The Day I summited Friendship Peak (5289 mtrs)
7th Oct'20: We woke up at around 1.30 in the night. It was freezing cold outside. We had prepared our bags before sleeping and had kept all the other gears needed handy itself so that we do not waste time. Juzar quickly prepared some black coffee for us and we packed some dry ration and were ready to leave. We left ladyleg campsite at exact 2:35 in the night. At the start, we did not feel much cold and we were climbing at a decent pace. As soon as we took a break to catch up with our breath, we felt cold. I particularly remember that at one such break after a couple of hours of climbing, Bhupendra took out some peanut butter sandwiches to eat and we just could not chew them as it was very very hard that it would not even break and we had to put some water on it so that it would get a bit chewable. Slowly and steadily we were moving and at around 5 in the morning, things started to go wrong. We had crossed the shoulder of the mountain and there was a thin layer of the ice sheet on which we were walking. And all three of us ie I, Juzar @juzar_lehry, and Bhupendra @awara_traveler were walking in our trekking boots. We thought that we are yet to enter the glacier and snow so till then, we'll walk in our trekking boots themselves. And then suddenly while walking, I slipped and fell breaking that thin layer of the ice sheet that we were walking on and boom my right leg was inside a hidden crevasse luckily only half feet but the water beneath that was rigorously crashing against my leg and my leg was literally numb as the cold water was crashing against it again and again. I tried a lot but just could not get my leg out of it and then Juzar who was behind me came to me rushing and helped me remove my leg out of it. For some time, I was just speechless and fu***d up. I quickly changed into another pair of socks and wore my snowshoes as my trekking boots were all wet. Just to change my shoes then took me almost half an hour. But as there are two layers in snowshoes, my leg got enough warmth and I was back to normal within an hour. But then we were yet to enter the glacier and walking or rather climbing slopes of almost 60° with snowshoes was very difficult plus there were loose rocks all around. I was a bit slow due to this but we kept on climbing.
Just 20-25 minutes post we started to walk (after me changing shoes) Juzar slipped from a rock and hurt himself badly on his knee. It was quite painful for him as he wasn't able to walk as fast as he was walking earlier. And at that time Bhupendra my third partner showed me that one of his fingers had started to turn a bit blue from the tip. It was very mild but he had started to develop mild hypothermia. And when all of this happened we were climbing a lot slower and had just reached the start point of the glacier. And it was 8 AM by then. I was all okay, my leg was okay but the other two were not 100% fit. And we had lost a lot of crucial time by then. The snow had started to melt and we felt that to start climbing the glacier when the snow is melting is just a foolish idea as the conditions would not be favorable and also we did not want to risk ourselves as the other two were not completely fit and hence just 2-3 hours from the summit, we had to turn around and return back. We did not hesitate a bit to turn around as safety was our first priority and summitting the mountain was second. Even though I was fully fit at that time, I did not feel that I should continue ahead alone. We came in as a team and we would go back as a team. Also one of my partners had injured his leg and the other one had mild symptoms of hypothermia so me being with them was more important. I wasn't sad or dejected at all. We returned back to our campsite by 2 in the noon. It was almost a 12 hour trip till then. We did finish our sleep and also did not have proper food. Yes, we were a lot exhausted. And I decided that after resting for a day, I'll recover myself completely and then will again go for the summit push on 8th Night i.e. 9th Oct; But destiny had some other plans for me....
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