With weather on the heights of Everest still at gale force and the wind chill hitting minus 49 c. (minus 56.2 f.), perhaps the hardest part about climbing Everest right now is waiting to climb Everest.
We were on Cho Oyu prepping for Everest once, practicing waiting. My team included double Olympic Gold medalist Steve Williams and climbing partner Richard Parks – in preparation for his 737 attempt – climbing the 7 summits and reaching all three poles in 7 months.
After our rotations on Cho Oyu up to Camp 2 and down again, Steve asked me more about his training and what he could be doing for his upcoming Everest ascent? He had already outlined the training leading up to his two gold medals – and what he had done for Cho Oyu.
It was a schedule and discipline level far beyond what I’d ever imagined – from timing, nutrition, training, mental discipline, along with team interactions and coordination. Physically both he and Richard, as they would both prove the following year, were more than fit enough to climb Everest. Olympic training schedules for professional athletes are on a different level.
It was their need to untrain themselves from a schedule which was proving difficult.
They had way too much discipline.
It was the need to embrace, as one of our French team members said, “the beautiful uncertainty.” It is embracing that “beautiful uncertainty” that makes climbers so nervous right now as they wait their turn on Everest.
On Everest, you get up to Base Camp, you go high, you go down. Then it storms, lines form, you get sick, you get better. The sun comes out and the sun goes away. Avalanches tumble down and the afternoon snow falls around you.
You soon realize it isn’t all about you. Actually, very little of it is about you.
And Everest climbers tend to be very much about themselves, about control, about taking charge.
On Everest, at this time of year, that just doesn’t happen.
Right now most teams have pretty well acclimatized. They have been high. Most are either in their salubrious tents, or perhaps there not so nice tents, or have helicoptered down to Namche Bazaar and the tea shops or even as far as Kathmandu, perhaps to discuss climate change and their ever increasing personal carbon footprints?
At this point, the expedition has gone from being what you can do, to what the mountain will now allow you to do.
With the jet stream ripping across the top of the mountain, nobody is going anywhere high on the mountain right now, even the Sherpas.
29 below zero and minus 49 wind chill at the top of Everest this week. Not a good night to be out climbing perhaps? Mountain Forecast – Everest for the latest
Some leaders put a tentative date on the calendar. Some team members get on the phone home and say, “yes, soon.”
It is all dreams though, with reality happening somewhere between a spring jet stream and a summer monsoon and those elusive few days when the top of the world opens up to human visitors. The winds must go down, then of course the clouds and snow rise up.
In between you must sneak to the summit.
For fit, healthy and confident climbers it is when you just have to give it all away: listen to the birds in the morning, eat a good lunch and enjoy the movie.
For some, this is the hardest part of the whole expedition, the waiting.
Soon there will be the call to arms, the time is set. Then you wake up to a snowstorm. All the rope fixing, your carefully packed pack, the carefully timed return from the valley, goes out the window. Even the sound of the helicopters gets ever more annoying.
One year we got to go all the way to the South Col, then climbed up in the dark to 8,300 meters just below the Balcony, where we walked into a huge blizzard. Then we retreated back to Camp 2 and another book, and then turned around a few days later and went all the way back up and onto the top.
We were like super acclimatized, if just a little bit tired.
Of course long time guides like Dave Hahn were masters of this – and probably the best chess player on the mountain as well. I remember wandering through Camp 2 once and Dave was sitting comfortably engrossed in a game. I knew it was simply time to go back to my tent and open another book – the weather just wasn’t going to get any better up high soon.
The days of libraries at Base Camp have been supplemented by our devices, a Kindle with its seemingly never die battery still the option of choice. With a half decent WiFi signal at Base Camp, you can restock at will.
Reading more Everest climbing books, about cold, wind and drama of the heights isn’t the best choice, you are already living that story. On one expedition I foisted my best of the best from my English Literature degree on the Camp one year – I still think it is a good mix.
Just a few books that should grace the library should you have skipped your English Lit. studies:
Lawrence’s Women In Love, Shute’s On the Beach, Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, McEwan’s Atonement and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (if a bit bleak) are a good start.
For the long storms or waiting for the winds to drop, throw in War & Peace, add Romeo and Juliet (read with a friend, taking different parts) into the mix for variety and then see if the altitude will allow you to get through Ulysses – or if just a bit much, go for Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, both by Joyce.
If the storm still rages, go for a bit of Sylvia Plath and throw in some Ted Hughes poetry to round out the happy family. If Steinbeck’s East of Eden wasn’t forced upon you at a young age, now is the time. For perhaps the best of current U.S. fiction start with McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses and then read through the rest of The Border Triology if weather allows. Avoid The Road, unless looking for a darker place than you may want to be.
By now you should be heading for the summit, but if not, revisit a few of the authors like Lawrence and Maugham, adding Sons and Lovers to the mix along with the lesser known but excellent The Razors Edge, conveniently set in a very warm place to keep the chill off.
These days there are also the movies of course and one year we had the full James Bond collection courtesy of Ruairidh and Foo – a great way to see the evolution of the genre – and if the weather looked really bad a double feature was always easy to justify.
For activities above Base Camp, the boulders on the way to Pumori Base camp will provide both a good workout and a stunning backdrop for a good session after breakfast.
Should you wish a reprieve from EBC, a quick hike down to Gorak Shep was one of Borge Ousland’s and I’s favourite pastimes. We’d run down the trail for a burger and beer at the Himalayan Hotel, providing that popular Staycation feel of the upper Khumbu. Admittedly, we were about the only ones to count this as fun.