It was an incredibly cold 4am start to the morning as we set off for camp 2 and I had already began to think what an earth was I doing here? Grouping up in the mess tent to have tea and biscuits that nobody really wanted we donned our crampons and carried out final kit checks before venturing into the freezing cold darkness.
Clambering through base camp over rocks was no easy task wearing crampons but the alternative of putting them on later once in our stride seemed a none starter.
Soon the quietness of base camp became a distant memory as we climbed higher up the mountain into a bitterly cold head wind. The ice fall was a different place shrouded in darkness lit only by our powerful head torches as the beam reflected off the ice making it look almost like a bed of diamonds. Daylight would soon be on us and it was important to get out of the ice fall whilst it was still frozen and stable as the sun at this altitude would soon be very hot making the ice fall much more dangerous!
A little over five hours and we arrived at camp 1 where the temperature had already begun to rise. It was going to be a hot few hours trudging up to camp 2 through the western Cwm where temperatures can be as high as 30 degrees.
It was around 16:00 hrs when I eventually arrived at camp 2 tired and very hot. A meal was awaiting me after which I dived into my tent and tried my best to sleep; knowing tomorrow would be a rest day before we set off to the Lhotse face for the last time.
The day of reckoning finally beckoned and once again we woke early to avoid the intense heat of the Lhotse Face. The first two sections are almost vertical and I was keen to get on with the job. The most annoying thing was the constant barrage of ice and snow from high above as climbers higher up dislodged pieces of ice that rolled down the mountain gaining both speed and size before landing on anybody below. Great care must be taken from now on as any complacency would almost certainly end in death. A number of climbers have opted not to clip into the fixed ropes and paid the ultimate price.
The physical strain on ankle and calf muscles as I dug my crampons into the rock hard blue ice was, at times almost unbearable and I began to wonder when we would reach camp 3 which was situated just below the Yellow Band. On and on we climbed unable to rest in any way other than vertical as there was no way of sitting. Instead one just lurched over, leaning on the ice axe whilst gasping for air that simply wasn’t there!
I knew we were getting close to Camp 3 as we passed a camp destroyed the previous year by high winds whilst the team were climbing up the hill. Eventually we arrived at our camp that had been dug into a 45 degree slope consisting of three tents. Adrian my climbing partner had wrongly assumed his sleeping matt was in the tent. It wasn’t and we fumbled around to make a makeshift bed out of spare clothing. The temperature dropped to well below -20 degree and Adrian endured a miserable night’s sleep. Me on the other hand had allowed my socks to get damp through the heat of the Lhotse Face during the day and didn’t make too much of it despite my feet freezing during the night. A lapse in personal administration that I might live to regret!

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