20th – Black, white, wind, snow.

We were woken up at 2330 where we had a quick breakfast before departing for the summit. The weather was great; we could see stars and the moon was clear.

The plan was that we further up would have 2 rope teams. These would require a guide in the front and back which meant that we needed 2 more guides than the primary and assistant that we had had until now. One of them came from the kitchen, a small guy from Nepal (who travel back and forth in the Himalayas to take kitchen/tour work in accordance with seasons) and another one, also Nepali, who had 8 8000m-summits under his belt so far. He was put in front but after having ascended the first 200 meters he was swapped with our usual guide so that we could get back to a more… reasonable and human pace.

We passed ABC and continued up along the glacier in absolute darkness apart from what we could see from our headlamps. We crossed over onto the glacier, and after having walked a bit further the glacier got so steep that we were put together on the two ropes. An incline of 40 degrees would not be a bad estimate as we slowly zig-zagged upwards.

At this point the sun started to give light but what we quickly realized was that we just went from darkness to white. The visibility was down below 100 meters which wasn’t overly impressive, and it didn’t help much that the winds had picked up and it had started to heavily snow.

Still ascending we switched our poles with our ice axes due to another increase in steepness. Also, what had until now been a surface of pure snow and ice had now turned into ice/snow and rocks which we had to scramble across. While this could be intensive enough for my tastes with the rocky nature mixed with crampons, whiteout winds and snow/hail it was still just a warmup of what we would be facing on the ridge. Still app. 300 altitude meters from the summit we were to scramble our way on the narrow ridge with drops on both sides and the weather unchanged. We had some quite narrow parts we had to get by to get closer to the summit and it got a bit hairy at times, despite being tied together.

At one point near the top we saw some of the guides stick their heads together, discussing whether or not the weather was too bad to continue. Luckily, they seem to agree that it was still not bad enough to turn us around (though apparently bad enough that they had to discuss it…).

At 0835, in snow and hail, horrible visibility and high winds we reached the summit, exhausted. The summit was quite small, almost a long and narrow platform. There were snow piled up on both sides, but with the soft rounding of the tops you were actually not able to see where they started and ended due to the massive whiteout so people stayed carefully in the middle. After only a few photos we were on our way down again.

We were going the same way as up which meant the rocks had to be crossed once more. When descending the weather started improving; it stopped snowing and the winds eased up. This meant that you occasionally got a view out on the surrounding mountains on the way down, and what you were able to see was amazing: Huge rock and ice walls and beautiful mountains all around. The clouds were moody, though, so a view one moment could be gone the next. Too bad the weather wasn’t good enough on the top as we could potentially have ended up with some great shots.

We all made it to the summit, and we all came safely down again, though one needed to be assisted down quickly half way down by the guides due to not feeling well at all. Apart from that we all came through scot-free.

I was back in base camp at 1400 as one of the two last in the group with sore feet and thighs but not really caring. The scrambling and weather made the climb more technical than I had mentally planned for, but in the end it was still a success. It is a new personal record for me altitude-wise; last one was Kilimanjaro with 5895m which was beat with more than 250 meters. It is now 6153m, I wonder what should be next?

On the way to the summit. Photo taken by Bo Belvedere Christensen.

Summit! Photo taken by Thomas Jul Andersen.

On the way down again along the ridge. Photo taken by Thomas Jul Andersen.

One of the lucky shots through the clouds on the way down. Photo taken by Susanne Irvang Nielsen.

On the way down. This isn't even the steepest part. Photo taken by Susanne Irvang Nielsen.