Our Virtual Everest Trek Day Eighteen

Brigantes Everest Project Day 18

And this is where we’re bound for!

We knew this was going to be a tough day but I don’t think any of us realised quite how hard it would be. The good news was that the weather was fine so we could always see where we were going. The bad news was that we had to climb the Lhotse Face. Our day’s walking was just over a mile and a half and it took us six hours. Need I say more?

We had a practice on the lower slopes yesterday and it did help to acclimatise us. The Face is a steep wall of hard packed ice and snow. People die up here so we had another Dowting lecture before we set off. The steep angle – up to 50 degrees in places – made it hard to get a grip with our crampons and we were thankful for the fixed line which was clipped to for the whole climb. The time to be really careful is when you come to the end of one rope – they’re usually around 200ft long – and you have to unclip and re-clip your caribineer then do the same for your jumar, so for a few moments you’re only clipped by one of them. I tried not to panic but it did nothing for my heart rate. There is an ‘up’ rope and a ‘down’ rope and each one had a long line of climbers attached. Traffic jams can occur – yes at 23,000ft – so you really have to keep going.

The technique, as Dowting explained, is to kick your crampon points into the ice. The problem with that is that it makes every step feel like two. After one path has been kicked to bits another one has to be created in fresh ice. It would be tiring at the best of times but up here it’s exhausting.

Camp 3 is wherever you want to make it when you get to the top of the Face. All you need is some reasonably flat ground and fortunately Dowting knew exactly where to look. We were utterly weary and dehydrated when we finally crawled into our tents. But the views are absolutely amazing. I think we surprised Dowting today!

Luke N Brightside

Communications Officer

I never thought I’d say this, but this shower really did well. What they lacked in fitness, and it’s quite a lot, they made up for in determination. They stuck to it though I’ve never seen such exhaustion at the end. The problem now is that they’re over the Icefall and up the Face and they think that’s it – just a straight walk to the top. I’m going to have to spell it out to them but they’re probably too tired to listen.

Sherpa Dowting

Head Porter