Mera Peak- Part II

Mera Peak 6476 meters/ 21,247′

Total Time: 11 days

Distance: 92.7 km/ 57.6 miles

Elevation Gain: 9510 meters/ 31,200′

Crux: F

Trailhead: Lukla, full services

Companions: Pasang Sherpa, Chhiri Sherpa, Blake Turner, Chhongba Sherpa

Continued from Mera Peak- Part I

Sleep isn’t the right word for my night at High Camp. At 5790 meters, nearly 19,000, it was the highest I had ever attempted to sleep and nearly the altitude equivalent of trying to spend a night at the summit of Kilimanjaro. Even at rest at high altitude, the thin air and spaced out oxygen molecules make breathing challenging. And it isn’t just the oxygen that’s less abundant, but carbon dioxide as well. Whenever we hyperventilate, our body rapidly breathes off carbon dioxide. When at altitude, the carbon dioxide levels are already low at baseline, and your brain is tricked into thinking it’s hyperventilating, even when you’re breathing normally. That isn’t a problem when you’re awake and have more direct control over your breathing pattern, but it becomes a bigger issue when you try to sleep. So as you try to fall asleep at altitude and your brain stem takes over fully, it senses the low carbon dioxide levels and thinks you’re hyperventilating. So what does it do to fix that? It make you stop breathing, or go apneic, to try and let the carbon dioxide levels rebuild. After a few seconds of no breathing, you’re brain figures out it really messed up and lets you breathe again, switching from no breathing at all to hyperventilation. If you’ve ever spent the night in a tent with someone at altitude you’ve probably noticed this cycle, your tentmate alternating between a few seconds of not breathing followed by hyperventilation. It’s called Cheyne- Stokes respirations, and it can be a little terrifying when you feel it happening, usually as you’re trying to sleep and your body tries to go on auto-pilot for the night. Some people are able to sleep right through it, and just wake up feeling a little tired. But I could feel myself stop breathing just as I was trying to fall asleep and my body was jolted awake in a hyperventilating panic. I had dealt with the breathing pattern a lot when I first started camping in the mountains, but it hadn’t been an issue for years. I also have never tried to sleep at 19,000’. Couple that with an occasional loud creak and pop of the glacier shifting overhead and Pasang’s snoring, and I really didn’t have a chance at any shut eye. I think exhaustion finally won shortly around 12:15 and I briefly dozed off, but I was up 45 minutes later to the sound of the camp cook moving pots to start making tea for the 2 AM wake up. Since I was so awake, I had figured out my step by step routine to get ready- down pants on while in the sleeping bag, then boot liners, remember to open the hot hands, etc. So when the cook unzipped the tent at 2 AM to hand me tea, I was ready for action. I was dressed and out of the tent in 10 minutes, and walked up to the mess tent for a breakfast of porridge and some hot water to fill my bottles with. The full moon was so bright off the glacier we hardly needed our headlamps in camp. All the teams were up and quietly getting ready- Tex and Chhongba outside their tents and the South Korean women eating breakfast near theirs. I was ready to go by 2:30, and Phuri approached me in the dark, headlamp off with a glowing cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth.

“Where is Pasang?” he asked.

I had gotten ready so quickly that Pasang was probably a bit rushed, and we waited a few more minutes for him to put on his crampons before the three of us left camp, the first team to leave that morning. We roped up before stepping onto the glacier and followed the boot track onto the main route up the ice. Leaving camp, my thermometer read -10C, but there was very little wind.

“No pictures before the summit. You can get frostbite in 60 seconds if you take your glove off.” Phuri said to me as we started up the route.

The warning seemed a bit overkill; I waited at the bus stop as a kid in colder weather without a hat or gloves (you know, to look cool). But my camera would have never picked up anything in the low light anyways, so I made no protest as we started up. The full moon on the white glacier was so bright that you really didn’t need your headlamp, and you could even see Everest and Makalu a few miles away to the north. The central summit was in sight from the start, for better or worse, and we headed up the steepening slope towards the rounded white hump high on the ridgeline. The most direct line to the summit had a good amount of crevasse and icefall danger, so the route hooks east to avoid the majority of the hazards. While the route did still have many crevasses, most were easily avoided or had well formed ice bridges with boot tracks across. The summit disappeared from sight as we climbed up the first steep stretch of snow for the morning and my pace noticeably slowed, taking 2-3 breaths for each step. When we reached the top of this first rise we took one of our few breaks for the morning, only for a few minutes so as to not lose too much heat. The two other groups had now also left camp and I could see their headlamps strung out along the glacier not far below. We pressed on, the grade a bit steeper than where we had started that morning. Especially in the low lighting with the uniformity of the glacier, the distance to the summit was difficult to gauge, and at the top of every small rise it looked just as far as it had before. I thought we were getting close but my GPS had us at 6100 meters, only about half way from high camp (although the highest I had ever been!). We climbed on, taking another short break below what seemed like the shorter east summit, which some trekkers choose to go to rather than the central summit with its’ more vertical finish. Looking back towards Everest, I could no longer see the conga line of headlamps from the two other groups, although I presumed they had probably just turned them off from the bright lighting by the moon. It was about 5:30 AM and a little under 3 hours from camp when we began to traverse below the eastern summit with the central summit of Mera Peak only a few hundred meters above, straight ahead. We reached the base of the central summit just as we started getting ambient pre-sunrise light.

“Can you just give me like 2 minutes?” I asked Phuri between breaths, and he nodded in agreement. The final 100 meters looked rough. I knew I could do it, it was just far steeper than anything we had climbed all trip. 

The two minutes were up fast, and he started up the left side of the summit ice, well formed steps kicked in by the hundreds of other climbers that had been up earlier in the season. It was probably the only time he kept the rope tight all day, and he belayed me up the final steps to the summit, a snow picket used for belays and rappels for the final pitch of steep ice. The summit was narrower than I expected and we walked up to the prayer flags buried in the ice at the high point to take in the incredible views. It was a few minutes after 6 AM just before sunrise, and there was a beautiful alpenglow on 5 of the 6 highest mountains in the world- Cho Oyo, Everest, Lhotse, Makalu and Kangchenjunga. Among these giants were dozens of other enormous 6000 and 7000 meter summits, including Ama Dablam and Baruntse. We first took a photo with the Annapurna Foothills Banner before I pulled out 150 prayer flags I had brought up to sling from the tip of an ice axe. Shockingly, there was virtually no wind, so the flags hung limp from the axe, not exactly the photo I was hoping for. But they would still make for good Christmas gifts.

We only stayed at the summit for about 15 minutes before heading down, the other teams still no where in sight. I was beginning to worry that they had turned back. Coming off the steep summit ice was actually easier than I had expected, and the sun was just starting to rise when we reached the base, a warm light shining across Mount Everest and the peaks to the north.

As we traversed beneath the northern slopes of the eastern summit Tex and Chhongba rounded the corner, the South Korean team following close behind.

“Dude, how are you feeling?” Tex asked as soon as we were in speaking distance.

“A little tired, why?” I responded.

“I’ve had cramps all morning. I don’t know what kind of deal we had with the South Korean team, but I had some of their kimchi for breakfast, and it is not sitting well.” To be honest, I had been craving South Korean food all trip seeing the two women eat the specially prepared Korean meals daily, with porters hauling their food the entire time. But I had to agree kimchi was not an ideal summit morning breakfast, and I was happy for my porridge topped off with a Cipro and loperamide the night before.

I wished him luck on the rest of the route and Pasang, Phuri and I continued down the glacier back towards high camp. Once we were past some of the larger crevasses we unroped, and Pasang and Phuri dropped ahead of me as I stopped to take photos every 100 meters or so. The descent faced Everest directly, and the morning light was changing across the huge mountains so rapidly, it was impossible to capture it all.

Despite the minimal sleep, I had actually been feeling great all the way to high camp, and we made it down around 8:30 AM, greeted by the cook with a cup of tea and bowl of soup. Once I got my plastic mountaineering boots off, I crawled into my tent to rest. The adrenaline of the day quickly wore off, and I felt too sluggish to do anything, let alone pack up my sleeping bag and clothing for the hike down into Khare. I laid in the tent with the door open staring out for about an hour completely exhausted before the caffeine of an energy powder kicked in enough to get me moving again.

We left high camp at 10 AM and roped back together to get through the final series of crevasses to work down to the blue ice above Mera La. The lower section of the glacier above Mera La was probably the lowest angle of the entire route, and I used it as an opportunity to take some more pictures and appreciate Everest for the last time of the trip.

We reached Mera La from high camp in under an hour. In the past 24 hours I had forgotten how sketchy this section was, and was certainly more dangerous descending. Although Phuri and I remained roped together, there was no chance of an arrest on the hard blue ice, and we would likely just pull the other down with us. Although I certainly didn’t trust the fixed rope, I had one hand loosely on it for the descent, although never needed to weight it at any point. We descended to find the solo Canadian climber I had met two days before gearing up at the base of the glacier, and I tried to give him some encouragement before Pasang, Phuri and I continued another hour back to Khare. Tex ran out of the Mountain View Lodge as we walked past.

“You leaving town already!?” he yelled.

“No we’re just getting down. I didn’t move from the tent for like two hours in high camp.” I replied.

“Oh, I didn’t even look for you, I just assumed you had already headed down.” he said, surprised that we had missed each other in the small camp.

We made plans to meet up before dinner and I continued on to Mera Refuge to change into my cleaner clothes and reorganize my two packs for the trek out. Aside from a family of three from France, the lodge was empty and I spread out in the main dining area organizing my gear and eating a late lunch. I walked up to meet Tex to help him finish his bottle of wine from the first night in Khare and play some cards before dinner. We sat in the cold dining area of the Mountain View Lodge, the owner refusing to light a fire for only one guest. When Tex asked, he said he would charge him 1000 rupees, twice the cost of a room for the night! So I of course felt guilty when I returned to the Mera Refuge for dinner to find the stove fired up in the dining area. My victory dinner post Mera summit was a ‘Chicken Sizzler,’ basically chicken breast served on a cast iron pan served with noodles and gravy. It wasn’t a burger and a beer, but it did the trick. I logged onto the WiFi to share the news with my wife and friends when Pasang came in to use the WiFi as well. I confirmed with him that I wouldn’t share any photos of him on the summit, since as my trekking guide, he technically wasn’t supposed to come along.

“Ah, yes sure.” he said.

Literally only a few minutes later, I received a Facebook notification that he had tagged me in a photo. Tapping it open, it was a shot of the two of us at the summit.

“You literally just said not to share photos of you at the summit so you don’t get in trouble, then immediately post one of you on top!? I’m sharing whatever photos I want now!” He just smiled and laughed. He was too proud of the summit to care, and it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. After letting the world know I was still alive, I headed to my room for some real sleep for the first time in two days.

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The day after summit day was set to be our last easy day of the trip. We were descending all the way back to Kote, essentially combining what had been two days of ascent into one day of descent. However, the route was entirely downhill and at a fairly modest grade, and wouldn’t take very long to cover the distance. With this in mind, we all slept in and didn’t leave town until after 9 AM. I was told that Tex had just left before us, but as we left Khare towards Thangnak, I could see no one on the trail ahead.

Pasang and I eventually caught up to the two South Korean women that had left much earlier as per usual, and we trekked with them for a bit until taking a break on some boulders in the moraine shortly above Thangnak. We were planning on stopping in Thangnak again for lunch, and after our short break we continued along to town, getting there before 11 AM. I had eaten breakfast only a few hours before and wasn’t that hungry, so I had a cup of tea and bowl of soup at a table outside, enjoying the morning sun and minimal wind. As I waited for soup, I spotted Chhongba and Tex hiking down the moraine into town.

“CHHONGBA!!!!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs across town.

“BLACKIE!!!!!” Pasang yelled at Tex. Tex had given up on fighting that nickname long ago.

They joined us at the Oxygen Lodge and we spent a good two hours taking a nice long lunch. I think the extra long lunch was due to Chhongba and Pasang flirting with two of the girls working in the back, although they wouldn’t admit it when I called them on it.

We left Thangnak for Kote hiking along the Hinku River with no real rush. We passed through the small town between Thangnak and Kote and the group (minus Tex) wanted to stop for another long break. I would normally be annoyed by these frequent stops, but I was content from my successful summit and was just enjoying sitting out in the mountains. Tex entertained himself with a pair of black horses that walked into town, although they were far more interested in looking for food in the various open sheds around town.

When it became clear the horses weren’t interested in making friends Tex grabbed his pack and started out, leaving the guides and porters scrambling for their packs to catch up. The valley narrowed as we neared Kote, the river running stronger lower in the valley. I stopped to take a photo on one of the log crossings over a side stream, and Chhongba nearly knocked everyone into the water to jump back into the picture.

We reached Kote at around 3 PM after a leisurely day, and again checked into the Sherpa Lodge where we had spent that night a few days earlier. There was a single European traveler checked in, and after changing out of our sweaty hiking clothes, we went to the dining area to relax. Now that we were on the descent, I could lift my self-imposed no beer policy and bought everyone on my team and Tex’s a round of beers. Since they needed to be carried in by porters, each beer cost more than the rooms! For dinner, I ordered a ‘yak steak,’ which was neither yak or a steak, but basically an overcooked ground meat patty (probably goat) covered in ketchup. It wasn’t exactly the meat fix I was hoping for. Our beers empty, we headed to our rooms for the night after an easy day of hiking.

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The second last day of the trip would be one of the more tedious ones. We had descended all the way to Kote at 3650 meters, and now needed to reascend the elevation lost to Zartwa Pass at 4610 meters. The climb up to the pass would be broken up partly by a night in Thuli Kharka before crossing the pass and dropping into Lukla the following day, but the bulk of the elevation gain would be out of Kote. We couldn’t leave too early since we needed to check out of the Makalu-Barun National Park Office which opened at 8. So we had our breakfast and were ready to go by around then. I finished packing my backpack and came downstairs to find an empty dining room and yelling from the kitchen. Pushing through the curtains into the dining room, I found a circle of dancing and singing, including Chhongba, Tex, the solo European traveler from the night before, and what seemed like half the village. I inched over to Pasang, who was taking a video of the spectacle from up against the wall.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Ah, it’s the baba’s birthday, the boss here.” I had met the ‘baba’ the night before….. he wasn’t even in the room!

“Come Chris, we must move our bodies,” Pasang said, grabbing me by the hand to join in on the dancing. And so it was.

The baba came in a few songs later and was greeted by thunderous applause and was quickly sucked into the dancing himself. He squirmed away after a few songs, but there was no way Chhongba would let the party stop this early. He ran around the room, pulling people back into the dancing. With the sounds of music, more locals came in, Chhongba’s cousin even showing up at one point.

“One. More. Song!” Chhongba yelled, and everyone cheered.

Ten songs later, including a very special appearance by Flo Rida, Chhongba and Tex were still working the small kitchen turned dance floor. But people finally began to peel off and I took this as my cue to slip away with Pasang to start the rough day of hiking. Tex and Chhongba emerged from the Lodge a few minutes later, and we all finished organizing our gear and set off downstream towards Thuli Kharka.

I had remembered a decent amount of useless up and downs along the river to start, but it felt even worse than I remembered, the trail often climbing 100 meters only to lose it all almost immediately. The guides and porters hung back a bit, and Tex and I hiked largely alone for this section, not taking a break until reaching the closed up wooden shack painted with Makalu-Barun National Park on the side. We took a decent break here to let our guides and porters catch up, eating the small snacks we were given for lunch, with the Mera View Lodge halfway between Kote and Thuli Kharka expected to be closed for the season on our return. Beyond the shack and park boundary, the trail was much more up than down, and we were soon gaining elevation quickly up the steep, steep trail. We again passed through small patches of bamboo forest, and the 6 of us closed in on the Mera View Lodge finding that it was actually still open. We had food with us, so we ordered some tea and enjoyed the view of Mera Peak that had been obscured by clouds on our hike in. It seemed that the weather pattern that brought daily afternoon clouds on our hike in had moved out, and we enjoyed another long break of sunshine. It was hard to get started again with the worst of the trail yet to come. I started out of the village a bit before everyone else feeling a bit slow after the break, and Chhiri quickly caught up to me despite the heavy pack. Nearing treeline, I stumbled upon the two Korean women and their guide who were taking a break, and decided to pause here as well with Chhiri to let the rest of our group catch up. Although the Korean women started back up before us, we quickly passed them heading up the steep slope through treeline, with the last views of Mera Peak over our shoulder.

I spotted prayer flags at a notch up above, and although it wouldn’t be the end of the uphill for the day, it would at least be an end of the steepest stuff. It was also more or less our last view of Mera Peak, and I said my final goodbyes before dropping over the notch. The group had again dropped back behind Tex and I, and the two of us hiked the undulating trail as it traversed south towards Thuli Kharka, tucked up a canyon and out of sight. We reached one final large notch with a cairn, and knowing I was close, kicked it into a higher gear to finish out the day strong. The trail wove through some boulders and dropped slightly before a short ~50 meter climb back up into town where I dropped my back in front of the lodge we had stayed at our second night of the trip.

Chhongba and Tex came into town about 10 minutes behind me, and Pasang and Chhiri rolled in while I was changing. With the climbing season coming to an end, there were no climbers on their way in and we had the place to ourselves, settling into the dining room with some more cards and another round of beers. After a dinner of fried potatoes and yak cheese, we all settled in to bed for the last day of hiking for the trip.

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I woke up pretty excited for Lukla. It would be the first new place for me since the summit since I really hadn’t spent any time there the morning I landed. I was also on day 11 of no shower, the longest I had ever gone, and the thought of a warm shower and western toilet was more than enough to get me excited to start the day. All three groups left Thuli Kharka at about the same time, no spontaneous birthday dance parties to hold us up on our final day. We only had about 300 meters of ascent to reach the pass, but I quickly realized the yak cheese omelet was probably a poor choice to start the day, sitting like a brick as we climbed the steep trail above town.

The trail here was somewhat poorly defined with braided use trails following the shallow rib to a large cairn high above. We reached the pass in about an hour from town and were greeted to the familiar panorama of mountains above Lukla. I knew we still had to get up and over the false pass with prayer flags to truly be done with the uphill, so we briefly stopped for a few photos before Tex and I continued on to the second notch.

It only took about 15 minutes to reach the second notch, and Tex dropped his pack. I was expecting a short break, but he immediately started scrambling up a narrow rib of rock.

“I meant to do this on the way up!” he yelled back to me, and was soon up and over a small rocky bump and out of sight.

To be honest, I had been eyeing that scramble on the way in, and with Chhongba and Pasang still a ways behind us, I scrambled up to join him. The views weren’t really any different, but it was a fun little side trip and scramble, particularly considering the trip hadn’t involved really any rock scrambling over the past 2 weeks.

Pasang and Chhongba reached the notch just as we were scrambling back down and after a short actual break, we all left together. It was basically all downhill to Lukla, and descending steep rock and trail quickly is one of my strengths. I half jogged and trotted down the trail, quickly reaching the tiny town at 4000 meters finding it completely boarded up for the season.  This was a good spot to let everyone catch up, and I leaned against a stone wall waiting for the others. No sooner had they shown up and I was off again, Chhiri being given the task of keeping up with me to make sure I didn’t blow past our lunch spot in Chutang where we spent the first night of the trip. But I certainly wanted a lunch and the two of us quickly descended another 500 meters to the small town.

The rest of the group rolled into town about 10 minutes behind me, and I ordered a small mushroom pizza and a coke while Tex had his usual Dal Bhat. Lukla was almost in view, and we could hear the planes landing as they threw on their brakes as we ate. I tried to be patient after finishing up my meal but this close to the end of an 11 day journey, it was difficult not to get antsy. Tex was feeling the same way and we started down to Lukla shortly after we finished eating. Chhiri again was given the unfortunate task of keeping up with me, and as I passed Tex and his porter Tsering, I yelled “See you at the bar!” over my shoulder.

“Go to the Irish Pub!” he yelled behind me, and was quickly out of sight among the trees.

Although we reached houses on the outskirts of Lukla in less than an hour from Chutang, the final stretch into Lukla was a good deal longer than I remembered. I could see the planes flying in low for a landing, yet we seemed to always having one more small stream or gully to cross.

I slowed down when we formally reached town just above the airport and gave Chhiri a high five, a weak consolation for him having to hike so quickly to finish. But we weren’t done yet, and Chhiri quickly led me through town to the K2 Lodge where I had breakfast the first morning of the trip. He took my bags up to the room and I was a bit disappointed when I realized it would be another night without a shower or Western toilet, the K2 Lodge basically another tea house. But 11 days in, what’s one more? I changed out of my dirty hiking clothes for the last time and met Pasang in the dining area. I told him I was going to walk the town and maybe grab and drink, and after agreeing on a dinner time, I headed north through Lukla. I quickly found the Irish Pub, ironically right next to a Scottish Pub, and walked north passing several more shops and entering a residential region at the edge of town. There was a checkpoint at the north end of town to enter Sagarmatha National Park and since my permit had been for Makalu-Barun National Park, I turned around here and headed back to the Irish Pub.

Tex hadn’t arrived yet but I used their WiFi to catch up on hundreds of emails and drink a Himalayan Red from Sherpa Brewing. I was on my second beer when Tex showed up, then was informed that it was actually buy two get one free, meaning 3 tall boys before dinner at altitude. By the time 6 PM rolled around, I was definitely feeling buzzed.

“I think you’re supposed to head over to my lodge. I think Pasang said something about them doing a group program for both of us?” I said to Tex before leaving the pub.

“That’s news to me. I’ll check with Chhongba.”

He did not check with Chhongba, since Chhongba showed up to my lodge after dinner and he did not. I bought my team and Tex’s (minus the absent Tex) a round of beers, then was presented with a celebratory cake.

“Mera Peak Summit 2018, Chris and Blackie” Pasang read to me from the cake.

What it actually said was “Mera Peak Summit 2018, Christ and Blake.” It was the first time I realized for the entire trip that they called him ‘Blackie’ because that’s how they thought Blake was pronounced. I had called him Tex almost exclusively and basically forgot that was his real name. I laughed for about 5 minutes straight.

The cake called for another round of beers. Pasang rolled the can over in his hands, looking for the ABV%.

“Ah, 5%. And we had two, so 5% and 5% is 10%. Probably no more then,” he said to me, rather serious for a 21 year old.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that 1.) That’s not how ABV works and 2.) His math would put me at 25% for the night! With the cake and beer gone, Chhongba and Tsering headed back to their hotel and I made one last phone call before heading to bed for what would surely be a bad hangover on the flight out of Lukla and back to Kathmandu to cap off my successful trip on Mera Peak.