Once again a short night : due to bad sleep and 3:45 (!) wake up. The idea was to wake up at around 4:00 and start the summit attempt at 5:00/5:30. At the moment we started it was still pitch dark and very cold. Winds were gutsing against our tent. As I was expecting this little bit, I had visited the modified The North Face V25 tent (a.k.a. The Toilet Tent) the evening before, instead of early this morning.
We got on our different layers (it must have been 4 layers on the upper body) and packed only the most important things (being 2,5 liter of water/thee & gel’s amongst other things)
A line of light started ascending. The picture was pretty surreal. We started walking and kept walking (as we had a 1000 altitude meter climb before us) The first reality check came at Plaza de Independencia, were one felt the shortage of oxygen in the air and also the effort it takes to climb. We had something to drink and I took a gel.
At that point a discussion started concerning our state(s). Jan and Linda decided (wisely) – together with the guides – to discontinue. After this the rest of the group continued. Pace was slowing down and I guess everybody was having their hard time continuing. At around this time we needed to put on our crampons the first time (good test to check mental health/how much time it would take to test speed/technical skills at this altitude) I managed to get them on pretty swift. For now everything felt good/right.
Later at “the cave” Jurjen fell back, I actually was so busy/concerned with my state & keep on pushing, that I didn’t realize, until I asked Jelle and he told me Jurjen was having a hard time keeping up with the pace/continuing. At the end he fell back too much & he had to abort the summit attempt. So with three persons less we continued the climb.
We kept on going, and what made it heavy for me in particular was looking up and seeing the steep pitches still ahead (this went on just until the summit) By now I was really in the mode of calculation. As climbing a mountain is not the same as running a marathon/doing a triathlon. You cannot give all you have/effort to reach the summit, you have to keep 35% tot 25% of energy left for safely coming down. I knew (due to lesser acclimatization and not taking Diamox) that I was reaching this threshold.
At 14:33 I reached as one of the first (together with Gert-Jan) the summit. I was really happy! We waited for the others and took some pictures. Pretty fast, I realized that it would take me amounts of efforts and concentration to go back c.q. I went into serious mode (especially with the steep descends ahead) As the guides told us to prepare for the descent, I told them & Jelle that I knew that I had to take good care in descending (I knew I was less secure in my steps – but at that moment I wasn’t sure why, calculations and solving logical questions worked out/was fine, that was comforting for me)
On purpose I stayed in the back of the group and I had arranged with the guide Giorgio to keep an eye on me. Descending the first meters was so-so and at the first rest Hernan gave me one of his gels. From that point on it went better and better. It seems thus – on hindsight – that I was low on energy at the start of the descent. From that point on I ate and drank as much as I could on the descent (haha, reminds me of the lessons learned during the Ironmans: eat & drink all you can, if possible:)
Somewhere at around 19:00 as one of the firsts we arrived back at Camp 3. It was a beautiful sight, the whole camp was cheering and yelling. We sat together in the guide’s tent and ate some good pasta. About thirty minutes later I found my way to my tent and layed down. It must have taken 5 minutes to be knocked off the world and be in very deep sleep, end of a hard but successful journey (having reached my goal to feel what it takes to climb at around 7000 meters of altitude and maybe opening the way to 8000 meters+)