Climbing
Island Peak Expedition: A redefining climb
There are moments in life that push you to the limit and redefine who you are. Climbing Island Peak was one such experience.
In 2011, when I first came for the Everest Base Camp Trek, we camped in the beautiful village of Dingboche that was surrounded by majestic and daunting peaks like Ama Dablam, and also the Island Peak (aka Imja Tse) standing tall at 6,189 m, a popular climbing peak as my guide pointed out then. Popular it maybe as the Nepal tourism promotes it to be but the success rates are very low.
Little did I know that eight years later I’ll be making an attempt to climb it. The last two weeks along with the experienced team members went into acclimatization, spending time at the base camp (5,100 m), high camp (5,500 m) and the final summit night have been as gruelling as ever. The final summit push started at 2 am on 21st April where we climbed around steep 400 m of rocky and moraine terrain in extremely cold conditions to reach the crampon point, where we put on the crampons and roped up to walk on ice and snow. Crossed long and deep crevasses (at least 7-8 of them) on ladders till we finally reached the base of summit in wee hours of the morning as the dawn light took over from our strong headlamps.
But wait it was not over yet as there was a 200 m snow wall to be climbed of the last 50 m was almost 90 deg vertically inclined. We somehow ascended using jumar on the fixed ropes using every ounce of energy left in that cold and rarefied conditions. And finally reached the top. Phew!! But again as Ed Viesturs, the famous mountaineer once said “Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory. ”
It has been excruciatingly painful walking down the same route and getting back to the base village of Chukkung (4, 770 m) the same day (all in all walking for around 16 hours that day) followed by walking down to Lukla, the nearest airport, which is two days away with 8-9 hours of daily walking. As I write this piece from a hotel room in Kathmandu, relieved, slightly triumphant, weary and exhausted with a frost-nipped toe and other battle scars that are yet to emerge, I am asking myself the same question over and over again…
“Why do we climb? ”
Elevation: 6,165 m/20,226 ft
Summit Date: 7th November 2019
Total Time (Summit Day): 14 hrs
Temperature range: 5 to -20 deg Celsius
Wind Speed: 20-30 kmph
Mountain Range: Himalayas, Nepal
Some pics from the expedition:
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