine)

The team spread out on the way down, but everyone eventually made it back to camp. We almost lost sight of Greg in the whiteout, but Luke managed to track him down! As can be expected after a 14 hour day at extreme altitude, we were basically zombies by the time we got back. Tincho had made some ramen that was unbelievably delicious – it was exactly what we needed. All of us crashed for the night soon after, thoroughly exhausted.

Continue to Day 15 – Descent to Expedition Base Camp Two – Plaza de Mulas