A Sherpa was doing the rounds, knocking on tents handing out cups of tea. He was a very welcome sight indeed.
He approached me.
“Namaste.”
“Namaste.”
He poured me a hot mug of sugary tea and then walked on. I thanked him from the bottom of my heart.
It wasn’t all bad, I thought – at least the tea would sort out my headache, prepare me for the day ahead.
I was wrong about that.
I took a sip of the tea – it was warm and soothing as it slipped down my throat. But then…I immediately felt a discomfort in my stomach; it twisted and convulsed.
My eyes widened in panic. Hastily I put my cup down on the ground, it toppled over and spilt, staining the pure white snow a murky brown.
My mind flashed back to the guy at the lodge, about not making it to the loo…
Buddha’s Revenge…
I rushed in the direction of the toilet tent as fast as I could, avoiding the littered stones and rocks in my path.
“Morning Jules,” Paul shouted at me as I dashed past.
There was no time to respond – the panicked look on my pallid face was enough.
My body had suddenly become my enemy. I was locked in a battle to control the whole thing. I clenched by buttocks as I half-ran, half-waddled, to the toilet tent.
It came into view.
Almost there.
I dived inside the toilet tent, but the canvas cover to the ‘sit-down’ section was closed and zipped. Shit…shit, shit, shit.
There was somebody in there.
“Are you going to be long? I’m desperate,” I shouted.
It was all going to come out; I could feel it. The colour had drained from my face as I clenched every available muscle in my body in an attempt to prevent the inevitable.
I heard the rustle of somebody standing – they seemed to be moving in slow motion.
“Come on, hurry up! I’m going to shit myself!”
The zip opened.
“Hallo Jules!”
Iwan grinned at me, standing in the doorway.
“I need…” I managed to say, trying to see a way past him.
Iwan laughed, stepping aside slowly.
“All yours, my friend.”
I dashed in, pulled the zip closed, ripped my trousers down, sat down with a crash and…wallop. I felt my insides explode outwards.
The toilet was a wooden seat screwed crudely on top of a table, with a big sack underneath it to collect all the shit. The stench from that was already pretty unbearable, with the combined human waste of our entire expedition.
But the relief was intense.
I sat there, freezing cold, shivering as my bowels evacuated. It felt so good.
Eventually, I hobbled back to my tent. Iwan grinned and waved at me as I passed; I stuck a finger up and he laughed.
I crawled back into my tent and removed my trousers and underpants. Luckily, my essential mountain climbing equipment included babywipes, so I was able to clean myself up.
It wasn’t so glamorous, this mountain climbing business, A lot of it was about things like trying not to shit yourself after an early morning cup of tea. But these details don’t make it into most accounts of mountaineering derring-do.
I cleaned myself up, put on a new pair of underpants, dressed again, and headed off to breakfast.
Climbing Lobuche in alpha mode
As we ate the sausage, toast, scrambled egg and tomatoes prepared for us by Bill, who wouldn’t be joining us on our trek to Lobuche, we were given the usual morning briefing.
The guides stood at the top of the mess tent and talked us through our route. We would arrive at Lobuche Base Camp that day, before crampon work the following day, and hiking up to Rock Camp later in the week. We were due to climb to the summit on Sunday, stay two nights just below the summit, then climb down for breakfast at Lobuche BC and head back to Everest BC the same day.
To put this into perspective, the highest mountain in Europe, Mont Blanc, is only 4,809m. We would be camping nearly 50 per cent higher than the highest mountain in Europe.
We would be hiking from Base Camp back down to Gorak Shit, which would take about an hour and half. Then we’d head on to Lobuche, which was another two hours.
I was quite excited, looking forward to doing some actual climbing, to see how I stacked up against the other guys and girls. We had three girls on our expedition: Louise, the heart surgeon, Sheila, the doctor from another expedition, and Aayusha, a Nepalese woman from Khumjong. If she could summit, she would be able to earn a living as a Sherpa guide, but as not many women climb, it was difficult for her to get started, so our expedition was sponsoring her.
“One more thing,” said one of the guides. “It has come to our attention that last night someone rigged the spare solar power unit to the television.”
I focused on shovelling scrambled egg into my mouth.
“We know who it was.” I could feel all eyes on me as I looked up serenely. The guides were staring at me as if I’d committed some sort of heinous crime. “Do not let it happen again.”
It all felt very strange. Here we were, a group of adults who had paid no small amount to be on this expedition, and these guys were acting like we were a bunch of naughty school kids. It didn’t sit well with me; we were equals all trying to achieve the same goal. No one person was better or more important than another.
Unfortunately, there was no democracy on Everest – the rule of our expedition leader was very rarely challenged. People generally paid their money and shut their mouths, doing as they were told so as not to rock the boat.
That simply wasn’t how I rolled. I am used to being part of the decision-making process of anything I am participating in, and I found it irksome when we were treated so much as mere subordinates.
The guides ended their morning announcements and everybody began slowly filing out to collect their equipment.
Due to my difficult morning, I’d decided to relax a little after breakfast before setting off. The expedition was due to leave at ten o’clock, and I watched them go. I didn’t see the need to rush; we had all day, and the trek should only take three hours.
At 10.22am, one of the guides saw me sitting having a cup of Her Maj’s finest by the mess tent.
“What are you doing, still here? You should have left!”
“I’m just having a cup of Her Majesty’s finest.”
Bill looked over at me in disbelief. I don’t think he could believe I was questioning a guide; everybody else treated them as if they were oracles of the mountain – they loved that.
“You need to get a move on!”
I finished my tea at a leisurely pace. There was no way I was going to rush; I was a quick walker, so I was pretty sure I’d catch a few of the team up along the way.
I took a sip of lukewarm tea. Two bollockings in one morning. It’d be a miracle if I made it another six weeks to summit day...
Lobuche is the perfect practice mountain for Everest – it has similar conditions, but you don’t have to pass through the Khumbu Icefall to get to it, and by all accounts, you want to do that as little as possible, due to the very high risk of avalanches and collapsing seracs in the Icefall.
The trek to Lobuche was considered a stroll – a walk in the park – but it wasn’t. If you imagine trekking in the Welsh mountains, it was nothing like that. The paths were slippery with ice, with great lumps of rock everywhere. There was no real path, and at points we had to scramble over rocks.
On any other day, this would have been fine for me – I would have enjoyed it. But the old guts were reeling all the way; I could feel my sphincter twitching.
I’d loaded up on babywipes and hand disinfectant. I’d come prepared for the worst. I’d also visited the doc before setting off to ask if she had
any Imodium – she had kindly obliged.
I soon caught up with the others, but decided to stop off at Gorak Shit for some lunch. Louise and John joined me.
We had been told not to eat anything from Gorak Shit; that it was all a bit dodgy. But I was hungry, so I did anyway. I couldn’t exactly make my stomach any worse.
I had hot noodles and vegetables, as well as lemon tea, and it tasted good. It was better than good, actually. I started to suspect the warnings we had received were another instance of the guides trying to keep us in line, and to ensure that we only bought food at places with which they had deals.
We sat at Gorak Shit for a couple of hours, drinking lemon tea and trying to send some emails. The level of wifi service was as terrible as usual. In the UK, it would have caused a riot. But you just have to make the best of it. At least it was better than Base Camp; emails did actually get sent – on the sixth, seventh or eighth attempt.
Eventually we set off again, arriving at Lobuche Base Camp at around four o’clock.
We were now slightly lower in altitude, as Lobuche Base Camp was at about 4,600m, as opposed to the 5,300m of Everest Base Camp. I could feel it as I trekked towards Lobuche BC. The air seemed to thicken, become more full. I could breathe more easily, richly.
We were issued with tents again, so I stowed my gear in mine. There was no white pod at Lobuche BC, no entertainment at all. It was a much more basic affair than Everest BC.
Over the next couple of days, we practised ‘pointing’ on the ice seracs – vast chunks of ice, about 30 metres long and 25 metres high. The Sherpas would attach a rope to the top of the serac. We then had to climb up this rope, using our jumars and crampons, sticking the front spikes of the crampons into the ice for grip, and hauling ourselves up using the jumar.
After this, we hiked up to Rock Camp to prepare for our final ascent. This was a relatively easy climb. It was like a very rocky Snowdon, not too steep and with only one really nasty bit where it was necessary to rope up and put on crampons to shimmy along a ledge. Rock Camp is a relatively flat plateau half way to the summit.
We came prepared for our stay at the top of the mountain, with boil-in-the-bag food and warm weather gear stuffed into our rucksacks.
At Rock Camp, there were fewer tents than at Lobuche BC – we had to double up. I was told to share with John again. Only problem was fitting into the damned thing – we are both tall – I’m six foot three, and John is over six foot.
We squeezed in, pushing our rucksacks down to one end of the tent and our boots in the other. There was nothing else to do at Rock Camp, and, as it was getting late, everybody stayed in their tents.
We had a tiny gas stove to cook food at the opening of the tent. I lit it and grabbed two pans, one of which I filled with snow. I melted this and made us both a cup of Her Maj’s finest with the tea bags and powdered milk I had brought with me. It was heaven, clutching the warm cups in our gloved hands. The heat from the stove barely warmed up the tent.
We cooked some noodle soup for a makeshift starter before our boil-in-the-bag main courses. Of course, at altitude, the water took much longer to boil, so our main courses took a long time – 30 minutes to boil the water and then another 30 to heat the pouch of grub. But hell, it wasn’t like we were going anywhere anyway.
So we sat there, squashed into our small tent, hulking over a tiny gas stove as our food bubbled away on it.
I had chilli con carne and John had sausage and beans. It was the best chilli con carne I think I have ever tasted, but anything warm with a strong flavour tasted like Michelin-starred cuisine in those conditions.
Unfortunately, at altitude, the digestive system is…not as good. And with sausage and beans and chilli con carne came the resulting wind.
There we were, two big grown men preparing to climb the highest mountain in the world, sitting in our tent, farting like troopers, laughing. We didn’t care much; we’d lost it really. We hadn’t been able to wash properly for three days, so it didn’t matter a jot.
I just prayed that the Imodium did its job properly.
* * * * *
The night was a particularly rough one. As I started to nod off, John, already snoring, turned over to face me. He breathed right into my face, sausage and beans breath, from far too close. I wouldn’t let my girlfriend get that close if she’d eaten that.
I did my best to turn away, avoiding the cold canvas. It was bloody freezing, -10°C at least. Eventually, I nodded off.
In the night, I woke to a sound of running water. Where was that coming from?
I sat up on my elbows, looked around in the gloom.
I could still hear the sound of trickling water. Was I dreaming?
“Sorry mate,” said the sleepy voice of John.
John was kneeling, arse in my face, peeing into his bottle. It could be worse, I thought… At least he’d had the decency to pee in the bottle and not on me.
Eventually, thank goodness, morning came. I opened my eyes and looked up at the roof of the tent, just as John turned over, banging the side of the tent and dislodging the ice crystals from the roof. As they rained down on me, I swore and tried to avoid them – not a good move, as this only served to dislodge more. They went on my face, in my eyes and all over my sleeping bag.
I sat up on my elbows.
“Morning John – thanks for the shower.”
John groaned.
I unzipped the tent, and snow cascaded onto the floor through the unzipped opening.
“Snowing again.”
John groaned.
It was six in the morning and the sun hadn’t yet risen. There was a thick fog hanging in the valley below and fresh deep snow everywhere. It all looked very still, very white, very beautiful, and very cold. I watched my breath rise in a long stream from my mouth.
After I dressed – downing jacket, downing trousers, thick socks, boots – I crawled out of the tent. I could just about make out the silhouettes of the other tents – small shadows in the distance.
Today, we were off to the summit of Lobuche. I was excited.
I could see others moving around in the fog, shivering in the freezing environment, hands tucked firmly in their armpits.
One of the shadows started talking to me.
“Hi Jules,” said a female voice.
“Hello?”
I was fairly certain it was Louise – she had a distinct American accent – but the wind and the cold seemed to distort the sound, so I couldn’t be sure.
The shadow came closer; suddenly I could see the previously hidden face.
“Didn’t recognise me?” she said, eyes bright – they were the only part of her face that was not covered. “We’re leaving at seven.”
“Seven? Why?”
“Orders.”
“But we’ve got nothing else to do today. We’ll just be sitting at the summit, freezing our arses off all day.”
“We’d just be freezing our asses off here.”
It was too cold to debate – I just conceded defeat. It’s easier at -10°C. We had five hours to achieve the climb, trudging through the deep fresh snow. I didn’t envy the people at the front, breaking trail through the thick snow. It was going to be very, very hard work, so I hung back. Nothing new there, then.
I had breakfast with John, perched in the end of our tent again. We melted some snow and made tea, followed by crushed Weetabix with powdered milk, sugar and boiling water, all mixed up – my porridgey morning kick-start. It tasted great.
My mouth throbbed from a cold sore that had developed during the night. Somehow, it felt a million times worse up here on the mountainside.
It was basically a mild herpes attack, which meant that I was run down. Not surprising at 5,000m, but it was the last thing I needed on Lobuche summit day. It was going to be tough enough getting to the summit anyway.
&nbs
p; The plan was for everybody to leave around 7am. I left a little after 7.30 – John had gone on ahead. I calculated we’d be hitting the summit by midday, and then have nothing to do except hang around on the summit all afternoon, so no point in rushing.
There was a very competitive spirit within the group. So not only were we climbing to reach the summit, we were also, to a certain extent, competing against each other. You don’t want to get thrown off the expedition – you don’t want them to turn round and say: “You’re not up to it, you’re not going to get your bash at Everest” – so we were competing against each other to prove that we were good enough, to prove that we could be one of the first ones up Everest this year.
I soon caught up with the back marker and had to veer off the beaten track of freshly crushed snow to make my own trail to get past. Boy, that was hard work. I cut back on to the beaten track.
I passed another guy, and another. There was no stopping to chat on this hike; the air was too thin, and all of our focus was on keeping going.
I probably went too fast in the end, as I was trying to make up ground. I felt the air burn as it entered my lungs, my calf muscles were screaming with each step.
As we got higher, each step became slower, more laborious. I drew as deep a breath as I could and forced myself into taking the next step. Then I’d pant deeply, three breaths, and take the next step. If you don’t pace yourself right, you take five steps and almost collapse. There’s very little oxygen in the system, it’s vital to go at a steady pace, to concentrate on getting the pace right.
We were all wearing crampons over our climbing boots, and carrying our rucksacks with all our food and equipment. It was a lot of stuff, and it wasn’t light.
I was tired, particularly with the cold sore attack, In fact, I was completely shattered. This was the highest altitude I’d ever climbed at, and each step only made it higher. This was new territory, and I was nervous, but also eager to prove I could do it.
Ahead of me and behind me, I could see the silhouettes of the others through the fog, heads bent, shoulders hunched, shuffling onwards like zombies.
“We’re going to take a break,” said a voice over the air.
Aftershock: One Man's Quest and the Quake on Everest Page 8
