Team Marie Curie Summits Everest (Hardwear Sessions)

By Kenton Cool

Kathmandu:

I hope you know by now team Marie Curie summated Mount Everest at 6.30am Nepalese Time. It was a hard fought summit this time and the only bad news was that Ran wasn't with Rob and myself.

It all started from the South Col, Ran had put in an amazing effort to get from camp 3 at 7300m to camp 4 (South Col) at 7950m in a startling quick 6hrs. Getting to the South Col early means that there is time to recover before the final summit push. In the time we have, we all try to drink and eat as much as possible but ones body loses the want to eat. Ran however seemed to have a healthy appetite and was wolfing down litres of drink and a whole meal, he also seemed to be in great sprits. After a few hours at the Col Ran asked if it would be possible to stay an extra day in order to let him recover that little bit more. Now i'ts not something I would normally do, as resting at 8000m is not really resting, in fact the body would normally just deteriorate, however we had everything in place so that this would be possible if the situation arose. As all this was going on Rob had been talking to a friend from IMG who had indicated the forecast wasn't looking good for a stay at the Col. A quick Radio call to BC confirmed this and I broke the news to Ran. He took it well and put his head back into his sleeping bag to get the most out of the few hours we had left.

At 6pm we had a live broadcast to do for ITN. Rob did a great job struggling out of his sleeping bag to put the laptop and Bgan together before contacting London. The broadcast went really well and by 6.20pm we had finished what quite possibly was the highest ever 2 way broadcast. With this finished, we knew we only had a couple of hours left before lift off so it was heads down to melting water and trying to sort our stuff out.

8.30pm and we burst from the tent, ready to go. We clipped on crampons and checked pressure on O2 bottles. This was it, time to go, 8months of preparation at home and 6 weeks on the mountain boils down to this..... the final push to the top of the world.

I was the last to leave, determined to play a sweeper role (I normally lead from the front) rather than setting a pace up front. We followed a line of head torches into the dark night and started to make upward progress. From camp we climb onto an ice shelf before we grind up to the balcony at 8500m. It was a super warm evening without a single breath of wind; I was walking with bare hands while some of the others were taking off hats. One of the important things about summit day is to try and get into a rhythm, to find a steady pace and stick with it. This I did and time slowly ticked by as we made progress.

The route to the balcony was very dry this year and as a result pretty rocky, this made upward progress a little slower than normal but we were making good time and I felt happy with everything. All of a sudden everyone had stopped. As a reached the group I could hear Rob saying, " We'll speak to Kenton."

Ran had decided to turn around; he thought that by carrying on he wouldn't have the energy to get back down. He stated this in a way that offered no room for discussion. 5 minutes later he was heading down with Tindu. I felt shattered. All the effort we had all put in had just evaporated, I just couldn't believe it!!.

Rob, Ran and myself had talked about the possibility of Ran turning back and we had decided it was a team effort and as long as no one was hurt or in trouble the others would continue to the top to get the Marie Curie flag there. This is exactly what Rob and I decided to do.

The rest of the trip top the balcony went smoothly and quickly. Here we changed O2 bottles in a swirling snow storm and started the climb to the south summit. This is a long climb up the S.E ridge with a couple of rock steps that can cause a wee problem. The climb is exposed to the wind and it was a cold few hours climbing from our brief rest at the balcony. Finally the sky to the east changed from jet-black to grey to finally a light orange as the first rays of light appeared. At the same time we topped out on the south summit and were greeted with amazing views into Tibet and then to the west the shadow of Everest itself cast beneath us.

The route now traverses towards the famous Hillary step which in this dry year was less snowy than normal. As Rob and myself got to the step there were a few folk coming down from the summit and we had a bit of a jam, in situations such as this one sometimes has to be a bit vocal and this kinda worked for us. Once up the step the summit is with in grasp and less than 20mins later Rob, Myself, Trumpy, Lhakpa Sherpa and Nuru Sherpa were all standing on the summit. We all hugged and celebrated but with the bitter wind blowing we didn't waste much time getting the photos we needed for Marie Curie.

The trip down I can explain later, but for now lets just say it was a number of shattered folk who arrived at the South Col at around 10am.

Now I'm back in Kathmandu sitting in the summit hotel waiting for a late lunch to arrive. The season is over for this year and it's been pretty up and down. Emotions have run high for many reasons. Not least for a number of friends who have died this season. I'm happy that its all over now and I'm very much looking fwd to coming home and getting ready for the alpine season (which starts very soon!!).