Lobuche East 6189m

The climb began long before I stepped into the harness. It began with everything I carried inside me. Fear. The weight of old failures. The quiet hope that a mountain might strip something away and leave me lighter.

At high camp I pretended to sleep for a few hours, nerves rattling beneath the thin fabric of my tent. I softened them with a slow yoga nidra session, trying to steady my breath. At 0100hrs, Lakhpa shook the tent and told me it was time. We gathered for porridge with a couple of other climbers. The atmosphere was a strange mix of jokes and bravado, the brittle confidence of men pretending not to be afraid. The Sherpas were calm. Another day at work for them. Their ease was a balm.

Two other pairs were joining us. A lean Frenchman with a tall middle aged Sherpa who looked like a Nepalese Bob Marley. A young Lithuanian with a rare female Sherpa, sharp eyed and quiet. Lakhpa teased that she was looking for a husband, trying to play mountain matchmaker. We laughed, but beneath his humour I saw concern. The other guides were inexperienced or stoned. He insisted we climb as a single group, with him taking the lead. A natural leader. I trusted him instantly.

The Frenchman did not have a proper jacket, so I gave him mine. Mima had lent me her husband’s down coat and I could spare the warmth. We tightened harnesses, checked ropes, downed the last of the porridge and stepped out into the night.

Darkness swallowed us whole. Only our headlamps cut through the void, illuminating a few feet of icy rock. The rental boots felt like rigid ski boots, squeezing the blood from my toes. Within minutes the incline stripped me of my layers and I climbed in my baselayer, sweat freezing on my back. The air thinned with each step, dragging at my lungs. Ahead of me, Lakhpa moved with unsettling ease, as if the mountain belonged to him.

One step after the other. Do not think about the summit. Do not slip. Do not die.

The first hour tore into me. Muscles not warmed, mind flickering with doubt. Why am I doing this. What is the point. It was pitch black. I willed the sun to rise. I thought of the Gurkha I had met days earlier who had turned back a hundred meters from the top. Would I.

After two hours of slow methodical climbing we reached the halfway point. My feet screamed, my lungs were close to bursting, and my mind hovered at the edge of panic. Only Lakhpa’s steady pace anchored me. Kale, kale. Slowly, slowly. The mantra carried me.

We reached a small alcove by a frozen lake and strapped on crampons and harnesses. The path narrowed and the air turned colder. Nerves sharpened alongside our focus. There was no room for error now. Lakhpa moved up and down the line like a platoon sergeant, checking gear, correcting mistakes, keeping the fragile line of foreign climbers alive.

The rocks gave way to ice. Temperature plummeted. We must have been near 5800 meters. Too cold to check my phone. Too exposed to think about anything beyond the next step. Darkness numbed the vertigo, though imagination filled the abyss below with its own horrors. A brutal headache slammed into me. Just listen to Lakhpa. Hold the rope. Trust your feet.

The sky lightened as we approached the technical section. A giant wall of vertical ice shards two hundred meters tall. We roped in and fixed our jumars. The real climb began.

I hauled myself between ice towers, each pull like a weighted chin up with a mask over my face. Arms burning. Lungs screaming. After every heave I clipped into a chunk of ice to gasp for air. What the fuck am I doing here. How in the fuck am I getting down.

As the sun crept over the ridges, the whole valley revealed itself. Everest. Ama Dablam. Countless seven thousand meter giants. Silent gods watching our attempts to claw our way upward. I focused on the next rope change and nothing else. Lakhpa darted through the ice with supernatural agility, checking lines, urging us on. Sherpas are astonishing. Guides, guardians, priests of the high places. I thanked the gods he was with me.

Hanging between the ice shards, I looked up and saw the ridge line at last. Behind it Everest towered above everything, a giant among giants. It seemed impossible and yet it was in reach. Lakhpa waited for me, grinning, excitement contagious even at that altitude. I forced a smile and pushed on. I did not look down. My head felt like it was cracking open. And then we were there.

The summit. Six thousand one hundred and eighty nine meters.

But the summit was not a victory. It was fear and exhaustion wrapped tight around my ribs. No triumph. No sense of achievement. Only the cold realisation that I still had to get down. Pride mixed with dread. The job was not done. There was no space for the past up here. Fuck the past. Fuck Kate. Fuck the army. Fuck the failures. None of it mattered now. Survival did. I trusted Lakhpa entirely. We hugged briefly and began the descent.

Looking down, I saw everything we had climbed and everything waiting to punish a single mistake. The true point of a climb is not reaching the top. It is getting down alive. We used the same ropes to abseil. One slip meant being impaled on the ice. Fear surged through me, tightening everything. Fear is a toxic mistress. She lives in all of us. She has her place. But now she needed to fuck off. Trust the rope. Trust Lakhpa. I turned my back to the wall and began to descend.

The ice lake came into view. At one point Lakhpa looked up and saw the Lithuanian and the young Sherpa struggling. He tapped my shoulder. You go down, kale kale. One mistake they die. I must help. He ran up the ice wall to reach them. I was alone now.

My confidence grew. I let more rope slide through my hand. Pride punished me. My foot snagged on an ice shard and suddenly I was upside down, my head inches from a spike. Shame burned through me. A flashback slammed into my chest. A night parachute jump years earlier. My chute tangled in a soldier’s lines. Falling fast toward Salisbury Plain in the dark. Panic. No reserve this time. Deep breath. Drills. Fix the fuck up. I righted myself and continued.

We reached the lake and tore off our crampons with relief. The sun warmed the air and our spirits. We skipped down the remainder of the mountain, legs burning, minds floating between joy and smugness. New climbers asked questions at camp. Just trust your guide. You will be fine.

Lakhpa caught up with me and slapped my back. You a strong man. I almost broke. His praise hit deeper than altitude ever could. I ate. I rested. Sleep would not come. The adrenaline refused to leave my body, so I lay still and let the exhaustion move through me like a tide.

We had climbed the mountain in less than six hours. Lakhpa seemed content. He gathered his pack and told me it was time to descend to Periche. My legs felt heavy as we dropped into the valley. The adrenaline wore off and something quieter took its place.

For the first time all day we talked. He told me he had been a Buddhist monk before becoming a guide. That he had a wife and a nine year old son in Kathmandu. He asked why I was not married. Good question. I did not tell him how ego and selfishness had ruined every relationship I had tried to build. Shame sat between us like a shadow we did not name.

He taught me a few words of Tibetan as we walked. My steps grew slower, heavier, as the fatigue finally caught up. We arrived in Periche at sunset, at Mima’s cousin’s teahouse. We drank warm tea and ate momos. We embraced before parting ways. He headed back up the mountain. I crawled into bed, emptied of everything except the quiet truth of what the climb had shown me