Meanwhile…….. The Ascent of Dan

Dan and Bikram left with the Sherpa, when we split two days ago. The three were on their way up to Lobuche High Camp, for a short night under canvas. From here at a ridiculously early time the next morning Dan and Sherpa Kunga would depart for the snow peaked summit of Lobuche East at 20,080 feet.

They made their way up a very narrow ridge, which offered ample opportunity to slip, fall hundreds of feet and die a miserable death on impact. Best not do that Dan. I don’t want to have to come back up and drag you down to the nearest mortuary. He didn’t take any photos as he says he was ‘shit scared’.

They arrived at High Camp around 1pm.

There was a young chef there and his assistant, who prepared lunch.

Kunga gathered juniper shrubs, for an incense burning ritual, on the way up to bring them good luck.

Then he asked Dan for a battery pack to charge his phone. He seemed a bit odd. Then he asked for pain killers. Then, half way through the afternoon he announced that he had terrible toothache and couldn’t continue. Then he said that the kiddie chef could take Dan up a difficult snow and ice bound summit, no problem, and buggered off. At this point it started snowing.

The lad cooked dinner for Dan and then they turned in at 6.30 pm with a howler going on outside. Dan’s sleeping bag touched the outside tent wall and he woke up absolutely soaked, in a blizzard.

At midnight the lad indicated it was time to breakfast and go, and burnt the shrubs. Surely their luck will now change, dear readers?

They set off in the dark at 1am, with the snow still falling fast and with mini-crampons fixed to the soles of their boots for grip. They encountered a major obstacle when they reached fixed ropes to aid their first steep climb. They had jumar fixed to the rope, which enabled them to pull themselves up on a tight bite, push the jumar higher and then pull themselves up again. The quality of the rope provided by the corrupt Nepali authorities was so crap that Dan’s jumar kept slipping so that he was falling off the slope in the dark. Buy crap, pocket the difference and let people struggle, or worse. Bent gets.

Eventually Dan pulled himself up on the rope and scaled that steep section.

After an hour or so the lads needed to switch to full climbing crampons so they sheltered under a rock overhang, changed gear and stashed the spare kit under the ledge to pick up on the way back. Dan gets vertigo. What saved him from absolute panic was that it was snowing and still dark so he couldn’t see the drop.

They pressed on and the next climb was almost vertical. The rope for this section was crap. Dan’s jumar slipped continuously, to the extent that he had to pull himself up on the rocks and then grab his jumar to pull that up. Oooer missus!

At the top of that rope was another rope section. The juvenile guide disappeared whilst Dan was waiting to climb. Dan could just make him out over the brow of a ridge, by the light of his static headlamp. What was he doing?

Twenty minutes he was gone, and Dan realised he was having an extended shit. At over 19,000 feet in a blizzard!

When he returned they cracked on up that rope and up further sections of rope going through deep snow.

Then they reached a crucial section, where there was no rope! And the boy wonder had to climb up and fix one.

Eventually, and at the end of Dan’s physical limits, it was becoming light and Dan could see the summit.

The last section was ploughing through deep snow on the last rope. And then they were there!

Then the rapid, but careful, descent, during which Dan’s jumar holding him safe nearly came off the end of a rope, which would have resulted in his death. Luckily he held it tight just before the end and clung on until they made themselves safe. And back in High Camp. If this Sherpa is more than 12 years old then I’m Chinese.

Zse zse!

Then directly on to the route down to Lobuche.

And for exhausted Dan, a tired but happy man, sleep.

Night night.