Everest Base Camp - Day 12 - Kalapatthar and Pherice (5,647m)

HARDEST DAY EVER! Reaching the summit of Kallapattar was a challenge. It was so cold, extremely cold in fact. Cold to the point where I thought I was going to die. I did it though. I made it to the top! But I was a mess. After a 4.30am start we were up and ready to conquer what looked like a giant mound of rocks rather than a mountain. Yesterday there was talk that it would be easy. I was ready to take it on, after all its just walking, how hard could it be? After about 45mins of walking we soon realised that this ‘mound of rocks’ was a lot bigger than it first appeared. In fact what we saw from the bottom as ‘the top’ was only half way up.

At about ¾ of the way up I had my first meltdown. I lost all sensation in my hands and couldn’t get my fingers out of my gloves to try and warm them on my palms. There was also the added problem that I had 2 poles attached to my wrists. The poles were useless as the ground was just massive icy boulders, so they did nothing to help. I had resorted to dragging them along the ground when I realised I couldn’t move my hands. I started to panic. Luckily one of the guys from our group came to save me. He took the redundant poles off me, sorted my gloves out and sent me back on my way to the top. He came and left like some kind of mountain superman.

The top of the mountain was still miles away and the altitude was making each step difficult. About 10m from the top I thought I was going to pass out. I couldn’t breathe and I was painfully cold, but with sheer determination I made it. My thought was that if I was going to pass out, I might as well pass out at the top. The reward was the magnificent view of Everest with the sun beginning to rise. I enjoyed this for the whole of 3 minutes while I tried not to break down, thankfully I was too exhausted and frozen to produce tears. I started to feel frighteningly cold at the top. I had lost my hands a while ago but my feet and face were now also gone, mixed with the lack of oxygen I thought my body was going into shut down. I had to get of this mountain.

As I started to make my way down my feet felt like blocks of ice and I was falling all over the place. I actually thought that I may have to crawl down. Thankfully one of the Sherpers saw me struggling and came to my rescue. ‘Are you ok Leenee?’ he asked. ‘I just want to be down’ I replied, to which he grabbed my hand and literally dragged me down the mountain. Once the sun came over the mountains I began to regain feeling in my hands and feet, the pins and needles which ran through my body were excruciatingly painful, but once I realised I hadn’t lost any limbs I stopped walking. ‘What’s wrong?’ asked the Sherper, ‘I’m just so happy’, I replied. I knew it was almost over and I had survived.

Himalayan peak conquered, we then began our decent back down. It was a long day of walking but I was still on a high from making it to the top of Kallapattar, even if I was a mess the entire way.