Written by Xavier Perrodon:

It is about 5pm the day before summit push and as Ben and I are about to start preparing dinner, Chris enters the tent to give us a heads up on what we’re about to attempt. For almost two weeks I have been unhappy with the very little information we get from him every day, and I am positively surprised to get for the first time a real operational briefing.

After 10-15mn Chris leaves the tent and we start getting ready for the “night”.
Bedtime at 6pm, alarm at midnight and expected departure at 1am.
With nervous anticipation we go to sleep and surprisingly manage to get a few hours of rest.

Midnight on Nov 10: the alarm rings and almost without a word we start getting dressed and packing our bags while trying not to get in each other’s way and staying away from the frost that now covers the walls of our tiny tent.

1am: Ben and I are almost ready but from what we can hear through the tent’s walls, not everybody is.
We get out of the tent and little by little the others do too. Chris is ready to go but the sherpas are still inside their tent and Glenn seems to have problems with his gear. Surprisingly, Chris, who shares his tent with Glenn, is not helping him at all although he is standing still less than a meter behind him.
I find this strange but decide we need to play this as a team and start helping Glenn with his crampons. Ben follows a few seconds after and although I am really at loss as to why our expedition leader is behaving so strangely, I have the feeling this helps strengthening our team spirit and bringing the rest of the team closer.

Glenn starts expressing his lack of confidence in his physical condition and his gear. I quickly wave away these second thoughts and seem to manage to convince him to stay with us.
In the meantime, a group has already left and I realize Ben is gone.
When I ask Chris where my rope buddy is (we were supposed to climb together to the summit) and what is going on, I get an irritated “I don’t know!”, which start making me feel a bit uncomfortable.
I decide to focus on what really matters (leaving camp 3, staying warm and going up) and a few minutes later am roped in with Purba and Glenn.
After about 30 mn, Glenn stops and turns back towards me and announces that he’s going to turn around and go back to camp 3. Many things are going wrong with his gear (which most of us are only testing in real conditions at that very moment) and he’s getting both cold and worried. I try to reason him but quickly understand that he’s made his decision and that he won’t change him mind at this point. One thing matters to me though: it is pitch black, cold and windy and I strongly advise him against going back alone. He seems exhausted and in these extreme conditions, one mistake and we’ll find his frozen body the next day on the way down.
We decide to call Chris and get his opinion. To my great surprise, Chris tells him to go back on his own and turns around to keep going up. Reluctantly I nod at Glenn and watch him unrope from us and disappear into the mountain’s cold night.
I am now alone with Purba and we start climbing again.
The conditions keep getting harder and harder and after another half hour, I start to lose my temper. My mittens are too big for the jumar and I have had to haul myself all this time with two fingers only and this is starting to hurt in spite of my frequent hand swaps.
I then decide to replace my warm and bulky summit mittens by more manageable mid-mountain gloves. Which works great with the jumar but not at keeping my hands warm.
I start getting angry at Chris because we didn’t get any advice on how to manage all this. I lose a lot of energy being irritated at him, at my gloves, at the lose fixed ropes and I am starting to wonder if this what I want and whether I find any pleasure in doing all this. Soon after, for some reason my headlight decides that it won’t stay in place on my forehead and starts slipping down. I can’t see anything any more and need to take off my gloves to fix it. This feels cold, really cold and I start realizing that things could get dangerous very quickly if not kept under tight control.

Meanwhile, Florence has caught up with us and is now right behind us. I let her take over. She’s almost crawling on the snow and I realize I am not the only having a hard time. In fact we are all having a difficult time, and becoming aware of it helps me to mute all the negative thoughts in my head.

In my struggle to keep my gear functional, I lose my balance (at this stage, we’ve moved up past the ice wall and are now climbing an endless 45 degree snow wall) and as I step back, do not see Purba who was walking right behind me and slit his knee with my crampons.
Because of the wind, feathers are now flying out of his down suit, and have no idea whether he’s injured or not.
He quickly ties a white Nepalese silk scarf around his knee and replies to my pressing questions “ok ok”, which, to me, could mean that he’s either uninjured or strong enough to continue in spite of the injury.
Needless to say that I am now really worried and that we should immediately go down if he’s injured.
He keeps telling me that he’s ok so I reluctantly continue climbing.
I try to accelerate the pace to catch up with Chris who’s only a few meters away from us further up.
After about 10 mn we reach him and I quickly explain what’s happened as well as my concerns regarding Purba’s actual state.
The noise of the wind is making our conversation difficult but he seems to have understood what I said.
And then he continues without showing any form of concern for his staff. I am speechless and do not move for at least 30 seconds, trying to find any meaning to what is currently going on and the potential consequences.
I now feel in real danger because I expect he would behave the same way if anything happened to me, and this starts to really scare me.
I decide to radio Ben and get his opinion.
After a few attempts he answers and gives me the words of encouragement I was in need of. “I understand, but you’re gonna be fine, just try a little more and see how it goes”. I can’t see him although I know he’s just a few hundred meters from me, but his words really help in this hostile environment.
I gather my courage and start climbing again.
10 mn later I must stop again. My body is starting to get cold, really cold. Not just the cold we all feel on our faces, fingers and toes. This time, it’s affecting my back, my stomach, and my whole body is shivering. I spent too much energy being angry and fighting against my gear and I am starting to feel like an empty shell, deprived of of any traces of energy.
We are at least 6 hours from the summit… and only 1.5 hour from camp 3…
After another few seconds of deep thinking then discussion with Purba, I decide I’m going to turn around.
We all climb for different reasons and luckily mine were crystal clear from the day I decided to join this expedition. I never intended to reach the summit at all costs, and have already beaten my altitude record of more than 1800m. I joined this expedition for the human experience, and my expectations have already been largely met.
So I turn around with no regrets and happy to have made a decision that will probably save my life.
Purba still mentions that if we turn around he may not get his summit bonus… which I retrospectively find unbelievable! So I tell him that he will still get one, no matter what (in such a dangerous environment, it felt smart to treat well the person who was looking after me).
90 minutes and a fall into a crevasse later, we are back at camp 3 (it is now 5:30 am) and I hastily crawl into my tent and into my sleeping back. In spite of its warmth, I will be shivering in it for the next 4 hours and it’ll take all the morning sunlight for my feet to get back to a decent temperature.
Around 9 am we decide to go back to base camp that very same day and to not wait for the others. Junga Sherpa also had to turn around about 30 mn after us because of toe frostbite and the sooner we go back down the sooner his toes will be taken care of.
As Purba, Glenn, Junga and I start walking down, we can observe tiny dark dots on the mountain’s back, getting closer and closer to the summit…
This is exciting and scary at the same time, since we know how cold it must still be for them (that face of Himlung himal doesn’t get any sunlight before at least 9am).
Luckily the radios still enable us to communicate with them, and we wish them good luck before heading down towards camp 2.
We won’t see them again before the next evening.