Well, after a few days rest getting used to the altitude, we finally made our first foray up into the icefall. And what a nightmare it was too! The fixed ropes turned out to be, well er, not fixed at all with ice-screws falling out and snow stakes flapping in mid-air! As we topped out above the icefall, we paused briefly on a large flat platform, flanked on either side by huge crevasses. No sooner had we thought about taking a short rest than we we heard this dull ‘whumpf’ accompanied by a short sharp shudder deep beneath our feet. We all looked at each other, momentarily transfixed in fear like startled rabbits, and then got the hell out of there!
Another day or two’s rest in Base Camp saw us at last head up head up to Camp 1. We slowly made our way through the icefall and stopped overnight at Intermediate Camp, established earlier in the day by our High Altitude Porters (HAP’s). It was a pretty cold night and we were thankful for the warmth of a new dawn. We continued on, following the wands and red flags that marked the tortuous route through the maze of crevasses that criss-crossed the vast plateau, on the far side of which was our destination, Camp 1.
Several hours later, we arrived exhausted and rather non-plussed that the HAPs had placed our tents away from the main camp, on the opposite side of a large crevasse. Somewhat anti-social perhaps! Never mind. it was the least of our worries. The weather closed in fast, and initial flurries of snow soon gave way to a whiteout and a full-on snowstorm. We hid away in our tents, cocooned from the elements, and tried to get some rest, but it proved a sleepless night. By morning the tents were half-buried in snow, though a brief lull did at least enable us to sort ourselves out and get ready for the next storm which we knew was surely on its way. We could do nothing else but sit it out – thank heavens for the ipod!!
It was another night of heavy snowfall, but this time we emerged in the morning to blue skies and sunshine. Bliss! So it was all the more maddening that we had no choice but to go down. We had run out of supplies and the recent snow meant that any possibility of reaching Camp 2 would be pretty remote anyway. Nevertheless, the irony of now descending in perfectly good weather certainly wasn’t lost! And By the time we came to retrace our steps across the plateau it was hideously hot, the snow now acting as a huge solar reflector for the sun blazing overhead. I felt like I was in a giant oven! As we threaded our way back through the labyrinth of crevasses we were suddenly stopped in our tracks – the route had abruptly disappeared into a huge hole! Not only that, we realised that this was the same spot we had run away from the other day! The whole thing had collapsed, and we now had to abseil down and rather nervously wend our way through the massive jumble of ice, with broken blocks as big as houses towering above us. By the time we staggered back into Base Camp we could do no more than to woof down some food and crash out in our tents!
