After having been challenged last year with the
devastating earthquake in Nepal, we are ready, once again, excited, curious,
but a little bit nervous as we board the plane to Lhasa for our 2016 Wild Yak
Expeditions Big Adventure. The aim is to climb Mount Cho-Oyu at 8201 meters,
followed by Mount Everest at 8848 meters.
Before heading to the Big Mountains, Sherpa's
and high altitude workers always give high priority to visit some of the
monasteries that are important to them to be blessed by the High monk.
This kind of spiritual practice gives a certain
confidence to the Sherpa’s to climb the high mountains of the Himalayas.
Nowadays, the majority of western climbers also follow in the steps of the
Sherpa’s to be blessed before climbing the highest mountains on earth, whether
they believe it or not a certain energy pulls them towards the rituals.
In Lhasa, we felt blessed to visit some of the
ancient monasteries around Lhasa, especially Jorkhang Temple that is known as
the place of origin of Tibetan Buddhism established around the late 600 AD. As
for Tibetan Buddhism, they treat the mountains as being very holy and precious
and many legendary stories were written in the name of the different mountains.
Each mountain has its own name and is distinguished as male or female and each
one is interrelated with the other mountains.
Whilst driving on the highest plateau on earth
looking at the blue sky, gazing at small villages in
the dryness of the Tibetan high plateau and the never ending dry moonlike landscape, the
altitude is changing rapidly between 3500 meters and 5400 meters and at the
same time lots of questions arise in our minds regarding the landscape and the
local people. How they live? What they eat? What crops they plant? How do they
earn money? What kind of customs they have? How they cremate the body when
someone dies in this harsh environment? Many many question?? But one thing was clear to us, humans have
great resilience when it comes to survive in difficult conditions.
Finally, after driving for 3 days we arrived at
the last village Tingri (4400 meters), It was an awesome feeling to have a
glimpse of the two giants of the Himalaya: Mount Everest and Mount Cho-Oyu,
literally and locally known as Goddess Miyolangsangma, Goddess of giving and God
Cho-Oyu (eldest brother of 5 mountain-brothers) looking strong and solid with
their divine blessing.
Looking at these two giants we noticed that they
had far less snow covering compared to the last couple of years and we realized
that this is due to the el Niño effect. We could clearly see the effect it had
on the Himalayas. It is always a question among westerners how much snow does
the Himalayas receives each winter? The reply is: normally not a lot. When it
does snow, the snow stays for a long time because of the freezing temperatures
and high-speed winds. But this year during winter, no snow at all and many
inhabitants of this dry land are worried about not having enough water during
spring, as this could affect their only one harvest per year.
As we moved closer to Cho-Oyu advance base camp
at 5700 meters (2 hours from the Nepal border) it reminded us that we actually
had travelled very far to climb Cho-Oyu situated close to the Nepalese border.
As we arrived at Base Camp we enjoyed meeting some of our local Tibetan
friends, we had known from previous expeditions. Some work as kitchen boys,
carry loads up to Camp 1 to earn some Dollars, others are selling Coke, Beer
and fake turquoise and Coral gems. Around the Tibetan side of Cho-Oyu and
Everest, the locals still follow the polyandry system, which consist of 3 or 4 brothers having
1 wife and only one of the brother’s stays at home to look after the family and
agriculture. The rest of the brothers have to go away from home for a long time
to earn money for the family. The rotation between the brothers regarding who
stays home is done with mutual understanding. Because 3 or 4 males are marrying
a single female this custom has created a large group of unmarried females most
of them join a local monastery to become nuns. When we spoke to young males
they told us that the younger generation is slowly moving away from the system
of polyandry. Most of the local Tibetans work as kitchen boys or are hired by
expedition teams to wash dishes, carry water and cleaning the dining and
kitchen areas. If they do not get hired to work for Expedition teams, they feel
they are a disgrace to their families and feel ashamed to go back village
without having found work. This story reminds us of the similarity with the
young Sherpa’s from Nepal who used to go Darjeeling (India) during 50s and 60s
to get hired to work for big Expeditions.
Cho-Oyu The Mountain (Eldest brother of 5
mountain brothers)
A commercially very popular mountain, Cho-Oyu is
the 6th highest mountain on Earth, is shared by Nepal and Tibet and is also
considered as one of the safest 8000 meters peak to climb from the Tibetan side
as access to the base camp is fast and quite easy if the climbers have
acclimatized themselves properly somewhere else. The Nepali side base camp is
very close to Gokyo lake in the Everest Region but a bit tricky and almost no
commercial expedition are conducted due to the extremely high risk of
avalanches and the high skills of mountaineering required.
Cho-Oyu is known as the safe mountain from the
Tibetan side but also has its own hazards, and is considered as the coldest and
most frost bite prone mountain amongst the fourteen 8000m peaks, due to the
normal summit route being on the west side of the mountain and being very
exposed to the winds which blows in a southwest to north easterly direction.
After spending one night at camp-1 we moved
towards camp2 to check the route. As we started climbing the route got icier
and lots of crevasses started to appear. It was also amazing for Norbu Sherpa
who had climbed Cho-Oyu four times already, but had never seen such an icy
route. As we started climbing suddenly the party rope tightened and we saw one
of our friends fall in to a crevasse but luckily the rope, which tied our
climbing party together, stopped his fall. As he got out of crevasse we asked
him how he was feeling: he said I am very happy to get out of the Devil`s
mouth. After spending three nights in camp-I and reaching 6750 meters, we
decided to descend back to base camp and wait for a good weather window for the
final summit push.
There are many different theories about getting
acclimatization on high mountains, but each one is not necessarily appropriate
for every person. Acclimatization principle should be applied according to ones
strength, stamina, body structure, and distance to cover and time period on the
mountain. For us it was clear that we will set up camp-II and then push for the
summit from Camp-II instead of setting up camp-III at 7400 meters and then push
for the summit.
SUMMIT
As being the most climbed mountain after
Everest, we meet two different kinds of climbers at Cho-Oyu base camp; on one
side, the climbers who will not be using oxygen to summit and on the other side
the climbers who want to summit using oxygen. They all have the same goal, to
reach the summit but look at it from a different perspective. It has been an
ongoing debate between high mountain climbers, climbing with or without oxygen
and it seems the debate will remain as long as the high mountains remain.
We were also a bit nervous about the coldness of
the mountain air, as we are trying to climb without using supplementary oxygen.
5 May 2016: after having rested 4 days in advance base
camp, we headed up to camp -1 and on 6 May 2016 to camp-II. We climbed quite slowly
taking enough time to rest in the between to save energy for the Cho-Oyu summit
and later for Everest as well. We planned to start our ascent at midnight so we
began brewing some water at around 10 pm. We got ready as we heard the people
from the other groups that were accompanying us getting ready. At midnight,
when we came out of the tent it was about -20 degrees and we saw the majority
of the other climbers with oxygen. Usually it takes 3 hours from camp II to
reach camp III at 7500 meters but with the fresh snow we had to make the track,
which at these altitudes is a bigger challenge and at the end it was already 5
am. At that time, it was freezing cold, Cho Oyu being known as one of the
coldest 8000-meter summit, in addition the wind started to increase. At the
bottom of the couloir of the “Yellow band”, the fixing team had just begun to
install the ropes. It was therefore getting late for us, calculating the time
we would need in these conditions to reach the summit, which would not be before
noon and then come down till camp II, we came to the conclusion that it will
get to late, knowing also that the weather was announced to get worse later in
the day.
In the Himalaya,
there are also some principles while mountaineering: one of these principles is
“if you think that you cannot reach the summit before a certain time, then
don’t climb!”
Indeed, in case it
was getting quite late and with the weather forecasts getting worse after
midday till 9 May 2016, we took the decision to turn back. The mountain will
always have the last word, and our next aim being Mount Everest 8848 meters; we
decided not to take extreme risks. The other people with oxygen decided to
continue for the summit.
As we started
descending lots of questions raised in our mind: did we make the right choice
by retreating back? What if we would have continued?, How would really be the
weather later in the day? But one think was really clear for us: we were ready
for Everest!
That moment also
tough us that if you cannot change the things than forget it and look forward,
give the best to what is about to come. Some times in life we need to sacrifice
one to have another. This is why we say “life is not a chocolate”!
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