Himlung Expedition - Day 17 Summit Push

Wow wow wow!!! None of us expected this:

We were woken up at 9 p.m., had a cup of tea, got dressed, went to the toilet one last time before putting on our climbing harnesses and set off into the darkness at 9.45 p.m.

The first two hours were relatively relaxed - a bit up and down, mostly on fixed ropes, good for warming up. Haha... it was far too warm for us!

After around 2 hours, we arrived at the foot of the dreaded ice wall. An approx. 60m high, approx. 50 degree steep wall with smaller 90 degree steps. Technically feasible, but very demanding and energy-sapping at this height...and felt endless. On the wall, the first few times I thought "How am I supposed to manage this if I'm already reaching my limits here?". But everyone felt the same way. So close your eyes and get through it.
All of us made it up the wall and we continued to Camp 3 (no tents at that time). The wind came up slightly and we putted on our goggles and cold protection air masks.

Now the wall stood before us. A wall that is supposedly only 40 degrees steep with a continuous fixed rope, laid out on the shortest route to the summit - no zigzags, no passages to rest - with some shorter steeper sections partly over crevasses in between.

At the beginning I could do 15 steps, rested and tried to breathe. But we got more tired and it got more harder - 5 steps, fixing the jumar on the highest point, hang in there, rested my upper body on my knee and sometimes fell asleep for a few seconds. „Didi! Come on!“ - a voice from the front from my lovely Sherpa Mingma - such a kind person. He always ask how I am, if I need something, if I have cold feet’s or hands. We continued. The same procedure over and over again. My hope was the sun to get a little energy boost. It was nice when the sun came out. Even though it rose behind the ridge and we didn’t get any rays of sunshine. But we knew that some time had passed.
The journey continued, the energy dwindled.
Gabi was starting to giving up at ~6.900m. I tried to motivate her („Beweg jetzt deinen Arsch hier hoch!“) but had the same thoughts as her. We continued.

15 minutes later she decided to give up again. I was in second position, she was 10-15 meters below me, and behind us the rest of the group. Steffen was already far ahead and almost at the summit.
Tenzing, her Sherpa, couldn't seem to push her any further, so my Sherpa descended to her, I had to wait and my thoughts began to circle. Everyone else passed me by. Quite a motivational killer. But I was really happy when I heard that Gabi was doing well, that she'd eaten something and that she'd carried on.

It was sooo hard and exhausting. Every 10 steps we considered giving up. And it didn't get any flatter and there was no end in sight, even though the summit seemed sooo close. I told my Sherpa that I didn't know how much energy I would need for the way back and whether I wasn't too weak. He said: "Didi, worry about that when you get to the summit!". I doubted that.

I pushed Gabi and myself up to 7.045m. Then we sat there together. Gabi said that she didn't want to put any more strain on her body. It would have been another 80 meters to the summit, about 1-1,5 hours - an enormous ordeal. Everyone else kept going, very slowly with lots of rests.

We finally decided to give up, after 14 hours of summit push. The 7.000 mark was reached. We were very happy with it, but of course also a little disappointed. Nevertheless, we had to make sure our energy reserves were sufficient for the long descent (5km and 1.400m in altitude).

It took us 5h back to Camp 2. It was soooo hard and the sun made us melt, even though we were already dehydrated. But we made it back just before sunset after 19,5h. The others followed 0,5-1,5h later. Everyone just fell into their tents, ate soup and slept.
Most important: Everyone came back healthy!!!Read more