thewills'wanderings

by Tim

Back in 1952 Everest was climbed with 362 porters,20 Sherpa guides and 10,000 pounds of baggage. So being lead by Sir Eds example Lyndsay, Mark and myself along with 5 porters, 1 cook , and 1 climbing Sherpa set out to climb our own Everest, a mighty high peak Langshisha Ri, 6300m.
For us Nzers the altitude was the biggest problem ,as Mount Cook is only 3800m and although information about Langshisa Ri was very limited and it hadn’t been climbed a lot ,we decided it was within our technical ability. The whole lead up to the climb was all about “slowly slowly” as we took our time to acclimatise and wandered up the Langtang Valley. We started at 1400m and left the families after 5 days trekking at a small village called Kyanjing Gompa (3800m). Then 6 of us headed off for a 2 day acclimatisation climb up Yala Peak (5500m). This was a big test for me as I feel the effects of altitude really easily and was worried how I would cope.
Our base camp for Yala was at 4800m and on arriving there I was feeling great. However throughout the night I started suffering from headaches and one of our members started suffering from explosive diarrohea and vomiting(I think Kim will fill you in on this in a special “sickness” section). It was not the place you want to be sick as there was no way of washing yourself up and it was also snowing heavily throughout the night. The morning finally came round and 4 of us started heading for the summit. This soon dropped down to 3 as exhaustion and altitude culled another out.
The climbing of Yala was a really tough climb. Not because of its technically difficulty, as it is an easy trekking peak(except for the last 10m) but because of the new snow over the rocks and the altitude. We were all finding it really hard work and after a few 100m of ascent , headaches were getting really bad followed be nausea and exhaustion. The new snow also made it really hard work as we had to plug holes and there was wasn’t enough snow to completely cover the rocks but just enough to make it difficult. Getting close to the top we were all feeling really bad and had to dig deep to keep going. The last 15m was really tough and involved some difficult scrambling. I was the only one that managed to get onto the true summit ridge but stopped about 10m short of the summit due to a narrow ridge with shear drops on each side. I was feeling really bad and was in no way able to make sound decisions so decided 10m short was summit enough.
Heading down was even trickier with a difficult down climb off the summit ridge which involved a lot of stress and required Mark to get in a position to catch me if I slipped! (that is to stop me sliding into a slot). We then had a supposedly easy walk down to base camp but again the altitude played havoc with us with throbbing headaches and nausea. Mark was feeling really bad and threw up a number of times and needed to summon incredible strength to carry on. We finally made it back to base camp vowing to never feel like that again!!!
After walking back to the family and explaining all our dramas Kim, asked “and do you enjoy this?” To which our reply was that this was only the warm up climb!!

After a days rest our climbing team of porters, cook and guides arrived and we started to feel like real explorers. It was lots of fun being so looked after, completely different from NZ climbing where you carry all your own stuff and cook all your own food. At times I felt really guilty with being woken up at 6.30 and having tea passed into the tent. Then breakfast at 7.00 of pancakes, cereal, porridge and eggs. Then cooked lunch at 12.30, afternoon tea at 4.30 and then a huge western dinner at 6.30. I quickly got over the guilt though! I am now training Kim to serve me in the same way!(yeah right!-Kim says)
Our first camp was at a really cool place surrounded by yaks , a river and huge mountains. The next day we had to cross the river which was a great laugh as we all took off our shoes and crossed through the freezing water. We then continued to wind our way up to where we thought base camp should be. I say should be, because there was much discussion as our guide couldn’t read a map and needed a bit of help!
Unfortunately, this is where our expedition ends! That afternoon it started to snow and then more snow all through the night and into the next day. We sat around for a while discussing our options but it became obvious that conditions were too dangerous (avalanches) and if it stopped snowing we did not have enough time to sit around for three days for it to consolidate and enable safe travel again. So we shook snow off the tents, watched our porters and cook pack up and headed back down the valley.
Although we have left Nepal with unfinished business and didn’t manage to climb our technical peak it was still a great experience and that’s the mountains for you anyway. I have spent many days trapped in NZ mountain huts because of the weather and it’s all part of the game we play! The snow was unseasonal and all the locals were surprised at the intensity and amount for that time of year! So perhaps it wasn’t meant to be. Kim was really relieved that we came back early as she was starting to froth at the mouth (not rabies) from being trapped in a small village with 4 kids.
I also think that the altitude would have probably have got to me as well as I don’t seem to acclimatise well and without the help of diamox(altitude acclimatisation tablets) ,4800m seems to be my limit!! Kim think its Gods way of keeping me me closer to home!!

PS. I relent , the porters are way tougher than me!!

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 8:45 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.