Dave Hahn

That first five minutes out of ABC is a time when you often wonder whether you have taken too much of a load. Perhaps you are new to this sort of thing, and you marvel that your body can hurt so much just in the first five minutes.

The thin air of 21,000 feet has you panting and believing that a rest is appropriate. So you lean on your ski poles for a minute and that feels better... until you happen to glance back at the camp you've just left and realize it is only 150 feet away. If you are into this sort of thing as a chronic climber, or you've been to the North Col before, you don't ask your body for feedback in the first five minutes... or thirty, or forty. You know the answer, and it doesn't do you much good. Just keep putting one big double plastic climbing boot in front of the other.

The terrain is rough, usually some new or loose snow over broken moraine rock. You have to look where you are putting your feet, but it is kind of fun to look up at the big shattered rock wall towering on your right. It is a part of Changtse, the North peak of Everest. The North Ridge swoops down Everest to the North Col and without wasting much time then swoops up to Changtse. To get to the Col, one follows the moraine as far as possible above ABC to where it is formed from a flank of Changtse. That takes about 45 minutes.

Now the climber must push out onto the "collection zone" of the East Fork of the Rongbuk Glacier. This is a fairly flat, stable area of the glacier surrounded by towering mountain walls that dump countless avalanches to fuel the glacier. It is nice to sit on the last bit of moraine and put on crampons before stepping out on the true ice.

We don't rope-up for this bit of glacier. You could step into a crevasse on the well trod route to the base of the ropes, but there isn't good reason for it. Small, parallel sided cracks that don't change from day to day are not the type of cracks that generally swallow up experienced climbers. Just step over them, mucking around with your ski pole in the soft snow to make sure the hole is obvious to whoever is coming next. Walk for a half hour on this part of the glacier, and you will normally find that your outlook on life has improved greatly. That is due to the flat, easy walking, but what the heck, take a boost where you can get it, the big work lies ahead.

You run out of flatness at maybe 21,500'. Time to put away your ski-poles, get out that darn ice axe. Check that your harness is on correctly and whip out your trusty Jumar. That is what we call the thing because "mechanical ascender" is just too big and cumbersome a phrase for these hills. You are now set to gain about 1500 vertical feet on "the fixed rope."

So you clamp your jumar on the line, you've got it attached to your harness of course, and so it will act as your safety for this steep couple of hours ahead. Now it is all about rhythm. Slide the jumar up, take two steps, plant the axe higher. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. This isn't super steep stuff; this year there is only one slope that you'd have trouble standing easily on.

Most of the work is on slopes of about 45 degrees, and if there is some traffic out, you don't even have to do much fancy footwork. Use the tracks, which vary from fine, secure buckets spaced at an interval convenient to no known human, or perhaps the snow has been blowing, and there is just the general idea of a track. So you might throw in some "French" technique but you most likely aren't going to get up on your front points if you want some leg muscle left at the end of the day.

Up and up, passing an anchor every 150 feet or so. This part of the climb should feel like hell once or twice an expedition. But if it doesn't, at some point feel like good hell, muscles working hard but within their norms, brain reveling in the fun climbing... then that is a good sign that an Everest climb is the wrong way to abuse yourself.

— Dave Hahn, International Mountain Guides' Expedition Leader

DISPATCHES

COMPLETE INDEX OF DISPATCHES