Imjatse (Island Peak)

Wednesday May 5, 2011

6:53PM

Happy Cinco de Mayo!! There hasn’t really been anything to celebrate here, but I hope that everyone back home is having some fun for me. Actually, I retract that statement. Our water pump was finally fixed and I took my first real shower in 8 weeks. The hot water and subsequent steamy bathroom was such a pleasant change from the trickle that comes from the bag we have been using that it almost rivaled the feeling of reaching the top of Imjatse. Well - almost.Speaking of Imjatse, the climb was really a lot of fun. I say climb, but it was really more of a long hike with a little climbing at the end. 

The fun started at 12:30 AM when the base camp cook woke us up with a cup of hot tea and bowl of hot porridge. It was definitely a slightly strange feeling being served a hot meal in the middle of the night in my sleeping bag, but I can’t say that it was all bad either. After quickly finishing our packing it was time to climb..... or hike. 

The base camp is set up at around 16,500 feet leaving another 4000 ft to the top. We started out walking due east along the lateral morraine of the glacier before turning north and upward. The trail followed rocky switchbacks for a couple of thousand feet before a little scrambling up short rises began. The night felt surprisingly warm with low winds at the start - perfect for climbing - but with the steady gain in elevation the temperatures began to fall. 

The group consisted of only two of us and a guide. My fellow climbing partner was, P.L., a forty-something from Hong Kong, and our guide was Dindi Sherpa, a 30 year old who had been climbing nearly as long as I have and spends his off season farming. I never could get P.L. to tell me what the initials stand for as he insisted that it was not pronounceable in English. I was just happy to have a small group, so that there might be less waiting and more climbing. This turned out to be far from the case as soon as we aimed up hill. 

P.L. was, perhaps, the slowest climber I have ever encountered. Dindi and I stopped to wait for him after 20 or so minutes of uphill travel and then subsequently stopped every 5-10 minutes of the next 6 hours. The slow going did make things feel easy, but waiting was cold. By 18,000 ft I was wearing all of my layers and the huge down coat on top I had pulled on over the front in order to keep from having to take my pack off repeatedly and to provide the ability to ventilate once we started walking again. Each time P.L.’s headlamp drifted further behind into the darkness Dindi would stop and curse his slowness, at which point I couldn’t help but chuckle even though I was getting a little frustrated at my partner being the cause of my cold toes and fingers.

It had snowed a little in base camp and by the time we reached the higher elevations the fresh snow was more like 4-6 inches deep. I kept wondering if the new-fallen snow would present any difficulties later in the climb, but nothing unexpected ever came about. 

As we approached the high glacier the hillside tapered into a narrow ridge for a short distance. The grade tapered off as the trail narrowed and a quick glance to the side with my headlamp revealed nothing but darkness. The small sidewalk on which I was standing separated two long vertical drops down the mountainside. Perhaps not knowing what was beyond the light of my headlamp was a good thing. 

Once the short, thin ridge-line was behind us the snow became more consistent and the reflection from the glacier ahead in the moonlight was clearly visible. As we strapped on crampons and tied in to a rope as a 3-man glacier team the sun began to rise leaving a golden glow on their summits. Despite our slow progress, we had made it high enough to enjoy absolutely spectacular sunrise views on Baruntse, Lhotse, Mehra, Lhotse Shar and Ama Dablam. Even if I never made the summit this moment was well worth the effort. 

Crossing the glacier took only a few minutes at which point we stood below a 300+ ft tall face leading to the summit ridge. It was much steeper than I had expected, approximately 70 degrees, and proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated. The mixture of consolidated snow and absolutely bulletproof ice was much better suited to technical ice tools, but as I only brought a standard mountaineering axe with me, I had to make do as best as possible. There were fixed ropes from bottom to top providing protection and I, potentially, could have just pulled up the ropes with my jumar, but pride wouldn’t allow it. Instead I flogged myself using the one axe made to climb terrain far less steep. 

Upon pulling onto the summit ridge I took a moment to enjoy the scenery and noticed that P.L. and Dindi were only about 20 feet up the face. P.L. had left his pack and axe at the base and Dindi was pulling and pushing him up the fixed lines. It looked like it would be a long wait on the ridge for them so I decided to proceed onward and after a few short minutes of climbing I found myself on the summit. I clipped into the ice screw drilled into the summit and had the guide of the two-man team that passed us at the base of the face take a few pictures of me. I also took a few more pictures of the surrounding mountains, especially the southeast face of Lhotse, which is one of the most impressive pieces of mountain I have ever seen and known to have been climbed. I didn’t really want to linger too long, though, as the sun had been out for a considerable period of time and as the temperatures in the mountains rise so does the potential for wind and dramatic weather changes. 

As I made my way back down the ridge I passed my two companions reaching the top of the face and P.L. looked exhausted. I rapped down the lines and waited for what seemed like forever on the glacier below. Despite the sunscreen I had applied I still felt like I was roasting from the intense reflections off the surrounding snow-covered slopes and ice below my feet. Ultimately, we all made it back down to the base of the glacier where P.L. admitted that this was far harder than he expected and that his mountain climbing days were over. I doubted it as many say the same after getting totally worked. I have to give him credit for pushing himself really hard and making it to the top.

We all hiked down and again P.L. fell behind but this time I just couldn’t wait. I was hungry, sunburned and out of water and the call of a comfy camp chair, bowl of noodles and big bottle of water was too strong to resist. When Dindi and P.L. finally pulled into camp Dindi was carrying both of their bags and looked no worse for the wear. 

P.L. was talking more than he had in the previous two days combined, and I felt sure he was really excited about the day’s accomplishment and would reconsider his previous statements on the mountain. Instead, he offered to give our guide his mountaineering boots as a tip, an extremely generous and surprising gesture. After changing clothes and packing we all made our way back down the glacier to the village of Chukkung, the place where we all met and started the brief adventure. For me it was back to Pheriche to work while Alun and Lauren get some recreation time, for Dindi it was over to Lobuche to lead a group of trekkers and for P.L. it was off to Everest base camp. If things go well Dindi and I may meet again to climb Lobuche East but this time in a more alpine style and, hopefully, at a slightly more rapid pace.