Day 10 - Island Peak (6,189 mtrs)

Up at midnight and jump into my warm clothes as it is pretty chilly in the tent and delaying get out of your sleeping bag in such conditions just gets harder and harder. At quarter past breakfast is brought round whilst we are packing up. There are the usual last minute issues where something, having been carefully placed in one pile or bag, has mysteriously moved but in general things go pretty smoothly and we set off at 01:09. It wont get light until about 6am so we are walking with our head torches - this means that we will see very little of our surroundings for a while. We start out walking along the valley floor to get to path leading up the mountain and it is a great deal warmer than we feared it might be. Soon we turn up onto the steep path up the 'nose' of the mountain as opposed to the much longer but more gentle one that leads round the back. Very soon the group starts to split as the lead Sherpa sets a pretty quick pace and only I and one other, Simon, are able to keep up - Simon has excellent technique and it is a bit of a struggle to stay with them. The major issue is that I don't feel that I have acclimatised that well as yet - our recent days have been short walks at low altitude - and I am really puffing which does not bode well for the rest of the day! 

Despite the lack of air, the trek is really enjoyable including a variety of gradients as well as moving over snow, rock and ice. However we really aren't moving that quickly and start to get cold. I have bought a new pair of gloves for this trip but really struggle with them - it is something I will have to look into more for future trips - and soon revert to my tried and trusted warm liner gloves and 8,000 mtr mitt shell. At about 3 am the temperature seems to drop again and a bit of wind picks up and so we put on our down jackets and I add my new face mask - it is remarkable how much more enjoyable climbing is when you are nice and warm rather than a bit too chilly! This combines with the crampons going on as we have now cleared the final rock outcrop and are walking on snow and ice on much steeper sections. We are struggling a bit as neither of us wants to be the one to slow things down!

At about 5am or so we came to the final headwall which is about 150 mtrs high leading up to the summit ridge - dawn has broken although the sun is still behind the surrounding mountains.

The climb up the face takes a long time (about an hour or so) as we need to take a breath every three steps or so - this is where the lack of acclimatisation is really hurting us.

It was actually a lot steeper than it looks and absolutely exhausting!

Looking back along the summit ridge

But eventually I get to top of the ridge and then follow the ridge up for a bit to a small plateau and a couple of minutes later the Sherpa arrives to confirm that this is indeed the summit. The view is spectacular - Island Peak is so named as it appears like an island surrounded by a ring of larger mountains including the 8,000 mtr Lhotse to the North (blocking the view of Everest) and Ama Dablam (our main objective) to the South. 

After a few photos we need to head down as Simon is feeling pretty terrible and other people are now starting up the ropes and we want to avoid congestion on them. I am trying my go pro for the first time in real action and it will be interesting to see what the footage looks like. 

We reconvene at the bottom of the ropes along with someone else from the group who doesn't feel great and start the long journey back to camp. None of us are moving that well and at times the route is pretty tricky so it takes us quite a while to get back to camp. I got to the summit in 5:30 and then it was about 3 hours back down; setting off at a bit after 1 and getting back a bit after 10:30. 

Once back at base camp we have a quick drink and a bowl of noodle soup before stretching out on some mats - unfortunately the camp (except for the kitchen tent) was packed up whilst we were on the mountain. We fall asleep in the sun for a couple of hours until the rest get back in the afternoon. Unfortunately for them we still have a good 2 hour walk back to Chuckun and so they don't have much time to rest if they want to avoid the cold, dark and wet weather that arrives in late afternoon here. 

The walk back is a bit of a schlep in the end - it is not that tricky but long after the summit and we end up getting quite strung out - the low cloud and wind really don't help either. There does not seem to be much recovery by supper which turns out to be a quiet affair with people heading to bed soon after. 

Day 9 - Island Peak Base Camp

It has snowed quite a bit overnight which adds character to the village we are - it is going to be interesting to see what this does to conditions further up the mountain.

Again we only have a short trek today - about 2.5 hours or so - so it is a pretty relaxed morning but everyone else has left the teahouse by the time we have breakfast. I am still struggling somewhat with the usual breakfast fare but enjoying the toasted cheese sandwiches.
The trek itself is fairly gentle and the trains of yaks a people ahead of us have cleared a handy path through the deep snow - I doubt we will be so lucky heading for the Island Peak summit!



Island peak is on the left

The path heads up from the main valley and then circles the base of the peak

to base camp in the narrow valley between Island Peak and the neighbouring large ridge and close to the start of the main route up the mountain.

I say close, but in fact there are a lot of people here so we end up quite a bit further down the track than we had expected!

There is no mess tent at base camp as we are only here for one day so we are brought food and drink in our tents. After a high carb lunch of pasta, potatoes and vegetables we do some fixed line rope work on the steep slope next to the camp. This is ascending with a jumar and coming back down in either full abseil mode, light friction mode or just with the rope wrapped around your arm to control the descent. The downside to the quicker modes of descent is the damage done to your gloves as the rope feeds through them - hence the cheap counterfeit gloves we bought in Kathmandu.

After that we prepare our gear for tomorrow as we will be leaving at 1 am (after a number of lazy days the expedition is getting serious!) and it is surprising how long it takes to get organised and make good decisions at that time and when newly arrived at altitude. The camp will be packed up and taken back to Chukung whilst we are on the mountain so we will need to pack everything we are not taking as well. Supper is brought to our tents at about 6 and we invite Paddy to join us for a friendly chat but then spend the time grilling him about gear. After supper he heads off to check on the rest of the group as a few people seem to be struggling with the altitude. By about 7pm we are all in bed trying to get some sleep in preparation for getting up at midnight for our long day ahead. 

This is definitely a different style to Aconcagua and the North Pole where we had to be much more self-sufficient - pitching our tents, cooking for ourselves etc. Even on the climbing practice the Sherpas were expecting to do all our carabiner and rope changes. However it is all done in such a nice and friendly way and the Sherpas, porters and cooks all seem to enjoy showing you their country and helping you enjoy it.