by Mark Horrell
It's 3.30 when I finally arrive back at Base Camp. It's taken me 6½ hours, exactly the same amount of time it took me to walk up to ABC from Base Camp at the start of our summit push. How it can take the same time to walk down 1200 metres as it took to walk up heaven only knows. I must be absolutely buggered. One of the kitchen boys spots me approaching and runs out to meet me fifty yards short of camp with a kettle of hot orange juice. Although I'm keen to press on and reach camp, the thought is kind and the juice hits the spot. Then Dorje comes out with a khata scarf and a warm handshake. It must have been agonising for him to wait here at Base Camp with his injury when he had been intending to climb, but he looks genuinely pleased, and I'm sure he is for his Sherpas, most of whom have never climbed Everest from the north before.
In the dining tent Phil turns up with three bottles of champagne to celebrate our success, but alcohol isn't what I need tonight. I feel like I'm in a daze, and find it difficult to share in the overall mood of jollity. Grant, who has proved to be in a different class to the rest of us, is drinking freely and very boisterous. He was a brilliant tent mate higher up the mountain, saying all the right things at all the right moments, but now his exuberance is the very opposite of what I need. What I need is rest, not just to put me back to where I should be physically, but mentally as well. My mood surprises my team mates, and I know I must be coming across as moody, unable to laugh at anything, but this seems to be the way my body has responded to extreme mental exhaustion. Everything unnecessary is shut down, and that means my sense of humour. Hopefully tomorrow it will return.
Phil arrives with champagne
For the others there is a mood of celebration. Even Mila the tee-totaller treats herself to a glass of champagne. But there is also a more cautious note, summed up well by a comment Ian makes. Quietly confident and optimistic, he is the sort of person who just gets on with things without talking about them too much.
"I don't think I respected Everest enough before," he says, "but I do now."
We're all very aware that we've needed quite a lot of help and good luck in order to achieve what we have. There will be people who say we haven't done anything particularly impressive, and point to the fact that we used fixed ropes and allowed Sherpas to do much of the hard work for us. This may be true, but it's also barely relevant. We're only seeking to stretch our own boundaries, not break new ground for the human race. It's not like any of us think climbing Everest makes us Reinhold Messner.
Meanwhile Margaret describes how she nearly died at Camp 3 trying to go for a pee in the vestibule of her tent. It was the morning after our summit day, when the howling gale was raging outside. She had just lowered herself into position when an almighty gust bowled her over, dragging her underneath the doorway and down the hill. She was saved by Chedar, who was jerked awake by the roaring wind, and was doubtless surprised to open his eyes and see Margaret in a compromising position on the verge of disappearing over the North Face. He leapt on top of her and began hauling her back into the safety of the tent, but needed the assistance of Nima Neru, lying the other side of him, to hold him steady and keep him from being dragged down himself.
It's clear my brain isn't functioning properly, and everything seems too surreal. I try to reflect on the last few days and bring everything into focus, but it's hard. I've made it to the top of the world and back down again safely. I didn't die of exhaustion, or fall off the Second Step or down a crevasse, or get frostbite. Or even get mauled by a yak. One of these days I expect it will sink in, but not yet. We have two days here at Base Camp to rest and pack, and send emails and blog posts to let friends, family, and unknown supporters who have been following the Everest season know we are safe, before jeeps arrive to take us back to Kathmandu.
But now it's time to head for my sleeping bag.
THE END
Dedication
I would like to dedicate this diary to the memory of Juan José Polo. I didn't know him, but I believe he was the figure I passed as I descended from the Third Step. He never returned, and the following day his body was found at Mushroom Rock, a prominent feature on the ridge between the First and Second Steps.
I was locked in my own battle for survival then, but with hindsight I regret I didn't speak to him, and urge him to turn around. Perhaps he would have ignored me and continued on his way, but it is also possible that he would still be alive. I will never know.
My thoughts are with his friends and family.
About Mark Horrell
I am a mountaineer, adventure travel blogger, diarist and digital communications consultant from the United Kingdom, who divides his time between helping organisations with all things web and social media, and travelling extensively in the world's greater mountain ranges. In May 2012 I achieved a long-held ambition by reaching the summit of Everest.
About the Footsteps on the Mountain travel diaries
The Footsteps on the Mountain travel diaries are my notes from the trail. They are more or less word for word what I scribble in my tent each evening after a day in the mountains, bar a few minor edits for spelling, grammar and nonsense, and a spot of basic fact checking, such as quotations I can't recall perfectly. They have been written in many different stages of exhaustion, and are a reflection of my thoughts and mood at the time. In places you may find them quite "raw", but I hope they give you an enjoyable taste of life on the trail. They will always be available at a budget price.
I am currently working on my first full length book about my journey to becoming an Everest climber, which I hope to complete by the end of 2013.
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All my mountain travel diaries can be found on my website www.markhorrell.com in both web and ebook format, along with extensive photo galleries and video footage from my trips. I also write an outdoors and adventure travel blog called Footsteps on the Mountain which presents a client's-eye view of the world of mountaineering and adventure travel, and is not in any way connected with the song Foot of the Mountain by Norwegian 80s cheese-pop band A-ha.
Table of Contents
1. The only way to acclimatise in a dirty old town
2. Everest from the Tibetan plateau
3. One of the world's great views; meaningful conversations
4. The Everest shortcut
5. Base camp communications
6. Base camp IT support and cinema hell
7. Remembering the Everest dead
8. The puja to end all pujas
9. An Australian climbing legend
10. Remembering George Mallory and Sandy Irvine
11. To Yakshit Camp
12. The Magic Highway
13. Everest lassitude
14. The view from ABC
15. A walk to Crampon Point
16. Climbing the North Col Wall
17. The sweetest beer in the world
18. Everest news
19. How cold the wind doth blow
20. Everest blog wars
21. Memoirs of a superstar climber
22. We're all adults
23. Jamie the Weather Man
24. The world's most enjoyable acclimatisation programme
25. High altitude disco
26. The Ladder of Death
27. East Rongbuk monotony
28. "Visiting the monastery"
29. Lock Unlocked
30. Russian hospitality
31. The Tibetan Village
32. How not to write an expedition dispatch
33. An emergency meeting
34. The summit mindset
35. The summit push begins
36. Bott
leneck on the North Col Wall
37. Climbing the North Ridge of Everest
38. The highest campsite in the world
39. The First Step
40. The Second Step
41. The Third Step
42. The summit pyramid
43. The world's highest graveyard
44. Dicing with Death
45. The last reserves
46. The indescribable feeling of being alive
47. Heavenly rest
48. The last obstacle
