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RETURN to the TURQUOISE GODDESS
Page 2
Mark and I arrived on our first trip to the Himalayas in March of 1985. We met up with the Polish team of 10 and spent the next three months together on a wild Himalayan adventure.
I was extremely excited about this peak, Cho-Oyu, because it was so near to Everest, which was always in the back of my mind. Even the trek to base camp uses most of the same route through the Khumbu Valley. From base camp Everest blocked the eastern sky with the sun rising above it every morning. The Polish had no climbing Sherpas, which saved a lot of money, and only the minimum base camp staff. A large parachute served as a cook and dining tent. We had lots of Polish food, all cans with the labels missing!!! So, we used the small cans for breakfast, the medium ones for lunch and the large ones for dinner - almost always kielbasa and cabbage! With this real food, though, I found our performance on the mountain to be superior to other times when we had been using freeze dried and dehydrated foods normally used on big mountain climbs.
I
also learned to like Dahl-Bhatt, the rice and lentil meal, which is the
staple of the Sherpa life. After two months of climbing on the south face
and one serious accident involving an avalanche that hit our Advanced Base
Camp nearly killing two team members, Mark and I started our final push
for the summit. We established Camp VI at 26,000' on the col between Cho-Oyu
and Ngozumpa Kang I. After a storm day in a snowcave Mark and I pushed up
the 3-mile summit ridge toward the summit that looked so close. More than
2/3s of the way up the ridge we met two large gendarmes. We were able to
pass the first by climbing down onto the Tibetan side of the ridge. The
entire Tibetan plateau lay at our feet. The second gendarme, which was over
300' high, could not be crossed. It stopped us cold. A few hundred feet
more and we would be an easy snow slope to the summit. We returned to our
camp very disappointed. I suggested to Mark that we summit Ngazumpa Kang
I since we were only a couple of hours from the summit at our Camp VI. At
first he was reluctant but finally agreed to climb to the summit with me
as long as we didn't use a rope. The route looked straightforward so it
was agreed. (Oxygen deprivation!) Anyway, a couple of hours later we stood
on top of the 18th highest peak in the world at 7,940m or 26,200', just
under the magic number 8,000m of which there are only 14 peaks in the world
and they are all in the Himalayas. The success on Ngazumpa Kang I ultimately
led to us obtaining the magic permit for the South Col-Hillary Route on
Everest for 1991. As I stood on top of Ngazumpa Kang I, I looked into Tibet
and toward the north side of Cho-Oyu. I knew the difficulties were less
on that side of the mountain and vowed to return some day before I got too
old for this sport!| Previous | Next |
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