Pretty simple question, should be pretty simple to answer. But not surprisingly, my slight hesitation, tone, and body language when I answer “It was good” completely gives away my ambivalence. The fact that it’s taken me over 3 months (which is slightly longer than it took me to unpack, seriously) to start this post and another 3 months to finish and actually post it is another indication of my struggle to figure out the answer to that question. I think I now can better answer. It was a great trip. Very disappointing for the obvious reason, but as I’ve been able to think about it more, I realized I had forgotten all the other parts besides our failure to summit.
It was my singular focus (I’m not sure that’s the right adjective) on Ama Dablam that while understandable, prevented me from appreciating all the other aspects of the trip at the time. Number one, I was in Nepal for a month! In the Himalayas!! I mean come on!!! And once we left Kathmandu (which had its own fun) there was a week or two of trekking into Island Peak and Ama Dablam base camps. I was so focused on Ama Dablam that I occasionally didn’t appreciate that journey. All the people from around the world, all the languages you hear in the lodges, all the Nepalis who lived and worked there, it’s really amazing and worth a trip alone. And we did summit Island Peak. Granted it was harder than we expected and I felt like shit the whole time (and probably would have turned around had it not been dark and sketchy rocky terrain). But then we hit the glacier and damn. Beautiful. Glacier, crevasses, fixed line, steep summit ridge, just amazing. It also (would have) served to be the reminder that no matter how hard Ama Dablam was to be, after getting up Island Peak in my mental and physical state, I would do it. And Ama Dablam base camp? I still can’t describe the scenery. I’m not even going to try.
(OK, maybe putting that picture is trying a little bit.)
When I was starting this post months ago I left a paragraph where I had noted, “[insert hard times on Ama, frustration and disappointment].” I’m not sure what I meant, but let’s just say there were plenty of hard times on the mountain – physical and mental, frustration at the inability to get a plan together that was actually implemented as planned, and eventual all-encompassing/consuming disappointment when sitting alone in my tent at base camp I finally admitted to myself that it was over. I was done. We didn’t make it.
And then the trek back to Lukla and flight back to Kathmandu. More frustration when I couldn’t get out of Nepal early (I was *done*) and getting sick the last day or two. But even so, we had a great time staying at our friend Khildoj’s lodge, and a really special night when he took us for dinner with his family at his house.
So all in all, yes, it was a great trip. Frustration for sure because we didn’t complete our objective – and it wasn’t for an acceptable reason – but now with some perspective, a great trip. How lucky were we to even get to try? Exactly.
One other clarification. What exactly is the reason we didn’t make it? What does it mean to “fix” a mountain? Ama Dablam is more of a rock climb than the typical glacier travel mountaineering we’ve done. With glacier travel, you try to minimize the risk by roping together with your partner or team, and if someone slips or steps into a crevasse, your partner/team self-arrests, jumping to the ground digging his ice axe into the snow, and tries to stop the fall. Well on rock that’s not possible. If you’re rock climbing and you fall, well you fall. So to manage that risk someone (emphasis on the someone, i.e. not us) climbs first and places ropes along the route “fixing” or anchoring it to the terrain when possible. Then we climb up the same route with our harnesses attached to that fixed line. So if we fall, we are either using an ascender which allows us to travel one direction but bites into the rope the other direction and so prevents us from falling, or we are just clipped into the rope with a carabiner so while we might fall, we only fall to the next anchor point, or fall just down a little if we’re e.g. traversing like below.
Without getting into the details (because I don’t want to get angry and upset again) the mountain wasn’t fixed in time for us. The bigger teams generally do a lot of the work because they have the manpower and supplies to do it. We were lucky in that our Sherpas Pema and Mingma fixed from Camp 1 to Camp 2, but it is a LOT of work, and it wouldn’t have been fair to ask them to do more. If it weren’t for their work we would not have even been able to see Camp 2 and have the experience of climbing from C1 to C2. Turns out the bigger teams were arriving as we were leaving. So had we been told to arrive a week or two later we would have at least had the chance to summit. And it’s not like other teams’ schedules are a secret. They’re all online and we felt like our guide company should have planned appropriately. That’s why we were so frustrated and angry. But now we know. So if we get to try again (2013…) we’ll take more responsibility for our scheduling.
And finally, the picture everyone has been waiting for. And by everyone I mean Linsey. This was from one the days I was in misery on the way to Island Peak base, forced to hike with no food in me and feeling like total shit. As we entered the village (and of course stayed at a place at the far end…) I looked up and saw this place. What??? It was the only speck of joy that day. Thanks Lins.
