1 year of planning, intense training, triathlon, gym, weight training with my trainer Derek, to be in best possible shape, a charity for raising money for Nepal, great support from friends and family, almost 3 weeks on the mountain and the day has finally arrived.

You know the feeling when you have been longing for something, for an event or special moment that is supposed to happen on a certain date, and when the date finally appears you feel amazed that it’s already here. That’s how I feel today.

I am seating with Xavier in the tent, right next to us to our left are Glenn and Chris, our tents are roped in together, a little further to our right is Florence’s tent. We are all quiet, napping or resting with our own thoughts, our own objectives stirring our brains up.

Originally my objective was to summit with my friends and celebrate on top of the mountain. This has changed over the past 3 weeks and my objective is now to give my best. I was challenged by Chris’ vision of mountain climbing. He told us that we could celebrate if we got to camp 3, is hard enough to survive at 6200m, breathe, eat and function properly and keep a sane mind. So if we got here, we could be proud and happy of ourselves. Leaving camp 3 for the attempt would be another success and summit should remain a ‘bonus’ but not the ultimate goal. We are too insignificant compared to the mountain, the weather, the cold and all the other possible outcomes to focus only on summit. Summit should not become an obsession but a reward and a quiet, calm, intense and deep pleasure. A pleasure granted by nature and not within our human control.

Xavier is napping when Chris enters our tent. It’s summit briefing time. Our ears are wide open, we do not want to miss one word from Chris, every detail will play a role in the success of the final push.

Chris confirms that Xavier and I will climb together as a team with Purba Sherpa and Junga (aspiring Sherpa aka base camp manager). We will wake up at midnight, get ready and leave at 1am sharp all geared up for the climb. The 4 of us will be on 1 rope. Chris warns us to expect the worse, toughest day of or lives, push beyond our limits and fight our thoughts of failure, we will be zombies climbing up the mountain, the temperature will be extremely cold and we can expect around -30 celcius. We listen quietly and do not utter a word.

The gear recommended:
Bottom: long underwear, primaloft pants, goretex climbing pants on top
Top: merino tshirt, fleece, heavy duty climbin down jacket
Hands: silk liner gloves, heavy duty summit mittens, poles and 1 ice axe
Feet: smartwool unused socks, possibly feet warmer activated prior to putting on boots, heavy duty climbing boots (La Sportiva 8000 for Xav, Millet Everest for me)

We comment on the gear and after a few questions Xav and I look at each other with puzzlement, the time has come for the final push.

Meanwhile, Purba and Lakpa Sherpa are on the mountain at 7000m by now, fixing the ropes that we will hook onto with our jumars and slowly pull ourselves up the north face of Himlung.

Schedule of the afternoon:
2-4pm: rest
4-5pm: pack our summit bags (emergency blanket, spare gloves, radio, food, water)
5-6pm: boil water, eat something
6pm: must get in sleeping bags and sleep
12am: wake up, get dressed

We follow the plan and are in bed by 6pm. Sleeping bag is filled with all the summit gear to keep it warm until
Midnight: inner boots, socks, hat, neck warmer, pants, mittens make for an uncomfortable sleep but it’s necessary to fight the cold later tonight.

We drift into semi-sleep, in the back of my mind I know that 6 hours from now I will have to wake up and find the ultimate motivation to get going in freezing temperature and darkness. I drift and fall asleep.