DAY 8

Gokyo (4750m) to Gokyo Ri (5357m) and back to Dole (4090m)

Our alarm starts beeping at 3:45am and we wear every stitch of clothing we can find. Outside we get disorientated in the pitch black night. The snow crunches underfoot and the air is a thick mist. We stumble down to the lake side and follow the edge of the lake to the path up the ridge. It's a vertical 600m ascent bu the path is only around 2km. At the top we hope to get rewarded with one of the most spectacular views in the Sargarmatha national park.





A 360 panoramic view of some of the largest mountains in Nepal, including Cho Oyu, Gyachung, Kang, Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Cholatse and Tawache. Five of the peaks are over 8000m.





We struggle up for an hour and by 5am the sky has turned to that rich dark blue colour, just before the sun arrives. We are stopping every five minutes to catch our breath, I feel totally ruined by the lack of sleep/oxygen/food and am breathing so heavily it feels like I'm running. Kat sits down and complains of feeling sick. At this altitude we have half the normal amount of oxygen you would expect at sea level. We slow our pace down to a shuffle, one step, breath, one step, breath and so on. Walking at this altitude is about meditating your head into a balance between your breathing and your pace, we try to walk at a pace that allows you to continue normal breathing without having to stop.




Finally, we see the top, the sun had come up and there isn't a cloud in the sky. We've found what we came here for. A clear view of everything. We celebrate with a mars bar and chat to a couple of American lads and their guide who are busily photographing themselves posing in front of Everest. We sit and stare at the amazing mountains and watch the cloud line below, thick white cloud rises quickly up the valley and within the hour its a complete white out. We use our guide book to identify all the peaks and speculated if anyone had chosen this morning to summit Everest and we were watching their epic battle in the death zone.




I googled it, when we arrived back in Kathmandu, and found a blog by Martin McGarvey who was summiting Everest the same day we summited Gokyo Ri. I copied it in for you to read:

SUMMIT PUSH
Dear Friends, Family and Fans,

This is Mara writing, Jagged Globe base camp manager. Just a quick couple lines to let you know about the last 24 hours up here on Everest. Martin & co left the South Col for the summit push last night just after 9pm. I'll leave him to fill you in on the details of what was definitely an epic climb, but for now, just know that he's back safely at high camp.

Making good time through the early morning hours Martin got all the way up beyond the Balcony, the South Summit, and just beneath the Hilary Step when we got word down here at base camp that he'd lost vision, a hypoxia induced event. Needless to say the decision was made to descend immediately. It was an intense few hours as he descended with the assistance of Pasang, Tshering Pemba, and David. Thankfully, by the time they dropped down to 8000 meters he regained function and now reports that he's fully recovered and resting for the night with the rest of the team at the Col.

I'll leave the details for Martin to fill in himself on his return down here in two days' time, but he wants me to be sure and let you know that everything is well and he thanks you all for all your support.

All the best,
Mara

A tough read, poor old Martin got all the way to a place called the Hillary Step which is a rocky section only about an hour from the summit. He got Hypoxia, as a result of being so high and one of the symptons is loss of eyesight. All that bloody way, an hour from reaching one of your life dreams, and you suffer from a problem that is out of your control. Stink, as the kiwi's would have said.

Just like Martin we also descended safely, and while Martin was praying for the miracle of his sight to return we prayed for the miracle our hostel owner would declare a new item on the breakfast menu, a full English fry-up. Sadly we get the usual fried eggs on toast, and pay more than ten times the price of our room for the eggs.




We pay and as we are leaving the nice owner gives us a gift of two cups of tea and two packets of coconut crunch biscuits. Its Ch Oyu lodge if you're in the area. We plan to do a long walk back today, and after four hours of walking before breakfast, we will push on till 4pm and reach Dole.

As we go walk down we meet Tom and Emma coming up. The day before they had been given some Diomox pills to help with acclimatisation from an American couple, Dan and Tatiana. Very very randomly; as I sit and write this sentance in an internet cafe, on beautiful Ko Tao island in Thailand, we've just had a drink with Dan and Tatiana who me met in a snorkelling trip today. They were in Nepal at the same time and told us story about meeting an English couple called Tom & Emma near Gokyo, small world.




We stopped for lunch and talked with an American who had OD'd on Diomox and had walked back down to a lower altitude, and was now returning for the second time. We took half a Diomox pill a day but he said he had been munching them like cookies and had felt very unwell.

Outside we had an interesting conversation with a guide. We mentioned where we had lunch and said it was a nice hostel but he replied he would never stay there. He explained the un-written arrangement between hostels and guides/porters is that in return for a guide bringing 'wealthy' trekkers in to stay the night, the guides and porters get daal bhat in endless portions and get a room with a bed. The guide told us this hostel only gives them one portion of daal bhat and they have to sleep on the benches in the dining room. He said "We are not animals, Nepalese are humans like Westerners and deserve respect".



We made it Dole in the evening, and met an interesting Australian women in the evening who was at Everest base camp during the 1996 disaster when many people died. Read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakuer to find out the story. We had both finished reading the book and to hear about the characters from someone who had met them was cool.

Cooper Out

Love Dan & Kat